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CIA influence on presidential elections bulletin, 2016

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[Dec 31, 2016] Like Iraq WMD Fiasco, Russia Story Does Not Add Up

If such attempts were really registered, the question is were those attempts to hack US sites from Russian IP space a false flag operation, probably with participation of Ukrainian secret services? '
As one commenter noted: "The Ukrainian government have been trying to drive a wedge between the West and Russia for years for their own political advantage."
If so what is the agenda outside obvious attempt to poison Us-Russian relations just before Trump assumes presidency. Neocon in Washington are really afraid losing this plush positions. And there is the whole colony of such "national security professionals" in Washington DC. For example Robert Kagan can't do anything useful outside his favorite Russophobic agenda and would be an unemployed along with his wife, who brought us Ukrainian disaster.
Notable quotes:
"... President Obama issued a terse statement seeming to blame Russia for the hack of the Democratic National Committee emails. "These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government," he wrote. ..."
"... The problem with this story is that, like the Iraq-WMD mess, it takes place in the middle of a highly politicized environment during which the motives of all the relevant actors are suspect. Nothing quite adds up. ..."
"... Now we have this sanctions story, which presents a new conundrum. It appears that a large segment of the press is biting hard on the core allegations of electoral interference emanating from the Obama administration. ..."
"... Did the Russians do it? Very possibly, in which case it should be reported to the max. But the press right now is flying blind. ..."
"... Maybe the Russians did hack the DNC, but the WikiLeaks material actually came from someone else? There is even a published report to that effect, with a former British ambassador as a source, not that it's any more believable than anything else here. ..."
"... We ought to have learned from the Judith Miller episode. Not only do governments lie, they won't hesitate to burn news agencies. In a desperate moment, they'll use any sucker they can find to get a point across. ..."
"... The Joint Analysis Report from the FBI contains an appendix that lists hundreds of IP addresses that were supposedly "used by Russian civilian and military intelligence services." While some of those IP addresses are from Russia, the majority are from all over the world, which means that the hackers constantly faked their location. ..."
"... "If I was the Chinese and I wanted to make it look like the Russians did it, I would use Russian language within the code, I would use Russian techniques of breaking into the organization," McAfee said, adding that, in the end, "there simply is no way to assign a source for any attack." ..."
"... I have a problem understanding why the powers that be can't understand the widening gap between their on podium statements and the average persons view. Are they hoping to brainwash, or really believe it, or just leaving a video record for posterity that might sway historical interpretation of the current time? ..."
"... A little OT, but how many people realize that Israel (less than half the population of the former Palestine) has taken complete control of ALL water and has decreed that 3% of that water may be directed to the Palestinians! ..."
"... It's been said that on average Americans are like mushrooms – "Keep 'em in the dark and feed 'em shit!" ..."
"... And THAT, from what I've read in OPEN literature (obviously) about what is known by our cyber threat intel community, read on tech sites, and seen on the outstanding documentary program CyberWar about the Eastern European hacking community, is a OUTRIGHT BLATANT LIE. ..."
"... NOTE that he may actually believe that because that is what he may have been TOLD, just as Bush was told there were WMDs in Iraq, but as I've pointed out, the clumsy errors allowing the malware to be so very EASILY traced back to "supposedly" Russia are beyond belief for any state-sponsored outfit, especially a Russian effort. ..."
"... Note that the user info for TWO BILLION Yahoo email accounts was stolen and they left no traces which then led the FBI to conclude that it must have been "state sponsored." ..."
"... We are left with two basic options. Either they are simply stupid or their is a larger agenda at hand. I don't believe they are stupid. They have been setting fires all around this election for months, none of them effective by themselves, but ALL reinforcing the general notion that Trump is unfit and illegitimate. ..."
"... I do not believe this is just random panic and hyperbole. They are "building" something. ..."
"... This is what is must have been like being a Soviet Citizen in 1989 or so. The official media was openly laughed at because its lies were so preposterous. ..."
"... Sadly, the JAR, as the Joint Analysis Report is called, does little to end the debate. Instead of providing smoking guns that the Russian government was behind specific hacks, it largely restates previous private-sector claims without providing any support for their validity. Even worse, it provides an effective bait and switch by promising newly declassified intelligence into Russian hackers' "tradecraft and techniques" and instead delivering generic methods carried out by just about all state-sponsored hacking groups." ..."
"... WORSE than "delivering generic methods carried out by just about all state-sponsored hacking groups." It should have said "by just about anyone using 'in the wild' malware tools." ..."
"... The Russians probably have a lot of information about USG employees, contractors, etc, via hacking, recording, etc than Wikileaks. But, as a general rule, intelligence agencies do not dump it into the public domain because you don't want a potential adversary know what you know about him lest he investigate and close off the means of obtaining that information. The leaks came from elsewhere. ..."
"... Smells like a "false flag" operation, like the USA/NATO Operation Gladio in Europe. ..."
"... McCain and the War Hawks have had it out for Russia for a long time, and the Neo-cons have been closing in on the borders of Russia for some time. What will be interesting is when Trump meets with the CIA/NSA et al. for intel briefings on the alleged hacking. Hopefully, Trump will bring along VP Pence, Mad Dog and the other Marine generals (appointees) for advice. I suspect that the "false flag" nature of the hacking excuse will be evident and revealed as the pretext for the Neo-con anti-Russia agenda moving forward. ..."
"... McCain is the real thug, and an interferer in foreign elections (Kiev) and seems to have no real scruples. ..."
"... After Victoria Nuland brags about the USA spending $5 billion to overthrow the elected Ukraine government, how these Russia-phobes have any credibility is beyond me. Just shows that the consolidation of the media into a few main propaganda outlets under Bill Clinton (who also brought the Neo-cons into foreign policy dominance) has reached its logical apex. The Swamp is indeed a stinking, Corrupt miasma. ..."
"... Russia a country of 170 million surrounded by NATO military bases and 800 million people in the EU and USA is the threat? The US alone spends 12 times as much on its military annually than Russia. It's not Russia invading and overthrowing secular governments in the Muslim world. ..."
"... If I remember correctly the CIA claimed their intelligence sources came from unspecified 'allies'. It seems rather crucial to establish who these allies actually are. If it were Germany that would be one thing, however it is more than likely to be the Ukraine. ..."
"... So if Obama had actually produced evidence that the Russians had hacked Hilary's illegal, unprotected email setup in her Chapaqua basement/closet how would that change the ***content*** of the emails? It wouldn't. ..."
"... Obama is failing to convince the world that Russia is a bunch of whistle blowers on his corrupt regime. All of the emails detailing corruption and fraud are true (unchallenged), however Obama wants to suggest they were obtained illegally from an illegal email server? That is Obama's bullshit defense for the corrupt behavior? ..."
Dec 30, 2016 | mishtalk.com

Yesterday, President Obama expelled 35 Russian "Operatives" from the Russian Embassy .

Is there any evidence those expelled are "intelligence operatives"? Any hard evidence Russia was behind the Hillary hacks? Any credible evidence that Putin himself is to blame?

The answers are No, No, and No. Yet, once again the American press is again asked to co-sign a dubious intelligence assessment.

... ... ....

Something Stinks

The Rolling Stone comments Something About This Russia Story Stinks

In an extraordinary development Thursday, the Obama administration announced a series of sanctions against Russia. Thirty-five Russian nationals will be expelled from the country. President Obama issued a terse statement seeming to blame Russia for the hack of the Democratic National Committee emails. "These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government," he wrote.

The problem with this story is that, like the Iraq-WMD mess, it takes place in the middle of a highly politicized environment during which the motives of all the relevant actors are suspect. Nothing quite adds up.

If the American security agencies had smoking-gun evidence that the Russians had an organized campaign to derail the U.S. presidential election and deliver the White House to Trump, then expelling a few dozen diplomats after the election seems like an oddly weak and ill-timed response. Voices in both parties are saying this now.

Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham noted the "small price" Russia paid for its "brazen attack." The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, said Thursday that taken alone, the Obama response is " insufficient " as a response to "attacks on the United States by a foreign power."

The "small price" is an eyebrow-raiser.

Adding to the problem is that in the last months of the campaign, and also in the time since the election, we've seen an epidemic of factually loose, clearly politically motivated reporting about Russia. Democrat-leaning pundits have been unnervingly quick to use phrases like "Russia hacked the election."

This has led to widespread confusion among news audiences over whether the Russians hacked the DNC emails (a story that has at least been backed by some evidence, even if it hasn't always been great evidence ), or whether Russians hacked vote tallies in critical states (a far more outlandish tale backed by no credible evidence ).

As noted in The Intercept and other outlets, an Economist/YouGov poll conducted this month shows that 50 percent of all Clinton voters believe the Russians hacked vote tallies.

And reports by some Democrat-friendly reporters – like Kurt Eichenwald, who has birthed some real head-scratchers this year, including what he admitted was a baseless claim that Trump spent time in an institution in 1990 – have attempted to argue that Trump surrogates may have been liaising with the Russians because they either visited Russia or appeared on the RT network. Similar reporting about Russian scheming has been based entirely on unnamed security sources.

Now we have this sanctions story, which presents a new conundrum. It appears that a large segment of the press is biting hard on the core allegations of electoral interference emanating from the Obama administration.

Did the Russians do it? Very possibly, in which case it should be reported to the max. But the press right now is flying blind.

Maybe the Russians did hack the DNC, but the WikiLeaks material actually came from someone else? There is even a published report to that effect, with a former British ambassador as a source, not that it's any more believable than anything else here.

We just don't know, which is the problem.

We ought to have learned from the Judith Miller episode. Not only do governments lie, they won't hesitate to burn news agencies. In a desperate moment, they'll use any sucker they can find to get a point across.

Where the Hell is the Evidence?

'I Can Guarantee You, It Was Not the Russians'

John McAfee, founder of the security firm McAfee Associates, says 'I Can Guarantee You, It Was Not the Russians' .

The Joint Analysis Report from the FBI contains an appendix that lists hundreds of IP addresses that were supposedly "used by Russian civilian and military intelligence services." While some of those IP addresses are from Russia, the majority are from all over the world, which means that the hackers constantly faked their location.

McAfee argues that the report is a "fallacy," explaining that hackers can fake their location, their language, and any markers that could lead back to them. Any hacker who had the skills to hack into the DNC would also be able to hide their tracks, he said

"If I was the Chinese and I wanted to make it look like the Russians did it, I would use Russian language within the code, I would use Russian techniques of breaking into the organization," McAfee said, adding that, in the end, "there simply is no way to assign a source for any attack."

Question of Patriotism

It's not patriotic to accept accusations as facts, given US history of lies, deceit, meddling, and wars.

Related

keepitsimple , December 30, 2016 1:41:03 at 1:41 PM
The gullibility and ignorance of the typical media lapdog is appalling, and whores like McCain and Graham will use them shamelessly to promote their twisted, warmongering agenda. The same old story, over and over again.
Bobdough , December 30, 2016 10:51:52 at 10:51 PM
Not gullibilty, but complicity
The_Fish , December 30, 2016 2:07:19 at 2:07 PM
I have a problem understanding why the powers that be can't understand the widening gap between their on podium statements and the average persons view. Are they hoping to brainwash, or really believe it, or just leaving a video record for posterity that might sway historical interpretation of the current time?

No problem if they deliver proof.

James Greenberg , December 30, 2016 6:30:47 at 6:30 PM
Read 1984. It will explain EVERYTHING.
The_Fish , December 30, 2016 7:05:07 at 7:05 PM
Net control very likely in Europe soon with public administration of the web/content. Might at least help reduce the unemployment rate. Looked over the 2016 Bilderberg attendees too. MSM attendees interesting vs political bias they exhibit.

Whoever thinks there aren't people behind the scenes with a plan is naive and woe betide anyone upsetting that plan.

Crysangle , December 30, 2016 8:56:05 at 8:56 PM
Unemployment rate read last refuge from the official economy. Not the alt. web that takes away motivation, it is a pressure valve for people who find the official direction nothing short of insulting. The majority of social media users won't be distracted.

Noticed zh on Italy for you if you had not picked it up

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-30/italy-urges-europe-begin-censoring-free-speech-internet

Michael G , December 31, 2016 9:53:11 at 9:53 AM
A little OT, but how many people realize that Israel (less than half the population of the former Palestine) has taken complete control of ALL water and has decreed that 3% of that water may be directed to the Palestinians!

Over ten million get running water for 12 hrs a week, while in Israel (borders move every day as the world says nothing) there are no water restrictions zero! So, while Palestinians struggle to live in hot barren desert conditions (food and medicine is also denied children die of treatable cancer often as medication is blocked), a 5 min drive away millions of gallons are used to create a green, lush paradise for the Jewish Masters!

Did you know US laws were changed in 1968 to allow "Dual Citizens" to be elected and appointed to government positions and today many of the top posts are citizens of Israel and America WTF?

Trump needs to make a daily dose of Red Pills the law

Michael G , December 31, 2016 9:58:31 at 9:58 AM
Oops the 10M fig is a bit high but it's at least double the Jewish population, yet they get 97% this is slow moving genocide yet it's never even acknowledged
Greg , December 30, 2016 2:07:48 at 2:07 PM
Syria is about gas pipelines. Corporations want to profit from the gas pipeline through the region and wr the people are supposed to send our children to war over it and pay taxes tpbsupport the effort. Rissia wants pipelines from their country under the Black sea and Irans pipelines to the north. The US is supporting Qatar pipeline and LNG from our own shores to the EU.
The_Fish , December 30, 2016 2:09:55 at 2:09 PM
Some rumours Obama to be considered for UN role and Cameron NATO.
Germ , December 30, 2016 2:13:34 at 2:13 PM
It's been said that on average Americans are like mushrooms – "Keep 'em in the dark and feed 'em shit!"
Winston , December 30, 2016 3:43:28 at 3:43 PM
"These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government," (Obama) wrote.

And THAT, from what I've read in OPEN literature (obviously) about what is known by our cyber threat intel community, read on tech sites, and seen on the outstanding documentary program CyberWar about the Eastern European hacking community, is a OUTRIGHT BLATANT LIE.

Note he avoided the phrase, "slam dunk"

Winston , December 30, 2016 3:52:29 at 3:52 PM
NOTE that he may actually believe that because that is what he may have been TOLD, just as Bush was told there were WMDs in Iraq, but as I've pointed out, the clumsy errors allowing the malware to be so very EASILY traced back to "supposedly" Russia are beyond belief for any state-sponsored outfit, especially a Russian effort.

Note that the user info for TWO BILLION Yahoo email accounts was stolen and they left no traces which then led the FBI to conclude that it must have been "state sponsored."

fingerhole , December 30, 2016 5:24:36 at 5:24 PM
Any government that claims a right to secrecy over its affairs is going to use lying as a policy.
Steven milgrom , December 30, 2016 4:17:51 at 4:17 PM
Snowden says that it is auite easy to trace the source of the hackers.
madashellowell , December 30, 2016 4:21:48 at 4:21 PM
We are left with two basic options. Either they are simply stupid or their is a larger agenda at hand. I don't believe they are stupid. They have been setting fires all around this election for months, none of them effective by themselves, but ALL reinforcing the general notion that Trump is unfit and illegitimate.

I do not believe this is just random panic and hyperbole. They are "building" something.

Fred Rogers , December 31, 2016 1:25:43 at 1:25 PM
Well, it is an established and accepted fact that Richard Nixon was a very intelligent guy. None of Nixon's detractors ever claimed he was stupid, and Nixon won reelection easily.

Tricky Dick was just a tad "honesty challenged", and so is Obama. They were/are both neo-keynesians, both took their sweet time ending stupid wars started by their predecessors even after it was clear the wars were pointless.

Then again, I doubt Obozo is as smart as Nixon. Soros is clearly the puppeteer controlling what Obama does. Soros is now freaking out that his fascist agenda has been exposed.

vooch , December 30, 2016 5:18:15 at 5:18 PM
This is what is must have been like being a Soviet Citizen in 1989 or so. The official media was openly laughed at because its lies were so preposterous.
Winston , December 30, 2016 5:24:35 at 5:24 PM
http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/12/did-russia-tamper-with-the-2016-election-bitter-debate-likely-to-rage-on/

Excerpt:

"While security companies in the private sector have said for months the hacking campaign was the work of people working for the Russian government, anonymous people tied to the leaks have claimed they are lone wolves. Many independent security experts said there was little way to know the true origins of the attacks.

Sadly, the JAR, as the Joint Analysis Report is called, does little to end the debate. Instead of providing smoking guns that the Russian government was behind specific hacks, it largely restates previous private-sector claims without providing any support for their validity. Even worse, it provides an effective bait and switch by promising newly declassified intelligence into Russian hackers' "tradecraft and techniques" and instead delivering generic methods carried out by just about all state-sponsored hacking groups."

WORSE than "delivering generic methods carried out by just about all state-sponsored hacking groups." It should have said "by just about anyone using 'in the wild' malware tools."

The_Fish , December 30, 2016 5:54:31 at 5:54 PM
2015 Bilderberg. Looking down the attendees and subjects covered. Interesting some of the main anti-Brexit groups had representatives there, suggests HC picked for 2016 US election, Cyber-security and etc. Look at the key topics. How they all helped define 2016. So many current intertwined themes.

Little people upset the apple-cart? http://www.globalresearch.ca/bilderberg-chooses-hillary-clinton-for-2016/5454829

wootendw , December 30, 2016 6:01:33 at 6:01 PM
"We just don't know "

The Russians probably have a lot of information about USG employees, contractors, etc, via hacking, recording, etc than Wikileaks. But, as a general rule, intelligence agencies do not dump it into the public domain because you don't want a potential adversary know what you know about him lest he investigate and close off the means of obtaining that information. The leaks came from elsewhere.

greg , December 30, 2016 9:09:50 at 9:09 PM
One of the leakers is dead, we know that.
joelg5 , December 30, 2016 6:35:45 at 6:35 PM
Smells like a "false flag" operation, like the USA/NATO Operation Gladio in Europe.

McCain and the War Hawks have had it out for Russia for a long time, and the Neo-cons have been closing in on the borders of Russia for some time. What will be interesting is when Trump meets with the CIA/NSA et al. for intel briefings on the alleged hacking. Hopefully, Trump will bring along VP Pence, Mad Dog and the other Marine generals (appointees) for advice. I suspect that the "false flag" nature of the hacking excuse will be evident and revealed as the pretext for the Neo-con anti-Russia agenda moving forward.

The CIA it is now widely believed was part of the Deep State behind the JFK assassination when JFK took an independent view, so Trump will need the USA Marines on his side. McCain is the real thug, and an interferer in foreign elections (Kiev) and seems to have no real scruples.

After Victoria Nuland brags about the USA spending $5 billion to overthrow the elected Ukraine government, how these Russia-phobes have any credibility is beyond me. Just shows that the consolidation of the media into a few main propaganda outlets under Bill Clinton (who also brought the Neo-cons into foreign policy dominance) has reached its logical apex. The Swamp is indeed a stinking, Corrupt miasma.

Perhaps the Clinton Foundation and nascent Obama foundation feel it in their financial interests to nurture the misma.

Cha-ching, cha-ching. Money to be made in demonizing Russia.

Ron J , December 31, 2016 12:32:19 at 12:32 PM
"The CIA it is now widely believed was part of the Deep State behind the JFK assassination when JFK took an independent view "

All the circumstantial evidence pointed to Oswald. No one has ever proven otherwise, in over 50 years.

After 50 years of being propagandized by conspiracy book writers, it isn't surprising that anything is widely believed at this point. The former curator of the 6th Floor Museum, Gary Mack, believed there was a conspiracy, but over time came to realize that it was Oswald, alone.

CJ , December 30, 2016 8:15:54 at 8:15 PM
When liberal Rolling Stone questions the Obama/DNC propaganda, you know for certain that they have lost even their base supporters (the ones that can still think). The BS has just gotten too stupid.
Truth seeker , December 30, 2016 9:32:32 at 9:32 PM
Why is the WSJ strongly supporting Obama here but also saying he waited way to long to make this move? I don't always agree with them nor do I with you.

Ok I haven't read the comments but would only say that when Vladimir Putin the once leader of the KGB becomes a preacher and starts criticizing the West for abandoning its Christian roots, it's moral dignity, that for me doesn't just stink, it raises red flags all over the place. I think Trump and some of the rest of u r being set up here-like lambs to the slaughter. Mish your naïveté here surprises me!

Bobdough , December 30, 2016 11:00:12 at 11:00 PM
The Russians are coming!

Russia a country of 170 million surrounded by NATO military bases and 800 million people in the EU and USA is the threat? The US alone spends 12 times as much on its military annually than Russia. It's not Russia invading and overthrowing secular governments in the Muslim world.

greg , December 30, 2016 9:52:15 at 9:52 PM
Germany takes back its gold from US. Finally, after the Fed Res refused an audit request. http://www.pravdareport.com/business/finance/27-12-2016/136521-gold-0/
Simon Hodges , December 31, 2016 7:57:09 at 7:57 AM
If I remember correctly the CIA claimed their intelligence sources came from unspecified 'allies'. It seems rather crucial to establish who these allies actually are. If it were Germany that would be one thing, however it is more than likely to be the Ukraine.

The Ukranian government have been trying to drive a wedge between the West and Russia for years for their own political advantage. If I was Trump then when I took office I would want an extremely thorough investigation into the activities of the CIA by a third reliable party.

Seenitallbefore , December 31, 2016 9:48:10 at 9:48 AM
Don't be stupid. The Russians did it. CNN reported it, so it must be true.
Winston , December 31, 2016 10:22:42 at 10:22 AM
Supporting -EXACTLY- the points I've previously made here: Russian Hackers Said To "Penetrate US Electricity Grid" Using Outdated Ukrainian Malware

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-31/russian-hackers-said-penetrate-us-electricity-grid-using-outdated-ukrainian-malware

Excerpt: But was it really Russian meddling? After all, how does one prove not only intent but source in a world of cyberespionage, where planting false flag clues and other Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) meant to frame a specific entity, is as important as the actual hack.

Robert M. Lee, CEO and founder of cybersecurity company Dragos, which specializes in threats facing critical infrastructure, also noted that the IOCs included "commodity malware," or hacking tools that are widely available for purchase.

He said:

1. No they did not penetrate the grid.
2. The IOCs contained *commodity malware* – can't attribute based off that alone.

Fred Rogers , December 31, 2016 1:09:53 at 1:09 PM
So if Obama had actually produced evidence that the Russians had hacked Hilary's illegal, unprotected email setup in her Chapaqua basement/closet how would that change the ***content*** of the emails? It wouldn't.

Obama is failing to convince the world that Russia is a bunch of whistle blowers on his corrupt regime. All of the emails detailing corruption and fraud are true (unchallenged), however Obama wants to suggest they were obtained illegally from an illegal email server? That is Obama's bullshit defense for the corrupt behavior?

And as "proportional retaliation" for this Russian whistle blowing, Obozo is evicting 35 entertainment staff from the Russian embassy summer camp?

I doubt Hollywood or San Francisco has the integrity to admit they backed the wrong loser when they supported Obozo but they should think about their own credibility after January 20th. Anyone who is still backing Obozo is just too stupid to tie their own shoes much less vote

[Dec 31, 2016] The last hissy fit of neocon Obama is probably connected with the loss of Alepo and being sidelined in Syria

Notable quotes:
"... White House/StateDep press release on sanctions is ORWELLIAN: corruption within the DNC/Clinton's manager Podesta undermines the democracy, not its exposure as claimed (let alone the fact that there is still no evidence that the Russian government has anything to do with the hacks). ..."
"... The press release also talks about how the security of the USA and its interests were compromised, so Obama in effects says that national security interest of the country is to have corrupt political system, which is insane. ..."
"... You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination." ~Charles de Gaulle. ..."
"... United States are not united I guess. Guess, that Merkel is the next on the list... ..."
"... Obama will be making to many paid speeches to be doing anything of the sort. And frankly I suspect he be silent, because Trump is soon going to know where all the bodies were buried under Obama, just like Obama knows where all the bodies are buried from the Bush area. ..."
Dec 31, 2016 | www.theguardian.com

On Friday, the Kremlin responded to the moves, including the expulsion of 35 suspected intelligence operatives and the closing of two Russian facilities in the US, with a shrug. Putin, it seems, is willing simply to wait until Trump moves into the Oval Office. Trump's tweet suggested he is too.

But such provocative words could not distract the media and public from another domestic concern for Trump – the growing perception that his predecessor has acted to his disadvantage .

"The sanctions were clearly an attempt by the Obama administration to throw a wrench into – or [to] box in – the next administration's relationship with Russia," said Boris Zilberman, a Russia expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

"Putin, in part, saw through that and sidestepped it by playing good cop to [Russian foreign minister Sergey] Lavrov and the [state] Duma, who were calling for a reciprocal response."


vgnych 8h ago

All Obama does with his clumsy movements is just attempting to blame Russians for Democrat's loss of elections. Also he is obscuring peaceful power transition while at it.

All what Trump needs to do is to just call the looser a loser a move on.

Max South , 30 Dec 2016 18:56
White House/StateDep press release on sanctions is ORWELLIAN: corruption within the DNC/Clinton's manager Podesta undermines the democracy, not its exposure as claimed (let alone the fact that there is still no evidence that the Russian government has anything to do with the hacks).

The press release also talks about how the security of the USA and its interests were compromised, so Obama in effects says that national security interest of the country is to have corrupt political system, which is insane.

This argumentation means that even if Russian government has done the hacking, it was a good deed, there is nothing to sanction Russia for even in such case.

MacCosham -> Max South , 30 Dec 2016 19:38
There were no hacks, the DNC emails were leaked by disgruntled insiders. As brilliantly said by the heroic former diplomat Craig Murray. Reply
CDNBobOrr , 30 Dec 2016 18:58
'Fraid both Putin and Trump are a lot smarter than Barry. Putin's move in not retaliating and inviting US kids to the Kremlin New Year party was an astute judo throw. And Barry is sitting on his backside wondering how it happened. Reply
antobojar , 30 Dec 2016 19:00
.. Probably Obama's "exceptionalism" made him so clumsy on international affairs stage..

.. just recently.. snubbed by Fidel.. he refused to meet him..
.. humiliated by Raul Castro, he declined to hug president of USA..
.. Duterte described.. hmm.. his provenance..
.. Bibi told him off in most vulgar way.. several times..
.. and now this..
..pathetic..

P.S.
You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination." ~Charles de Gaulle.

chiefwiley -> Tribal War , 30 Dec 2016 21:49
Obama knew about Russian involvement in July. Look it up. He ignored it because it was seen as having no effect, and they didn't want the appearance of the government favoring Hillary, because they thought she was in line for a landslide victory.

After the election, "RUSSIA" has become a fund raising buzz word for Democrats.

Phrygian , 30 Dec 2016 19:02
Talk about sore loser. Obama's actions are disgraceful. The sooner he leaves office the better. Reply Share
AveAtqueCave -> Phrygian , 30 Dec 2016 19:17
The election should have taught our "betters" that people do think for themselves, albeit occasionally.

I've been frustrated enough with Obama since he pardoned Bush and Cheney... now he wants to sacrifice whatever shreds of reputation the Democratic party has... to be a white knight for miserable candidate, warmonger, and incompetent Hillary Clinton.

He figured the republicans would love him when he took Bush et al. off the hook and (clumsily) implemented Romney's health plan. They didn't.

Now he thinks leftists will love him because he's going "all in" on Hillary didn't lose this all on her own. They won't.

The guy doesn't have a fraction of the insight he credits himself with.

blocksburg -> Phrygian , 30 Dec 2016 19:18
Indeed, may even be seen as treasonous behaviour Reply
Munchausen007 , 30 Dec 2016 19:06
Simple solution, publish the commenter geolocation and ban proxy, clean the comment section from putinbots. Putin like ASBO's must stop to do more harm against democracy. Reply Share
Down2dirt -> Munchausen007 , 30 Dec 2016 19:17
What a foolish comment. Reply Share
Ilurktostudyyouall -> Munchausen007 , 30 Dec 2016 19:39
And what happens when you begin to realise many are not putinbots? Reply Share
Not4TheFaintOfHeart -> Ilurktostudyyouall , 30 Dec 2016 19:58
I'm sure they'll find some excuse to get around that...
'It's elephants all the way down', don't forget Reply
ukc ltd , 30 Dec 2016 19:07
Sanctions = token gestures that will soon fade into the distance. Much like you know who.

Obama is salty because of Kilary getting whupped and Putin out-playing him in Syria.

Never thought I would see the day when I sided with Trump over Obama. Interesting times. Reply

foolisholdman -> ukc ltd , 30 Dec 2016 20:01
Yes, the so-called liberals are losing all over. They blame everyone but themselves. The problem is that they have been found out. They were not real liberals at all. They had little bits of liberal policies like "Gay rights" and "bathrooms for Transgenders" and, of course, "Anti-Anti-Semitism Laws" and a few other bits and pieces with which they constructed a sort of camoflage coat, but the core of their policies was Corpratism. Prize exhibits: Tony Blair and Barak Obama.

The extreme Left and extreme Right ("Populists") are benefiting by being able to say what they mean, loud and apparently clear. People are not, on the whole, politically sophisticated but they do realise that they have been lied to for a very long time and they are fed up. That is why "Populists are making such a showing in the polls. People don't believe in the centre's "Liberalism" any more.

Terry Phillips , 30 Dec 2016 19:19
You just know these people, like Johnny boy, who are pointing fingers at Russia are doing so based upon long laid plans to bind up Trump from building a healthy relationship with Russia which would put an end to terrorism and likely all of these petty little wars that are tearing the world to pieces. These people want war because division keeps them in power and war makes them lots of money. I hope that Trump and Putin can work together and build a trust and foundation as allies in that together we can stamp out terrorism and stabilize the worlds conflicts. Everything these people do in the next 20 days has a single agenda and that is to cause instability and roadblocks for Trump and his team. Hope is just around the corner people so let's help usher it in.
86753oh9 , 30 Dec 2016 19:24
First... let's see some actual evidence/proof. Oh, that's right, none has been offered up.
Second... everyone is upset that the DNC turd was exposed, but no one upset about the existence of the turd. ?

Obama acting like a petulant child that has to leave the game and go home now, so he's kicking the game board and forcing everyone else to clean up his mess. Irresponsible.

TheWindsOfFreedom -> 86753oh9 , 30 Dec 2016 19:33
Hundred times repeated lie will become the truth... that's the US officials policy for decades now. In 8 years, they did nothing, so they are trying to do "something" in the last minute. For someone, who's using his own brain is all of this just laughable.

United States are not united I guess. Guess, that Merkel is the next on the list...

Fulhamred , 30 Dec 2016 19:26
Hopefully now this will enable senate and congress republicans to prevent these crazy ideas of russian appeasement take hold and prusue a hardline against Russia, Hamas, Iran and Cuba.
Down2dirt -> Fulhamred , 30 Dec 2016 19:31
They'll probably do that. Business as usual. To pursue a hard line against Isis enablers like Saudi and Qatar, now that would be a surprise. Reply Share
Individualist -> Down2dirt , 30 Dec 2016 19:35
Actually the biggest ISIS enabler was Cheney.
Down2dirt -> Individualist , 30 Dec 2016 19:42
Well you're probably right about that.
rocjoc43rd -> Individualist , 30 Dec 2016 19:45
Obama will be making to many paid speeches to be doing anything of the sort. And frankly I suspect he be silent, because Trump is soon going to know where all the bodies were buried under Obama, just like Obama knows where all the bodies are buried from the Bush area.

You are a wishful thinker, if you think Obama is going anything after he leaves office.

cosmith , 30 Dec 2016 19:27
So the person awarded a Nobel Peace Prize uses his last weeks in office to sour relations between the only 2 superpowers on Earth for - what ?

American party politics /
Spite ?
Ideological hatred ?

For those of you who are too young to remember, look up "Cold War" and look for references
to Hawks and Doves.

Who are the Hawks now - and who are the Doves ?

The Left/Liberal paradigm is so drastically in need of updating that it is becoming downright dangerous.

Hell hath on fury like a self defined "liberal" scorned.

Banker1 -> Individualist , 30 Dec 2016 19:48
The foreign power did the American people a favor when it exposed the corruption within the Democratic Party; something the establishment media was apparently unable or unwilling to do. Rather than sanctioning Putin, Americans should be thanking him!
Haigin88 , 30 Dec 2016 19:30
R.E.M.: 'Exhuming McCarthy'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMedTmZKo38 Reply Share
gottliebvera , 30 Dec 2016 19:34
I think Obama is behaving in a most petulant and non-presidential manner. Lack of decorum as parting shot. Good going. Reply Share
UnitedundertheSun -> Jonathan Stromberg , 30 Dec 2016 23:10
Attack Russia with a wet lettuce? Oh the pain! And gives Putin the high moral ground. Brilliant politics from Obama.

All to hamfistedly conceal what a rotten dysfunctional political organisation he heads.

Obama plays snakes and ladders while Putin is playing chess.

chelsea55 , 30 Dec 2016 19:35
Seems a no brainer, reverse Obama's ridiculous posturing gesture. As if the US doesn't have a long track record of interfering in the affairs of other countries.
chelsea55 -> LithophaneFurcifera , 30 Dec 2016 21:57
Personally I think the US should do as it wishes but it's extremely hypocritical to act shocked when the same meddling is returned by others. Obama is acting foolishly as if the final weeks of his presidency have any genuine traction on future events.

[Dec 29, 2016] One thing lost in all the hullabaloo about Russian hacks is that the Obama administration's record on cyber security has been terrible.

Dec 29, 2016 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Reply ↓ cocomaan , December 28, 2016 at 9:29 am

One thing lost in all the hullabaloo about Russian hacks is that the Obama administration's record on cyber security has been terrible. Off the top of my head I can think of several compromising cases:

* Anything having to do with HRC's bathroom server, of course
* The Sony hack that Obama said was North Korea, but other experts say was probably just Trump's 400 lb fat guy on a bed.
* The alleged Chinese hacking of OPM
* And undoubtedly the "CYBER 911!!" of the alleged Russian interference in the election.

I don't see anyone talking about the fact that cyber infrastructure looks like it's been hit by birdshot. All the while, Obama's intelligence teams are mining information on Americans as extralegally as possible.

[Dec 29, 2016] The neoliberal MSM narrative that it is a well established fact that Russia influenced US election is nonsense.

Dec 29, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com
sanjait -> DeDude... , December 28, 2016 at 06:26 PM
"Russia tampered with vote tallies to help Donald Trump"

Yeah, that seems like a clear statement, but when you consider that the vast majority of people do not habitually read closely and interpret things literally, I can see how this would easily be misinterpreted.

Russia tampered with the election to help Donald Trump. That's a fairly well established fact. It's not the same as "tampered with vote tallies" but an inattentive poll respondent might assume the question was about the former. And most people are inattentive.

likbez -> sanjait... December 28, 2016 at 09:40 PM , 2016 at 09:40 PM
Sanjait,

"Russia tampered with the election to help Donald Trump. That's a fairly well established fact."

You are funny. Especially with your "well established fact" nonsense.

In such cases the only source of well established facts is a court of law or International observers of the elections. All other agencies have their own interest in distorting the truth. For example, to get additional funding.

And that list includes President Obama himself, as a player, because he clearly was a Hillary supporter and as such can not be considered an impartial player and can politically benefit from shifting the blame for fiasco to Russia.

Also historically, he never was very truthful with American people, was he? As in case of his
"Change we can believe in!" bait and switch trick.

There were several other important foreign players in the US elections: for example KAS and Israel. Were their actions investigated? Especially in the area of financial support of candidates.

And then FYI there is a documented history of US tampering in Russian Presidential election of 2011-2012 such as meetings of the US ambassador with the opposition leaders, financing of opposition via NGO, putting pressure by publishing election pools produced by US financed non-profits, and so on and so forth. All in the name of democracy, of course. Which cost Ambassador McFaul his position; NED was kicked out of the country.

As far as I remember nobody went to jail in the USA for those activities. There was no investigation. So it looks like the USA authorities considered this to be a pretty legal activity. Then why they complain now?

And then there is the whole rich history of CIA subverting elections in Latin America.

So is not this a case of "the pot calling the kettle black"?

I don't know. But I would avoid your simplistic position. The case is too complex for this.

At least more complex that the narrative the neoliberal MSMs try to present us with. It might be Russian influence was a factor, but it might be that it was negligible and other factors were in play. There is also a pre-history and there are other suspects.

You probably need to see a wider context of the event.

[Dec 28, 2016] The Empire Strikes Back The MSMs 3-Point Plan To Recapture The Narrative

Notable quotes:
"... Secondly , a meme has been invented about so-called "Fake News," which will be used to shut down dissident media outlets. ..."
Dec 28, 2016 | www.unz.com
Some perspective: For most of human history, power was rooted in possession of land. After the Industrial Revolution , power lay in controlling in the means of production. But today, the main source of power is control of information.

Having the power to control information (what Steve Sailer calls The Megaphone ) gives you the ability to determine what issues will be discussed, what viewpoints are considered legitimate, and who is allowed to participate in polite society. It ultimately allows you to push an entire code of morality on others. And morality is, ultimately, a weapon more terrible than can be found in any arsenal [ Weaponized Morality , by Gregory Hood, Radix, October 12, 2016].

The 2016 election was ultimately a battle between the commanding heights of media (newspapers, networks, and web portals) and what we could call the guerillas of media (/pol, forums, hackers, right wing trolls , and independent media outlets like us). The latter lacked power on their own, but they united behind Donald Trump, a man whose brand was so well-established that the Establishment couldn't ignore him. It was Fourth Generation Warfare –this time over information.

And just as guerillas have been frustrating established armies all around the world on real-world battlefields, so did the online commandos frustrate and eventually overcome the seemingly invincible Fourth Estate.

But this victory wasn't inevitable. From day one, the MSM tried to destroy Donald Trump , including his business empire, because of his stated views on immigration.

Since that failed, they have started turning on his supporters with three tactics.

Soon after the election, the Leftist Think Progress blog announced that the Alt Right should only be called "white nationalist" or "white supremacist". [ Think Progress will no longer describe racists as "alt-right" , November 22, 2016] The AP dutifully echoed this pronouncement days later, warning journalists not to use the term and instead to stick to pejoratives. [ AP issues guidelines for using the term 'alt-right,' by Brent Griffiths, Politico, November 28, 2016]

This is a literally Orwellian attempt to eliminate Crimethink through linguistic control . Of course, no such guidelines will apply to non-white Identitarian groups such as the National Council of La Raza, which will continue to be called an "advocacy" or "progressive grass-roots immigration-reform organization" [ NCLR head: Obama 'deporter-in-chief, ' by Reid Epstein, Politico, March 4, 2016].

Needless to say, most the rationale for this is not just fake, but comically, obviously, wrong. Thus the Washington Post reported that VDARE.com (and many other sites) was a "Russian propaganda effort" based on no evidence at all. We ask: where is our vodka?

Rolling Stone, which pushed one of the most disgusting hoaxes in modern journalism at the University of Virginia, is having meetings with President Obama to discuss "fake news." The Guardian fell for what appears to be a hoax decrying "online hate" precisely because it is impossible to tell the difference today between the latest virtue signaling craze and satire.

But algorithms are already being introduced to distinguish between "verified" and "non-verified" news sources. It can be assumed only Leftist sites will receive verification on social media. [ Fake news on Facebook is a real problem. These college students came up with a fix in 36 hours , By Colby Itkowitz, Washington Post, November 18, 2016]

There is "fake news" and it is annoying, to be sure. There were plenty of cringey stories about non-existent celebrity endorsements of Trump i n the last cycle. But most "verified" or "mainstream" sources today don't actually report but simply "point and sputter" or actually conceal real news. For example, even after the journalists got what they wanted out of the latest NPI conference , the MSM still couldn't restrain themselves from simply making things out of whole cloth .

Actual attacks on Trump supporters are not covered, while unsourced, unverified claims of a wave of "hate crimes," which mostly consists of handwritten notes most likely written by the supposed "victims" or incidents so trivial normal people wouldn't even notice , dominate the headlines.

This is a far more insidious form of "fake news" than anything "the Russians" are promoting. And what about the lie of " hands up, don't shoot ?"

Another example: supposedly mainstream outlets are comfortable leveling wild charges Steve Bannon is somehow a "white nationalist." Bannon on the evidence is actually a civic nationalist who has specifically denounced racism and, if anything, is showing troubling signs of moving towards the "DemsRRealRacist"- style talking points which led Conservatism Inc. to disaster. There are absolutely no statements by Bannon actually calling for, say, a white ethnostate.

In contrast, Rep. Keith Ellison, candidate to head the DNC, actually has c alled for a black ethnostate. [ Keith Ellison once proposed making a separate country for blacks , by Justin Caruso, Daily Caller, November 26, 2016]. However, this has not prevented him from being "normalized" and celebrated by the "mainstream" media.

The logical conclusion of all of this:

Or, as VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow told the NPI conference: "What we are going to see in the next few years is an intensified Reign Of Terror."

For example, Buzzfeed's latest masterpiece of journalism: the shocking revelation that reality stars Chip and Joanna Gaines attend a church that disagrees with homosexual marriage [ Chip and Joanna Gaines' Church Is Firmly Against Same-Sex Marriage , by Kate Aurthur, Buzzfeed, November 29, 2016]. You know–like every Christian church for about 2000 years. The obvious agenda: to get the show canceled or the Gaines to disavow their own pastor.

This is the goal of most "journalism" today–to get someone fired or to get someone to disavow someone. The Southern Poverty Law Center ( $PLC to VDARE.com) makes a lucrative income from policing speech . ( Right, a graph of their endowment fund.)And journalists today are no different than the $PLC. They do not report, they do not provide information, and rather than ensuring freedom they are the willing tools of repression.

And this repression only goes one way.

If you wouldn't invite some communist demonstrator into your meeting, why would you invite an MSM journalist? They have the same beliefs, the same motivations, and increasingly, they rely on the same tactics. Aside from the occasional throwing of feces (as Richard Spencer learned at NPI), the preferred tactic of "Antifa" consists of pearl-clutching blog posts.

The repression is accelerating. Reddit is now moving to censor pro-Trump content on its site [ Breaking: Unethical @reddit CEO vows to crack down on "toxic users" as right wing subreddit protests censorship , by Charles Johnson, Got News, November 30, 2016]. Having been purged from Twitter, many free speech supporters are moving to GAB, so The New York Times is trying to get that shut down too [ The Far Right Has a New Digital Safe Space , by Amanda Hess, November 30, 2016]. And Kellogg pulled its ads from Breitbart, after Trump's election, because it said it did not "align with its values as a company". [ Breitbart at 'war' with Kellogg's over advertising snub , BBC, December 1, 2016].

Since the election, journalists have been paying tribute to their own courage, promising to hold Trump accountable. But there is no greater enemy to free speech than reporters. Shutting down the networks and shuttering the newspapers would be a boon to independence of thought, not an obstacle.

For his own sake, to defend his own Administration, Trump has to delegitimize the MSM, just as he did during the campaign. He should continue to use his Twitter account and speak straight to the people. He should not hold press conferences with national MSM and speak only to local reporters before holding rallies. If Twitter bans him, as Leftists are urging, he should nationalize it as a utility and make it a free speech zone.[ Twitter has become a utility , by Alan Kohler, The Australian, October 17, 2016]

And Trump's supporters need to act the same way. Stop giving reporters access. Stop pretending you can play the MSM for your own benefit. Stop acting like these people are anything other than hostile political activists whose only interest in life is to make yours worse.

Stop giving them what they want.

Your career, family, and entire life may depend on it. And so does the life of the nation.

James Kirkpatrick [ Email him] is a Beltway veteran and a refugee from Conservatism Inc.

[Dec 28, 2016] The risk of WWIII is not enough to deter these maniacs from doing everything they can to keep neoliberals in power

Notable quotes:
"... "The lockstep zombies for the sleaze and global mayhem of the Clinton Machine and Dem Party gangsters are on the march. These liberals for US Empire are showing their reverence and fanboy love for the CIA and FBI and McCarthyism. ..."
"... They either cheered or shrugged when the Clinton thugs stole the primary from Bernie (with his obsequious assent) or snored when Obama/Clinton staged coups and installed fascists in Honduras and Ukraine but oh how they bellow and shake their fists at the *alleged* hacking by Russia that amounts to providing info on just how sleazy the Democratic Party is. ..."
"... THAT form of fake news is not only acceptable it is to be embraced and taught to our fucking children. If the NYT or WaPo tells us all bad things come from Putin these shock troops for the Democratic Party click their heels and salute. ..."
"... The risk of WWIII is not enough to deter these fucking maniacs from doing all they can to keep their team in power. Meanwhile their leaders want to "work with" Trump and "give him a chance." Who are the fascists in this shit show?? Such a clusterfuck of incoherence. ..."
"... If it's true the "Russians" (who be that by the way?) did what the professional liars in the intelligence agencies say they did it doesn't even amount to a parking violation compared to the billions and billions of dollars spent by the US over the last 70 years rigging and crushing democracy (literally with murder) across the globe. ..."
Dec 28, 2016 | www.unz.com

Anon December 12, 2016 at 9:33 pm GMT

This post by Leftie on facebook offers glimpse into chasm on the other side.

It's Progs vs Globs. ProGlob is coming apart.

"The lockstep zombies for the sleaze and global mayhem of the Clinton Machine and Dem Party gangsters are on the march. These liberals for US Empire are showing their reverence and fanboy love for the CIA and FBI and McCarthyism.

They either cheered or shrugged when the Clinton thugs stole the primary from Bernie (with his obsequious assent) or snored when Obama/Clinton staged coups and installed fascists in Honduras and Ukraine but oh how they bellow and shake their fists at the *alleged* hacking by Russia that amounts to providing info on just how sleazy the Democratic Party is.

The "fake news" (it's called free speech you fucking assholes) that the Rooskies pumped into our helpless and confused brains is a threat to the Republic but "capitalism means freedom and democracy", WMD's, yellow cake, mobile weapons labs, babies torn from incubators, the international monolithic communist conspiracy, Gaddafi supplying viagra to his troops, the headchoppers Obama gives arms and sends into Syria to destroy yet another nation are "moderates", KONY 2012, the filthy Hun is coming to kill us all in 1917, "Duck and cover!!" Gulf of Tonkin, Ho Chi Min's soldiers are going to spring from their canoes on the beaches of Malibu to rape your wife and make you wear pajamas, "superpredators" and on and on etc etc etc

THAT form of fake news is not only acceptable it is to be embraced and taught to our fucking children. If the NYT or WaPo tells us all bad things come from Putin these shock troops for the Democratic Party click their heels and salute.

The risk of WWIII is not enough to deter these fucking maniacs from doing all they can to keep their team in power. Meanwhile their leaders want to "work with" Trump and "give him a chance." Who are the fascists in this shit show?? Such a clusterfuck of incoherence.

If it's true the "Russians" (who be that by the way?) did what the professional liars in the intelligence agencies say they did it doesn't even amount to a parking violation compared to the billions and billions of dollars spent by the US over the last 70 years rigging and crushing democracy (literally with murder) across the globe.

And the whole obscene carnival engulfing the nation is of course to be blamed on the racist knuckle-dragging "basket of deplorables.""

[Dec 28, 2016] How NOT to hack an election Russian Hack EXPOSED as Hoax Zero Hedge

Dec 28, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com
For those who missed it among the deluge of propaganda, the Russian 'hack' of the election has been exposed as a huge hoax:

A Wikileaks envoy today claims he personally received Clinton campaign emails in Washington D.C. after they were leaked by 'disgusted' whisteblowers - and not hacked by Russia.

Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan and a close associate of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, told Dailymail.com that he flew to Washington, D.C. for a clandestine hand-off with one of the email sources in September.

'Neither of [the leaks] came from the Russians,' said Murray in an interview with Dailymail.com on Tuesday. ' The source had legal access to the information. The documents came from inside leaks, not hacks.'

His account contradicts directly the version of how thousands of Democratic emails were published before the election being advanced by U.S. intelligence.

For those who have read our book Splitting Pennies - this comes as no surprise. As we explain in the book, the world is manipulated by several large global "Banks" which are also owners of big news outlets that control the flow of information around the world (i.e. Thompson Reuters). The surprise here is that the disinformation campaign goes so deep, it has even fooled senators into voting for a bill to stop Russian propaganda; which - on the surface, every flag waving US senator should agree with. No one wants foreign spies or foreign propaganda influencing the domestic population. But how big is the 'threat' of 'Russian' propaganda and how has it been overplayed, in a final 'hail mary' attempt to disrupt the legitimate political process. The motto, the modus operandi of the Illuminati controlled CIA "Order from Chaos" is explained on their 'think tank' website here.

Americans steeped in a culture of 'politics' are again being fooled, this election wasn't about party or state lines, "Republicans" didn't win over "Democrats" - this election was about a wild card, a non-politician, non-Establishment candidate winning by a landslide if going by the polls (Trump was given 5% chance of winning up until the night of election).

How to Hack an Election

Interestingly, Bloomberg (although biased Bloomberg is still one of the only mainstream news sources that still produces real, investigative journalism globally) in April published an extremely well researched composition "How to Hack an Election" detailing the life of a real election hacker, Andres Sepulveda and his US political 'analyst' partner, Juan Jose Rendon. To understand how foolish the claim about Russians hacking the election, readers can study the story of Sepulveda who successfully hacked multiple elections in Latin America and was paid millions for his efforts:

When Peña Nieto won, Sepúlveda began destroying evidence. He drilled holes in flash drives, hard drives, and cell phones, fried their circuits in a microwave, then broke them to shards with a hammer. He shredded documents and flushed them down the toilet and erased servers in Russia and Ukraine rented anonymously with Bitcoins. He was dismantling what he says was a secret history of one of the dirtiest Latin American campaigns in recent memory.

For eight years, Sepúlveda, now 31, says he traveled the continent rigging major political campaigns. With a budget of $600,000, the Peña Nieto job was by far his most complex. He led a team of hackers that stole campaign strategies, manipulated social media to create false waves of enthusiasm and derision, and installed spyware in opposition offices, all to help Peña Nieto, a right-of-center candidate, eke out a victory. On that July night, he cracked bottle after bottle of Colón Negra beer in celebration. As usual on election night, he was alone.

Sepúlveda's career began in 2005, and his first jobs were small-mostly defacing campaign websites and breaking into opponents' donor databases. Within a few years he was assembling teams that spied, stole, and smeared on behalf of presidential campaigns across Latin America. He wasn't cheap, but his services were extensive. For $12,000 a month, a customer hired a crew that could hack smartphones, spoof and clone Web pages, and send mass e-mails and texts. The premium package, at $20,000 a month, also included a full range of digital interception, attack, decryption, and defense. The jobs were carefully laundered through layers of middlemen and consultants. Sepúlveda says many of the candidates he helped might not even have known about his role; he says he met only a few.

His teams worked on presidential elections in Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Venezuela. Campaigns mentioned in this story were contacted through former and current spokespeople; none but Mexico's PRI and the campaign of Guatemala's National Advancement Party would comment.

The point here, well there are several points. One, Sepulveda is not the only guy in the world doing this. The CIA even has a team of social media trolls and the NSA has a department that only develops robots to do the same thing Sepulveda was doing and better. The age of 'spies' has transformed into an electronic, digital, online version - much like the internet has transformed life and business it has also changed the way the intelligence establishment deals with controlling the population. Oh how the FBI has evolved since the days of Hoffman and Cointelpro!

Many of Sepúlveda's efforts were unsuccessful, but he has enough wins that he might be able to claim as much influence over the political direction of modern Latin America as anyone in the 21st century. "My job was to do actions of dirty war and psychological operations, black propaganda, rumors-the whole dark side of politics that nobody knows exists but everyone can see," he says in Spanish, while sitting at a small plastic table in an outdoor courtyard deep within the heavily fortified offices of Colombia's attorney general's office. He's serving 10 years in prison for charges including use of malicious software, conspiracy to commit crime, violation of personal data, and espionage, related to hacking during Colombia's 2014 presidential election. He has agreed to tell his full story for the first time, hoping to convince the public that he's rehabilitated-and gather support for a reduced sentence.

Usually, he says, he was on the payroll of Juan José Rendón, a Miami-based political consultant who's been called the Karl Rove of Latin America. Rendón denies using Sepúlveda for anything illegal, and categorically disputes the account Sepúlveda gave Bloomberg Businessweek of their relationship, but admits knowing him and using him to do website design. "If I talked to him maybe once or twice, it was in a group session about that, about the Web," he says. "I don't do illegal stuff at all. There is negative campaigning. They don't like it-OK. But if it's legal, I'm gonna do it. I'm not a saint, but I'm not a criminal." While Sepúlveda's policy was to destroy all data at the completion of a job, he left some documents with members of his hacking teams and other trusted third parties as a secret "insurance policy."

We don't need a degree in cybersecurity to see how this was going on against Trump all throughout the campaign. Not only did they hire thugs to start riots at Trump rallies and protest, a massive online campaign was staged against Trump.

Rendón, says Sepúlveda, saw that hackers could be completely integrated into a modern political operation, running attack ads, researching the opposition, and finding ways to suppress a foe's turnout. As for Sepúlveda, his insight was to understand that voters trusted what they thought were spontaneous expressions of real people on social media more than they did experts on television and in newspapers. He knew that accounts could be faked and social media trends fabricated, all relatively cheaply. He wrote a software program, now called Social Media Predator, to manage and direct a virtual army of fake Twitter accounts. The software let him quickly change names, profile pictures, and biographies to fit any need. Eventually, he discovered, he could manipulate the public debate as easily as moving pieces on a chessboard-or, as he puts it, "When I realized that people believe what the Internet says more than reality, I discovered that I had the power to make people believe almost anything."

Sepúlveda managed thousands of such fake profiles and used the accounts to shape discussion around topics such as Peña Nieto's plan to end drug violence, priming the social media pump with views that real users would mimic. For less nuanced work, he had a larger army of 30,000 Twitter bots, automatic posters that could create trends. One conversation he started stoked fear that the more López Obrador rose in the polls, the lower the peso would sink. Sepúlveda knew the currency issue was a major vulnerability; he'd read it in the candidate's own internal staff memos.

While there's no evidence that Rendon or Sepulveda were involved in the 2016 election, there is also no evidence that Russian hackers were involved in the 2016 election. There's not even false evidence. There isn't a hint of it. There isn't a witness, there isn't a document, there's nothing - it's a conspiracy theory! And a very poor one.

By the way, if you want to disguise your IP address as if you are living in Russia, there's a service that will do this for about $10/month - millions of people use this service. You can sign up for it too, and choose what country you want to be 'from' - Canada, Brazil, Russia - take your pick.

Russian hackers would have had the same or better (probably much better) tools, strategies, and resources than Sepulveda. But none of this shows up anywhere. If anything, this is an example of how NOT to hack an election.

To learn more about the way the world works, checkout Splitting Pennies. To gain some Alpha in your portfolio for QEP / ECP investors checkout Alpha Z Advisors.

Further reading about 'truth' and 'alternative reality'

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution .

Armand Hammer: The Untold Story

A People's History of the United States

Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich

Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets .
Mike Masr , Dec 28, 2016 8:06 AM

This truth will be swept under the rug and regarded as "fake news" because it doesn't fit the official Obama narrative that Russia did it!
mary mary Kefeer , Dec 27, 2016 6:55 PM
Thanks. Right. Hillary's official electronic communications is more correct than Hillary's emails.

(And the "wipe them, you mean like with a rag?" from Hillary, after having been in government all her adult life and after having presented herself as a modern Secretary of State who knew all about how government and modern technology worked would have been a funny joke if it hadn't obviously been intended to cover up enormous crimes.)

Grandad Grumps , Dec 27, 2016 2:58 PM
Whoever is running the world with all of this fake stuff and all of the monitoring of people and petty false propganda, they pretty much suck at it. it is as if they are claiming to be running the world using "training wheels". As a substitute for God they stink! Grade D-!
Fathead Slim , Dec 27, 2016 2:25 PM
The tale doesn't have to be a good one for the TV addicted masses to believe it, it only has to be presented by the only sources these imbeciles are willing to use: their fucking TV sets. Most people are so deluded by their main source of entertainment and information that they wouldn't give a shit if incontrovertible evidence that their TV information source was lying was presented to them.

Most people I know don't want to know anything that can't be spoonfed to them on a TV screen.

Dick Buttkiss Fathead Slim , Dec 27, 2016 2:42 PM
"The tale doesn't have to be a good one for the TV addicted masses to believe it..."

Like the tale that the only steel highrise buildings to ever collapse due to fires (turning into dust at near freefall speed) ocurred on a single day 15 years ago, orchestrated, along with everything else on that fateful day, by a man in a cave half a world away.

Fathead Slim Dick Buttkiss , Dec 27, 2016 6:57 PM
Yep, a prime example. TV addicts are also convinced that they've seen news broadcasts that announced the finding of WMDs in Iraq.
Kefeer Dick Buttkiss , Dec 27, 2016 4:49 PM
You left out that the man was also on dialysis.
jeff montanye Kefeer , Dec 27, 2016 6:51 PM
and that after every airport was closed and every single commercial plane was grounded, that man's entire extended family resident in the u.s., some two dozen individuals, was given fbi protection, rented cars and chartered planes, and flown out of the country without ever being interviewed, at all, by any law enforcement branch of the government of the united states which, needless to say, had absolutely no involvement with the deadliest foreign attack on u.s. soil since the war of 1812, killing nearly 600 more than died at pearl harbor. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bin-laden-family-evacuated/

this was known at the time it happened. what took longer to discover was that the source of the foreign attack was not a cave in afghanistan or even saudi arabia or the muslim world generally.

all along it was our trusted ally, brave little israel.

  • http://www.whale.to/b/israel_did_911.html
  • https://sites.google.com/site/onedemocraticstatesite/archives/-solving-9...
  • http://www.amazon.com/Solving-9-11-Deception-Changed-World/dp/0985322586
  • http://www.luogocomune.net/site/modules/sections/index.php?op=viewarticl... .
  • http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/everything-rich-man-trick/
  • https://smile.amazon.com/dp/098213150X/sr=1-1/qid=1467687982/ref=olp_pro...
  • http://www.europhysicsnews.org/articles/epn/pdf/2016/04/epn2016474p21.pdf
  • Twodogs jeff montanye , Dec 28, 2016 8:33 AM
    Anti-semitism enables one to ignore the elephant in the room, namely the Saudis who have been spending billions promoting Wahhabism and terrorism, to blame a tiny little country for everything, without ever having to bother about evidence. Seek help.
    BSHJ Dick Buttkiss , Dec 27, 2016 3:06 PM
    Well, he was probably always watching HGTV and knew all the right tricks to make his man-cave as efficient as possible.
    mary mary BSHJ , Dec 27, 2016 6:58 PM
    So easy (with a little help from Bush and Cheney) that even a cave-man could do it. ....

    [Dec 27, 2016] This Russian hacking thing is being discussed entirely out of realistic context.

    Notable quotes:
    "... This Russian hacking thing is being discussed entirely out of realistic context. ..."
    "... Voting machines are public and for Federal elections then tampering with them is elevated to a Federal crime. ..."
    economistsview.typepad.com

    RC AKA Darryl, Ron : , December 18, 2016 at 07:18 AM

    This Russian hacking thing is being discussed entirely out of realistic context.

    Cyber security is a serious risk management operation that firms and governments spend outrageous sums of money on because hacking attempts, especially from sources in China and Russia, occur in vast numbers against every remotely desirable target corporate or government each and every day. At my former employer, the State of Virginia, the data center repelled over two million hacking attempts from sources in China each day. Northrop Grumman, the infrastructure management outsourcer for the State of Virginia's IT infrastructure, has had no known intrusions into any Commonwealth of Virginia servers that had been migrated to their standard security infrastructure thus far since the inception of their contract in July 2006. That is almost the one good thing that I have to say about NG. Some state servers, notably the Virginia Department of Health Professions, not under protection of the NG standard network security were hacked and had private information such as client SSNs stolen. Retail store servers are hacked almost routinely, but large banks and similarly well protected corporations are not. Security costs and it costs a lot.

    Even working in a data center with an excellent intrusion protection program as part of that program I had to take an annual "securing the human" computer based training class. Despite all of the technical precautions we were retrained each year to among other things NEVER put anything in an E-Mail that we did not want to be available for everyone to read; i.e., to never assume privacy is protected in an E-Mail. Embarrassing E-Mails need a source. We should assume that there will always be a hacker to take advantage of our mistakes.

    RGC -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron... , December 18, 2016 at 07:57 AM
    Can you spell "diversion"?

    Sanders: "Break up the banks!"

    Trump: "The elites are screwing you over!"

    Supporters of the status quo:

    "It's racism"

    "It's Russian hackers"

    Whatever it takes to change the subject.

    RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> RGC... , December 18, 2016 at 08:09 AM
    Maybe it is diversion, but it is definitely uninformed if not just plain stupid.
    sglover -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron... , December 18, 2016 at 06:11 PM
    Absolutely. What does that suggest about Team Dem?
    DrDick -> EMichael... , December 18, 2016 at 08:34 AM
    The reality is that all the major world powers (and some minor ones), including us, do this routinely and always have. While it is entirely appropriate to be outraged that it may have materially determined the election (which I think is impossible to know, though it did have some impact), we should not be shocked or surprised by this.
    RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> EMichael... , December 18, 2016 at 09:55 AM
    "...I would suggest attacks on Putin's personal business holdings all over the world..."

    [My guess is that has been being done a long time ago considering the direction of US/Russian foreign relations over NATO expansion, the Ukraine, and Syria.

    Long before TCP/IP the best way to prevent dirty secrets from getting out was not to have dirty secrets. It still works.

    The jabbering heads will not have much effect on the political opinions of ordinary citizens because 40 million or more US adults had their credit information compromised by the Target hackers three years ago. Target had been saving credit card numbers instead of deleting them as soon as they obtained authorizations for transfers, so that the 40 million were certainly exposed while more than twice that were probably exposed. Establishment politicians having their embarrassing E-mails hacked is more like good fun family entertainment than something to get all riled up about.]

    http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/10/news/companies/target-hacking/

    Target: Hacking hit up to 110 million customers

    RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> EMichael... , December 18, 2016 at 10:22 AM
    Voting machines are public and for Federal elections then tampering with them is elevated to a Federal crime. Political parties are private. The Federal government did not protect Target or Northrop Grumman's managed infrastructure for the Commonwealth of Virginia although either one can take forensic information to the FBI that will obtain warrants for prosecution. Foreign criminal operations go beyond the immediate domestic reach of the FBI. Not even Interpol interdicts foreign leaders unless they are guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.

    The Federal government can do what it will as there are not hard guidelines for such clandestine operations and responses. Moreover, there are none to realistically enforce against them, which inevitably leads to war given sufficient cycles of escalation. Certainly our own government has done worse (political assassinations and supporting coups with money and guns) with impunity merely because of its size, reach, and power.

    RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> EMichael... , December 18, 2016 at 10:43 AM
    BTW, "the burglar that just ransacked your house" can be arrested and prosecuted by a established regulated legal system with absolutely zero concerns of escalating into a nuclear war, trade war, or any other global hostility. So, not the same thing at all. Odds are good though that the burglar will get away without any of that because when he does finally get caught it will be an accident and probably only after dozen if not hundreds of B&E's.

    There is a line. The US has crossed that line, but always in less developed countries that had no recourse against us. Putin knows where the line is with the US. He will dance around it and lean over it, but not cross it. We have him outgunned and he knows it. Putin did not tamper with an election, a government function. Putin tampered with private data exposing incriminating information against a political party, which is a private entity rather than government entity. Whatever we do should probably stay within the rule of law as it gets messy fast once outside those boundaries.

    RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron... , December 18, 2016 at 11:01 AM
    As far as burglars go I live in a particular working class zip code that has very few burglaries. It is a bad risk/reward deal unless you are just out to steal guns and then you better make sure that no one is home. Most people with children still living at home also have a gun safe. Most people have dogs.

    There are plenty burglaries in a lower income zip code nearby and lots more in higher income zip codes further away, the former being targets of opportunity with less security and possible drug stashes, which has a faster turnover than fencing big screen TV's. High income neighborhoods are natural targets with jewelry, cash, credit cards, and high end electronics, but far better security systems. I don't know much about their actual crime stats because they are on the opposite side of the City of Richmond VA from me, but I used to know a couple of burglars when I lived in the inner city. They liked the upscale homes near the University of Richmond on River Road.

    Peter K. -> DrDick... , December 18, 2016 at 09:21 AM
    Putin was mad b/c Clinton interfered in Russia's election using the bully-pulpit.

    She may have been complete correct in what she was saying, but it's not surprising she pissed Putin off.

    The Democratic establishment would rather discuss this than do a post-mortem on Hillary's campaign.

    They kept telling us the e-mail didn't reveal anything and now they say the e-mail determined the election.

    DeDude -> Peter K.... , December 18, 2016 at 09:43 AM
    "They kept telling us the e-mail didn't reveal anything and now they say the e-mail determined the election"

    And those two statement are not in conflict unless you are a brain dead Fox bot. Big nothing-burgers like Bhengazi or trivial emails can easily be blown up and affect a few hundred thousand voters. When the heck are you going to grow up and get past your 5 stages of Sanders grief?

    Peter K. -> DeDude... , December 18, 2016 at 09:54 AM
    "Big nothing-burgers like Bhengazi or trivial emails can easily be blown up and affect a few hundred thousand voters. "

    There is already an audience for those faux scandals, the Fox viewers.

    They don't create new Voters.

    You're nothing but a brainwashed partisan Democrat, a mirror-image of these brainwashed Fox viewers.

    You're told what you're supposed to think by the Party leadership and you eat it up.

    No critical thinking skills.

    EMichael -> DeDude... , December 18, 2016 at 09:55 AM
    He's barely over Nader.
    DeDude -> EMichael... , December 18, 2016 at 10:07 AM
    I know - and there used to be some signs of a functional brain. Now it is all "they are all the same" ism and Hillary derangement syndrome on steroids. Someone who cares need to do an intervention before it becomes he get gobbled up by "ilsm" ism.
    Peter K. -> EMichael... , December 18, 2016 at 01:08 PM
    Nader's critique was correct.

    The Democrats moved to the right and created more Trump voters.

    im1dc -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron... , December 18, 2016 at 08:56 AM
    ABC video interview by Martha Raddatz of Donna Brazile 2:43

    Adding the following FACTS, not opinion, to the Russian Hacking debate at the DNC

    Russian hacks of the DNC began at least as early as April, the FBI informed the DNC in May of the hacks, NO ONE in the FedGovt offered to HELP the DNC at anytime (allowed it to continue), and Russia's Putin DID NOT stop after President Obama told Putin in September to "Cut it Out", despite Obama's belief otherwise

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dnc-chair-says-committee-was-attacked-by-russian-hackers-through-election-day_us_5856acb6e4b08debb78992e4

    "DNC Chair Says Russian Hackers Attacked The Committee Through Election Day"

    'That goes against Obama's statement that the attacks ended after he spoke to Putin in September'

    by Dave Jamieson Labor Reporter...The Huffington Post...12/18/2016...10:59 am ET

    "The chair of the Democratic National Committee said Sunday that the DNC was under constant cyber attack by Russian hackers right through the election in November. Her claim contradicts President Barack Obama's statement Friday that the attacks ended in September after he issued a personal warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    "No, they did not stop," Donna Brazile told Martha Raddatz on ABC's "This Week." "They came after us absolutely every day until the end of the election. They tried to hack into our system repeatedly. We put up the very best cyber security but they constantly [attacked]."

    Brazile said the DNC was outgunned in its efforts to fend off the hacks, and suggested the committee received insufficient protection from U.S. intelligence agencies. The CIA and FBI have reportedly concluded that Russians carried out the attacks in an effort to help Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton.

    "I think the Obama administration ― the FBI, the various other federal agencies ― they informed us, they told us what was happening. We knew as of May," Brazile said. "But in terms of helping us to fight, we were fighting a foreign adversary in the cyberspace. The Democratic National Committee, we were not a match. And yet we fought constantly."

    In a surprising analogy, Brazile compared the FBI's help to the DNC to that of the Geek Squad, the tech service provided at retailer Best Buy ― which is to say well-meaning, but limited.

    "They reached out ― it's like going to Best Buy," Brazile said. "You get the Geek Squad, and they're great people, by the way. They reached out to our IT vendors. But they reached us, meaning senior Democratic officials, by then it was, you know, the Russians had been involved for a long time."..."

    im1dc -> im1dc... , December 18, 2016 at 08:59 AM
    This new perspective and set of facts is more than distressing it details a clear pattern of Executive Branch incompetence, malfeasance, and ineptitude (perhaps worse if you are conspiratorially inclined)
    im1dc -> im1dc... , -1
    The information above puts in bold relief President Obama's denial of an Electoral College briefing on the Russian Hacks

    There is now no reason not to brief the Electors to the extent and degree of Putin's help for demagogue Donald

    [Dec 26, 2016] Crowdsourced Volunteers Search For Solutions To Fake News

    Dec 26, 2016 | news.slashdot.org
    (wired.co.uk) 270 Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday November 27, 2016 @03:34AM from the help-me-hive-mind dept. Upworthy co-founder Eli Pariser is leading a group of online volunteers hunting for ways to respond to the spread of fake news. An anonymous reader quotes Wired UK: Inside a Google Doc, volunteers are gathering ideas and approaches to get a grip on the untruthful news stories. It is part analysis, part brainstorming, with those involved being encouraged to read widely around the topic before contributing. "This is a massive endeavour but well worth it," they say...

    At present, the group is coming up with a list of potential solutions and approaches . Possible methods the group is looking at include: more human editors, fingerprinting viral stories then training algorithms on confirmed fakes, domain checking, the blockchain, a reliability algorithm, sentiment analysis, a Wikipedia for news sources, and more.

    The article also suggests this effort may one day spawn fake news-fighting tech startups.

    [Dec 26, 2016] Are We Seeing Propaganda About Russian Propaganda?

    Dec 26, 2016 | news.slashdot.org
    (rollingstone.com) 335 Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday December 04, 2016 @12:39PM from the ghosts-of-Joseph-McCarthy dept. MyFirstNameIsPaul was one of several readers who spotted this disturbing instance of fake news about fake news. An anonymous reader writes: Last week the Washington Post described "independent researchers" who'd identified "more than 200 websites as routine peddlers of Russian propaganda " that they estimated were viewed more than 200 million times on Facebook. But the researchers insisted on remaining anonymous "to avoid being targeted by Russia's legions of skilled hackers," and when criticized on Twitter, responded "Awww, wook at all the angwy Putinists, trying to change the subject -- they're so vewwy angwy!!"

    The group "seems to have been in existence for just a few months," writes Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi , calling the Post's article an "astonishingly lazy report". (Chris Hedges, who once worked on a Pulitzer Prize-winning team at the New York Times, even found his site Truthdig on the group's dubious list of over 200 " sites that reliably echo Russian propaganda ," along with other long-standing sites like Zero Hedge , Naked Capitalism , and the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.) "By overplaying the influence of Russia's disinformation campaign, the report also plays directly into the hands of the Russian propagandists that it hopes to combat," complains Adrian Chen, who in 2015 documented real Russian propaganda efforts which he traced to "a building in St. Petersburg where hundreds of young Russians worked to churn out propaganda ."
    The Post's article was picked up by other major news outlets ( including USA Today ), and included an ominous warning that "The sophistication of the Russian tactics may complicate efforts by Facebook and Google to crack down on 'fake news'."

    [Dec 24, 2016] If the 2018 elections will not be converted to verified paper ballots, accompanied by random auditing of all close elections, then it is clear that the accusations of Russian hacking were blatant lies

    Notable quotes:
    "... Another thing: it will be clear how serious they take the allegations of Russian hacking, by how they address the problem of auditing electronic voting machines. ..."
    "... If the 2018 elections aren't all with voter verified paper ballots, accompanied by random auditing and auditing all close elections, we know the accusations of Russian hacking were blatant lies. ..."
    Dec 24, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com

    John M -> John M ... December 23, 2016 at 07:17 PM

    Another thing: it will be clear how serious they take the allegations of Russian hacking, by how they address the problem of auditing electronic voting machines.

    If the 2018 elections aren't all with voter verified paper ballots, accompanied by random auditing and auditing all close elections, we know the accusations of Russian hacking were blatant lies.

    [Dec 23, 2016] Has The CIA Been Politicized

    Notable quotes:
    "... The use of the term, however, rather naïvely implies that it is possible for a government agency to not be politicized. A non -political government agency, it is assumed, acts without regard to how its actions and claims affect its political standing among powerful interests in Washington. Such an agency has never existed. ..."
    "... Indeed, when a government agency relies on taxpayer funding, Congressional lawmaking, and White House politics to sustain itself, it is absurd to expect that agency to somehow remain not "politicized." That is, it's a logical impossibility to think it possible to set up a government agency that relies on government policymakers to sustain it, and then think the agency in question will not attempt to influence or curry favor with those policymakers. ..."
    "... Does the organization depend on taxpayer funding for a substantial amount of its budget? ..."
    "... Does the organization engage in what would be illegal activities were it not for protective government legislation? ..."
    Dec 23, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com
    Submitted by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

    Anonymous leakers at the CIA continue to make claims about Russia and the 2016 election. In response to demands to provide evidence, the CIA has declined to offer any, refusing to meet with Congressional intelligence committees, and refusing to issue any documents offering evidence. Instead, the CIA, communicating via leaks, simply says the equivalent of "trust us."

    Not troubled by the lack of evidence, many in the media and in the Democratic party have been repeating unsubstantiated CIA claims as fact.

    Of course, as I've noted before , the history of CIA intelligence is largely a history of missing the forest for the trees. Sometimes, the failures have been spectacular.

    One of the questions that immediately arises in the media in situations like these, however, is " has the CIA been politicized ?"

    When used in this way, the term "politicized" means that the CIA is involved in helping or hurting specific political factions (e,g., specific ideological groups, pressure groups, or presidential administrations) in order to strengthen the CIA's financial or political standing.

    All Government Agencies Are Politicized

    The use of the term, however, rather naïvely implies that it is possible for a government agency to not be politicized. A non -political government agency, it is assumed, acts without regard to how its actions and claims affect its political standing among powerful interests in Washington. Such an agency has never existed.

    Indeed, when a government agency relies on taxpayer funding, Congressional lawmaking, and White House politics to sustain itself, it is absurd to expect that agency to somehow remain not "politicized." That is, it's a logical impossibility to think it possible to set up a government agency that relies on government policymakers to sustain it, and then think the agency in question will not attempt to influence or curry favor with those policymakers.

    This idea might seem plausible to school children in junior-high-school civics classes, but not to anyone who lives in the real world.

    In fact, if we wish to ascertain whether or not an institution or organization is "politicized" we can simply ask ourselves a few questions:

    If the answer to any of these questions is "yes" then you are probably dealing with a politicized organization. If the answer to all of these questions is "yes" - as is the case with the CIA - then you're definitely dealing with a very politicized organization. (Other "non-political" organizations that fall well within this criteria as well include so-called "private" organizations such as the Federal Reserve System and Fannie Mae.)

    So, it has always been foolish to ask ourselves if the CIA is "politicized" since the answer is obviously "yes" for anyone who is paying attention.

    Nevertheless, the myth that the CIA and agencies like it can be non-political continues to endure, although in many cases, the charge has produced numerous helpful historical analysis of just how politicized the CIA has been in practice.

    Recent Narratives on CIA Politicization

    Stories of CIA politicization take at least two forms: One type consists of anti-CIA writers attempting to illustrate how the CIA acts to manipulate political actors to achieve its own political ends. The other type consists of pro-CIA writers attempting to cast the CIA as an innocent victim of manipulation by senior Washington officials.

    Of course, it doesn't matter whether the provenance of CIA politicking comes from within the agency or outside it. In both cases, the fact remains that the Agency is a tool for political actors to deceive, manipulate, and attack political enemies.

    With CIA leaks apparently attempting to call the integrity of the 2016 election into question, the CIA is once again being accused of politicization. Consequently, articles in the Washington Times , the Daily Caller , and The Intercept all question the CIA's motivation and present numerous examples of the Agency's history of deception.

    The current controversy is hardly the first time the Agency has been accused of being political, and during the build up to the Iraq invasion in 2003, for example, the CIA worked with the Bush Administration to essentially manufacture "intelligence."

    In his book Failure of Intelligence , Melvin Allan Goodman writes:

    Three years after the invasion of Iraq, a senior CIA analyst, Paul Pillar, documented the efforts of the Bush administration to politicize the intelligence of the CIA on Iraqi WMD and so-called links between Iraq and al Qaeda. Pillar accused the Bush administration of using policy to drive intelligence production, which was the same argument offered by the chief of British intelligence in the Downing Street memorandum prior to the war, and aggressively using intelligence to win public support for the decision to go to war....Pillar does not explain why no senior CIA official protested, let alone resigned in the wake of the president's misuse of intelligence on Iraq's so-called efforts to obtain uranium ore in Africa. Pillar falsely claimed "for the most part, the intelligence community's own substantive judgments do not appear to have been compromised," when it was clear that the CIA wa wrong on every conclusion and had to politicize the intelligence to be so egregiously wrong."

    Since then, CIA officials have attempted to rehabilitate the agency by claiming the agency was the hapless victim of the Administration. But, as Goodman notes, we heard no protests from the Agency when such protests would have actually mattered, and the fact is the Agency was easily used for political ends. Whether or not some agents wanted to participate in assisting the Bush administration with trumping up evidence against Iraq remains irrelevant. The fact remains the CIA did it.

    Moreover, according to documents compiled by John Prados at the George Washington University , "The U.S. intelligence community buckled sooner in 2002 than previously reported" and that "Under the circumstances, it is difficult to avoid the impression that the CIA and other intelligence agencies defended themselves against the dangers of attack from the Bush administration through a process of self-censorship. That is the very essence of politicization in intelligence."

    In other words, to protect its own budgets and privileges, the CIA reacted quickly to shape its intelligence to meet the political goals of others.

    Journalist Robert Parry has also attempted to go the CIA-as-victim route in his own writings. In an article written before the Iraq War debacle, Parry looks at how the Agency was used by both Reagan and Clinton, and claims that what is arguably of the CIA's biggest analytical errors - repeatedly overstating the economic strength of the Soviet Union - was the result of pressure applied to the Agency by the Reagan administration. (Parry may be mistaken here, as the CIA was wrong about the Soviet economy long before the Reagan Administration .)

    While attempting to defend the CIA, however, Parry is merely providing a list of the many ways in which the CIA serves to manufacture false information that are useful for political officials.

    In this essay for the Center for International Policy, Goodman further lists many examples of politicization and concludes "Throughout the CIA's 60-year history, there have been many efforts to slant analytical conclusions, skew estimates, and repress evidence that challenged a particular policy or point of view. As a result, the agency must recognize the impact of politicization and introduce barriers to protect analysts from political pressures. Unfortunately, the CIA has largely ignored the problem."

    It is difficult to ascertain whether past intelligence failures were due to pressure form the administration or whether they originated from within the Agency itself. Nevertheless, the intelligence failures are numerous, including:

    The fact that politicization occurs might help explain some of these failures, but simply claiming "politicization" doesn't erase the legacy of failure, and it hardly serves as an argument in favor of allowing the CIA to continue to command huge budgets and essentially function unsupervised. Regardless of fanciful claims of non-political professionalism, it is undeniable that, as an agency of the US government, the CIA is a political institution.

    The only type of organization that is not politicized is a private-sector organization under a relatively laissez-faire regime. Heavily regulated private industries and all government agencies are politicized by nature because they depend heavily on active assistance from political actors to sustain themselves.

    It should be assumed that politicized organizations seek to influence policymakers, and thus all the actions and claims of these organization should be treated with skepticism and a recognition that these organizations benefit from further taxation and expanded government powers inflicted on ordinary taxpayers and other productive members of society outside the privileged circles of Washington, DC.

    Perimetr -> Chupacabra-322 •Dec 23, 2016 11:34 AM
    Is the CIA politicized?

    ...Is the pope catholic?

    How many more presidents does the CIA have to kill to answer your question?

    Oldwood -> DownWithYogaPants •Dec 23, 2016 11:26 AM
    How could the CIA NOT be politicized? They collect "intelligence" and use it to influence policy makers without ANY accountability and no real proof. The CIA operates on CONJECTURE that is completely subjective to bias and agenda. Is that ANYTHING BUT political?
    TeaClipper's picture -> TeaClipper •Dec 23, 2016 11:24 AM
    The CIA was not wrong about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, it lied about them. That is a very big distinction.
    Old Poor Richard •Dec 23, 2016 12:13 PM
    The question is whether the CIA is puppeteer and not the puppet.

    The Snowden report, jam packed with provably false scurrilous accusations, demonstrates that not only is the US intelligence community entirely lacking in credibility, but that they believe themselves so powerful that they can indefinitely get away with baldfaced lies.

    The thing is, the deep state can only keep up the charade when they completely control the narrative, the way China does. Hence the attacks on the first amendment that are accelerating as fast as the attacks on the second amendment. Majority of Americans don't believe the Russian hacking hoax and it make the CIA increasingly hysterical.

    DarthVaderMentor •Dec 23, 2016 12:33 PM
    The CIA has been politicized. In fact, all the way down to the COS level, and in concert with the State Department. Brennan and Moran are nothing but Clinton surrogates.

    In one embassy in a country where IEDs keep blowing up, there were millions of taxpayer dollars spent and continue to be spent in "safe spaces" and "comfort food and liquor" inside an embassy (taking away space from the US Marine Giuards for it) to let "Democrat snowflakes" in senior embassy and CIA positions recover from the Trump elections.

    The real reaon for the loss of the Phillipines as an ally may eventually come out that a gay senior embassy official made a pass at the President of the country. Just like it happened with the gay ambassador in the Dominican Republic.

    That Libral You Hate •Dec 23, 2016 12:41 PM
    I would say the simple answer to the question asked in the headline of this article is "yes" but it is important to actually understand the nuance of the langer answer.

    The critical nuance is that: politics didn't conquor the CIA, but rather the CIA injected itself into politics. I.e. the CIA aren't political stooges, but act political because they have injected political stooges into politics and they have to act political to protect them to protect their interests. Thus while the answer is "yes" the question is phrased wrong as: "Has the CIA Been Politicized," the appropriate question is "Has politics been co-opted by the CIA"

    insanelysane •Dec 23, 2016 12:50 PM
    The first post is spot on except the CIA was in Southeast Asia stirring stuff up to get us into a war. War is big business.

    The entire reason for Vietnam was "If Vietnam falls the commies will be marching down Main Street USA afterwards."

    Well we fucking lost Vietnam and the commies still aren't marching down Main Street and yet the assessment is still being peddled by the Corporation.

    Kennedy was killed because, even though he was fucking totally drugged up, he still saw Vietnam for what it was.

    The Corporation gave Johnson and offer he couldn't refuse, take the keys to the kingdom, just keep "fighting" in Vietnam. I say fighting because we were just fucking around there. No one in charge wanted to risk winning the war.

    And here we are today, 23rd, December, 2016, "fighting" in the Middle East and the Corporation not willing to risk winning the war. Just need to keep it hot enough for the weapons and ammunition to be used in a nice steady pace to keep business going.

    [Dec 23, 2016] CIA Director John Brennan may face investigation for leaking Russian hacker story to the Washington Post

    theduran.com
    Fox Business News discusses a potential investigation involving CIA Director John Brennan over whether he leaked information about the Russian hacking investigation to the media

    John Brennan takes his cues directly from Barack Obama, which means the entire CIA, Russian hack investigation, was initiated and conducted under Obama's direct order.

    The Russian hack, media spin, has been and remains a political play. National security has very little to do with it.

    [Dec 23, 2016] Russian Hacking The CIA Never Lies Information Clearing House - ICH

    Dec 23, 2016 | www.informationclearinghouse.info

    There certainly are experts in the field who should know about the alleged hacking, but they are not allowed to disrupt mainstream media's Russophobe frenzy. Bet you never saw William Binney on mainstream media. Who is Binney? He is the guy who put together the NSA's elaborate worldwide surveillance system. He has publicly stated on alternative news sites, that if something was "hacked", the NSA would instantly know who, when, and whether the info was passed on to another party. He designed the system. He argues, there was no hacking for that very reason. Binney insists the e-mails had to have been leaked by an "insider" who had access to the data. Never heard him on mainstream media huh? Next comes Craig Murray a former US Ambassador who claims he knows who leaked the e-mails, because he met with the individual in Washington D.C. Never heard him on mainstream media either huh? Finally, Julian Assange, the man who released the e-mails. He insisted all along he never got the e-mails from Russia. Another no show on mainstream media. Whatever happened to the journalistic adage of going to the source? Assange is the source, but no mainstream media journalist, and I use the term very loosely, has ventured to speak with him. The accusation has been repeated countless times, without any evidence, or consulting with any of the above three experts.

    Because the big lie has been repeated so many times by corporate media, about half of the US public, according to a recent poll, believes Russia interfered, even though there is not a bit of evidence to support it. Once again they take the bait; hook, line, and sinker.

    For believers of Russian hacking, I offer the following analogy. It might, but I doubt it will help, because you cannot undo the effect of propaganda. You are put on trial for murder that you did not commit. The prosecutor and judge simply say they have reached a "consensus view", the phrase offered by intelligence agencies, that you committed the murder and are guilty. You ask for proof. They offer none. They just keep repeating that you did it. You challenge and ask how do you know I did it? Answer: we have anonymous sources, but we cannot tell you who they are, nor can we show you proof.

    Just as in the fake run-up to the Iraq war, the expert voices of the opposition are not tolerated on mainstream media. Do these folks really want a war with Russia? Are they so upset with Trump's pronouncement that he wanted better relations with Russia? What sane person would not? Hmmm.

    It appears there is a war already raging between the Russophobes, who do not want better relations with Russia, and are doing their best to smear and demonize Putin, and those who do. This is the same tactic used with Manuel Noriega of Panama, Muarmar Gaddafi, and Saddam Hussein, before they made war on all three. Demonize, then make war.

    Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Shame on those who buy into propaganda without any proof.

    Think about it and use a little logic.

    jim james · 1 day ago
    The oddity of the above author's first paragraph is that the CIA was not lying in 2001-03. The CIA said Iraq/Saddam had no wmds.

    In fact, if you lived through it then perhaps you recall the words cherry-picking and stove-piped intel. Now, I understand he's CIA so there's no reason to believe them, but ask Larry Johnson (I know, great name for CIA).

    Fitzhenrymac 125p · 22 hours ago
    Actually he didn't mention the CIA in the first paragraph. However in late 2002 CIA director George Tenet and United States Secretary of State Colin Powell both cited attempts by Hussein to obtain uranium from Niger in their September testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee using intelligence Italy, Britain, and France.

    Days before the Iraq invasion, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) voiced serious doubt on the authenticity of the documents to the UN Security Council, judging them counterfeit but the CIA while having suspicions, largely kept them to themselves.

    guest01 · 18 hours ago
    The author of the above article, Joe Clifford is referring to what CIA Chief George Tenet who represented US intelligence, said: it was "Slam Dunk" Iraq had WMD. Tenet was quoted over and over again by Bush-Dick regime to justify US war against Iraq. After Tenet said those words, CIA neither contradicted him nor corrected him which meant that they went along with the "Slam Dunk" Iraq had WMD. Tenet, representing US intelligence, even sat quietly behind Powell at the UNSC when Powell was spewing his lies about Iraq's nonexistent WMD.
    tictac · 23 hours ago
    Not only to officials repeat false assertions over and over, but those who hear the falsities, themselves start repeating them. The more outrageous, the more they are repeated.
    Rampart · 21 hours ago
    Fool me once, shame on you,. Fool me twice, .....we won't get fooled agin.
    GW
    A jurist · 1 hour ago
    Yeah right, in the CIA's (very bad) dreams maybe, the people will not be fooled. But this isn't a CIA nightmare, on the contrary.
    fantelius 67p · 19 hours ago
    Even Trump doesn't believe in or trust the CIA Why should anyone else?
    See: Presidential Proof of Governmental Distrust https://systemhumanity.com/2016/12/23/presidentia...
    OSIKA · 19 hours ago
    You forgot former Yugoslavia.There they "sharpened "their tools.They "demonized" that country,demonized their President,trained and financed those local soldiers and then destroyed that country while "peace making".Filthy BASTARDS.And you people call USA a decent country?They lied when they created that country and still their mouths and deeds are full of lies,murder and plunder.And their Churches are cheer leaders in that endeavour yet they will proclaim even this Christmas "Peace to the world" while they will plot more of the same.They preach one thing but their actions are totally opposite.They leave wrecked countries behind them and those people end up feeding from containers.I hope that they choke on that stolen turkey.
    romanaorfred · 17 hours ago
    I would still plead with our grassroots hero Tom Feely to discontinue the sensationalistic, emotonal pandering photos on the front page of ICH.

    I much prefer the old text styled front page of ICH -sans pictures - leave the focus on quality content - not hype.

    We could do without the bad memory of Hillary and Obama pics.

    uphill · 11 hours ago
    ditto
    Schlüter 84p · 17 hours ago
    „Media, Independent and Mainstream: Fake News and Fake Narratives": https://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2016/12/18/media-i...
    &
    „US Allegations Against Russia: Hold the Thief! (in addition to the previous post)": https://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2016/12/18/us-alle...
    ignasi orobitg gene · 15 hours ago
    Truth is the first love of Freedom.
    Truth answers all questions.
    No dream of freedom is possible by listening to lies
    coldish1 42p · 14 hours ago
    Craig Murray was not a US ambassador. He was British ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2002 to 2004.
    Fired Up · 11 hours ago
    The counter tactic for the "big lie" is the "big truth." Ordinary people have access to e-mail, social media and website comments. No secret organization is needed. Just make counter-bullturdism part of your personal routine.
    A jurist · 1 hour ago
    This takes time. Most people invest little thought into the news they digest. Quite often, news (or "news") is not even digested at all, just internalised. They know this. The CIA, th eDNC, all of them. They rely on public apathy to survive.
    FrankZ · 8 hours ago
    This the the lie the liberals love just like Iraq's wmd was the lie so dear to the conservatives. It's sickening the way these partisan idiots are so easily manipulated.
    LRE · 6 hours ago
    It doesn't matter who hacked the emails one bit! That right there is the point the powers that be want us to argue about endlessly, because it draws attention away from what actually matters: What matters is that the emails revealed the truth about the democratic party, and that they rigged their primaries. What matters is that the press did not reveal this and since the reveal, they have been trying to distract people from the truth. It is the press and the Democratic party that were influencing the 2016 election by lying and cheating, not the Russians or whoever hacked the email.
    chrisgoodwin 60p · 4 hours ago
    The e-mails were not hacked: they were leaked. Every time anyone refers to the "hacked" e-mails, it raises the question "Who dunnit ?" This is a wild goose chase. The e-mails were leaked by a disgusted insider.
    A jurist · 1 hour ago
    The contents of the leaks/hacks were almost never claimed to be false. Even the very faint cries of "the e-mails were doctored" eventually died out. Nobody has stepped in to claim that the information was false since. This means that all Wikileaks revealed was true. Whoever was responsible for providing this information has done a very valuable public service. Yes, even if it (somehow) was the Russians. To deny that the leak/hack was beneficial to the public is insane.

    Not that we didn't know beforehand that the CIA are quite crazy, but still. I would at least have expected them to welcome this 4th detente. I mean, they have thus far shown that their intelligence gathering efforts in Russia are laughably bad. Do they not want some respite form the humiliation? It would at least be good PR.

    [Dec 23, 2016] NSA Whistleblower US Intelligence Worker Likely Behind DNC Leaks, Not Russia Zero Hedge

    Dec 23, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com
    During the third and last presidential debate between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, debate moderator Chris Wallace pulled a quote from a speech Clinton had given to Brazilian bankers, noting the information had been made available to the public via WikiLeaks.

    Instead of answering the question, Clinton blamed the Russian government for the leaks , alleging " [t]he Russian government has engaged in espionage against Americans ," hacking " American websites, American accounts of private people, of institutions in an effort, as 17 of our intelligence agencies have confirmed, to influence our election ."

    Following the claim, Clinton criticized Trump for saying " [Clinton] has no idea whether it's Russia, China, or anybody else ," repeating her assertion that 17 U.S. intelligence agencies had determined the Russian government had been behind the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hack.

    Despite her claim, reality couldn't be more different.

    Instead of 17 agencies, only the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have offered the public any input on this matter, claiming the DNC attacks " are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts ."

    Without offering any evidence, these two - not 17 - agencies hinted that the Kremlin could be behind the cyber attack. But saying they believe the hacks come from the Russians is far short of saying they know the Russians were behind them.

    During an interview on Aaron Klein's Sunday radio program , former high-ranking NSA intelligence official-turned-whistleblower, William Binney , discussed the alleged Russian involvement in our elections, suggesting the cyber attack against the DNC may not have originated from the Russian government. Instead, Binney says, a " disgruntled U.S. intelligence worker " is likely behind the breach.

    https://soundcloud.com/breitbart/nsa-whistleblower-tells-aaron-klein-agency-has-all-of-hillarys-emails

    Speaking as an analyst, Binney added that a testimony by the former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert S. Mueller from March 2011 shows the FBI has access to a series of databases that helps them " to track down known and suspected terrorists ."

    According to Binney, what Mueller meant is that the FBI has access to the NSA database and that it's accessed without any oversight, meaning the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as well as the FBI, have open access to anything the NSA has access to. " So if the FBI really wanted [Clinton's and the DNC emails] they can go into that database and get them right now ," Binney told Klein.

    Asked if he believed the NSA had copies of all Clinton's emails, " including the deleted correspondence ," Binney said:

    " Yes. That would be my point. They have them all and the FBI can get them right there ."

    While Binney seems to be the only intelligence insider who has come forward with this type of analysis, a young man from Russia whose servers were implicated in the recent hacking of the DNC sites says he has information that will lead to the hacker - yet the FBI won't knock on his door.

    In a conversation with the New York Times , Vladimir M. Fomenko said his server rental company, King Servers, is oftentimes used by hackers. Fomenko added that the hackers behind the attack against computerized election systems in Arizona and Illinois - which, like the DNC hack, were also linked to the Russian government by the FBI - had used his servers.

    According to the 26-year-old entrepreneur, "[w]e have the information. If the F.B.I. asks, we are ready to supply the I.P. addresses, the logs, but nobody contacted us."

    " It's like nobody wants to sort this out, " he added .

    After learning that two renters using the nicknames Robin Good and Dick Robin had used his servers to hack the Arizona and Illinois voting systems, Fomenko released a statement saying he learned about the problem through the news and shut down the two users down shortly after.

    While he told the New York Times he doesn't know who the hackers are, he used his statement to report that the hackers are not Russian security agents.

    " The analysis of the internal data allows King Servers to confidently refute any conclusions about the involvement of the Russian special services in this attack ," he said on September 15, the New York Times reported.

    According to Fomenko, he found a trail left by the hackers through their contact with King Servers' billing page, which leads to the next step in the chain " to bring investigators in the United States closer to the hackers ."

    The clients used about 60 I.P. addresses to contact Fomenko, including addresses belonging to server companies in Finland, France, Italy, Norway, Britain, and Sweden. With these addresses in hand, authorities could track the hackers down.

    But while this information is somewhat recent, few news organizations found it necessary to report on the King Servers link. In the past, however, at least one major news network mentioned Binney.

    In August 2016, Judge Andrew Napolitano commented on the DNC hack.

    On "Judge Napolitano Chambers," the Judge said that while the DNC, government officials, and the Clinton campaign all accuse the Russians of hacking into the DNC servers, " the Russians had nothing to do with it. "

    [Dec 23, 2016] NSA Whistleblower Destroys CIA Narrative – "Hard Evidence Points To Inside Leak, Not Russia Hack

    Dec 23, 2016 | www.activistpost.com

    Originally from: NSA Whistleblower US Intelligence Worker Likely Behind DNC Leaks, Not Russia Zero Hedge

    December 21, 2016

    By Vin Armani

    "A group of retired senior intelligence officials, including the NSA whistleblower William Binney (former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA), have posted an open letter on consortiumnews.com that destroys the Obama administration's "Russian hacking" narrative.

    Within the letter, Binney argues that, thanks to the NSA's "extensive domestic data-collection network," any data removed remotely from Hillary Clinton or DNC servers would have passed over fiber networks and therefore would have been captured by the NSA who could have then analyzed packet data to determine the origination point and destination address of those packets. As Binney further notes, the only way the leaks could have avoided NSA detection is if they were never passed over fiber networks but rather downloaded to a thumb drive by someone with internal access to servers."

    [Dec 21, 2016] The Perfect Weapon How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S by ERIC LIPTON , DAVID E. SANGER and SCOTT SHANE

    the article contain at least one blatant lie which discredits its connect: the assertion the Sony attack was from North Korea. No mentioning of Flame and Stixnet. Another proof that NYT is a part of Clinton campaign and became a neocons mouthpiece...
    Notable quotes:
    "... How many of us have signed petitions to exonerate Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning for letting us know what our govt was doing? Didn't they do us all, and democracy, a great service? ..."
    "... I'm happy to know how the DNC operated, the astounding and unprecedented conflation of a national party committee with one candidate's campaign organization. ..."
    "... What they were doing to Bernie Sanders, and the use they were making of national media was just wrong. ..."
    "... Clinton herself was involved (via her neocon undersecretary, formerly Cheney's chief foreign policy aide) in overthrowing the elected president of Ukraine, a friend of Russia, and installing a US-capitalist friendly fellow in his stead. ..."
    "... What goes around comes around. If we wanted to stop all this cyber warfare, the time to do it was by treaty BEFORE we risked Iranian lives with the Stuxnet virus. ..."
    "... The release of e-mails was embarrassing for Secretary Clinton and the Democratic Party, but I don't think it tipped the election. How many longtime Democratic voters stayed home on November 9th because of the release of these e-mails? How many working class voters switched their vote because of the release of these e-mails? ..."
    "... If the hacking had tampered with voting, I would be extremely concerned, but since it only involved email systems, I am not concerned. ..."
    "... The hacked and subsequently published emails revealed the dishonest, deceitful, and unethical practices of the Democrats, especially in the treatment of Sanders, who should have ditched the Democrats run for president as an Independent. ..."
    "... The emails also revealed that Obama was a participant in HRC's use of a nongovernmental email system when he stated emphatically that the first time he had ever heard of it was when the media first reported it. ..."
    "... That's not the first and probably not the last time he will lie to the public. And the emails revealed the satanic practices of Podesta. The published emails made the election interesting and entertaining. But it is over and mow its time to put this issue to rest, accept the fact that Donald Trump is our next President, the leader of the freest county in the free world, and get on with governing this blessed great nation. Thank you. ..."
    "... I suppose Hillary's email server could have been hacked like this too. Could this be the reason for Comey's stern reprimand of her? It is a little ironic, isn't it, that the DNC, while down playing Hillary's issues with her private server and criticizing Comey for his handling of the investigation, should itself suffer a damaging security breach of its own servers at the hands of a foreign power, which was exactly Comey's concern. Not to mention the fact that the NYT, which told us enough was enough with Hillary's email, is now up in arms about exactly that issue with the shoe on the other foot ..."
    "... I am struggling with how to react to this, just as i do with the Edward Snowden disclosures. On the one hand Russian meddling in a US election is certainly a concern, and should be investigated. On the other hand the disclosures laid bare things many people had suspected, let the sunlight in, so to speak. ..."
    "... Would Hillary even have had the nomination were it not for the favoritism shown by the DNC to her campaign at the expense of the Sanders campaign? What was more meddlesome, the Russian hack and release or the DNC's unfair treatment of Bernie? There is no suggestion that the leaked documents were altered. The effect of the hack was to reveal the truth. Is that the Russian goal, to delegitimize the election process by revealing the truth? ..."
    "... I suppose we finally got a taste of our own medicine -- countless governments overthrown and elections influenced at the hand of the United States. Not fun is it? Perhaps we can learn a lesson from this. ..."
    Dec 21, 2016 | www.nytimes.com
    Sandy Garossino Vancouver, British Columbia December 13, 2016

    An aspect that truly surprises me is the hopeless ineptitude of the DNC response (which could easily have parallels in the RNC).

    Irrespective of who the cyber-attacker is, it's astounding in this day and age that sensitive organizations do not pre-arm themselves with the highest security, and treat every sign of interference (eg, an actual FBI WARNING PHONE CALL) as a major alarm.

    Sadly, that this response is probably replicated all over the place underscores a theory I've held for some time: Technology will kill democracy. Maybe it already has.

    Martha Dryden, NY December 13, 2016

    I'm surprised at what's missing here. How many of us have signed petitions to exonerate Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning for letting us know what our govt was doing? Didn't they do us all, and democracy, a great service?

    I'm happy to know how the DNC operated, the astounding and unprecedented conflation of a national party committee with one candidate's campaign organization.

    What they were doing to Bernie Sanders, and the use they were making of national media was just wrong.

    Assange and Putin (if he was involved) revealed the truth. And since Clinton took no care to guard her private emails, mixed with public communications, how much sympathy is she owed?

    Clinton herself was involved (via her neocon undersecretary, formerly Cheney's chief foreign policy aide) in overthrowing the elected president of Ukraine, a friend of Russia, and installing a US-capitalist friendly fellow in his stead. We do this sort of thing all the time, so if the Russians "interfere" in our electoral process by revealing true stuff (far short of fomenting a coup like we did in Ukraine), isn't that just tit for tat? We even hacked into the communications of European leaders and international organizations. We were the first to use cyber warfare (Stuxnet, v. Iran), so how can we play holier than thou? What goes around comes around. If we wanted to stop all this cyber warfare, the time to do it was by treaty BEFORE we risked Iranian lives with the Stuxnet virus.

    Classicist New York, NY December 13, 2016

    The release of e-mails was embarrassing for Secretary Clinton and the Democratic Party, but I don't think it tipped the election. How many longtime Democratic voters stayed home on November 9th because of the release of these e-mails? How many working class voters switched their vote because of the release of these e-mails?

    The bigger issue for me is that because we are now politicizing this hacking (i.e. making the argument that the hacking helped Republicans), many Republicans are opposed to investigating it.

    That is crazy to me.

    Southern Boy The Volunteer State December 13, 2016

    If the hacking had tampered with voting, I would be extremely concerned, but since it only involved email systems, I am not concerned.

    The hacked and subsequently published emails revealed the dishonest, deceitful, and unethical practices of the Democrats, especially in the treatment of Sanders, who should have ditched the Democrats run for president as an Independent.

    The emails also revealed that Obama was a participant in HRC's use of a nongovernmental email system when he stated emphatically that the first time he had ever heard of it was when the media first reported it.

    That's not the first and probably not the last time he will lie to the public. And the emails revealed the satanic practices of Podesta. The published emails made the election interesting and entertaining. But it is over and mow its time to put this issue to rest, accept the fact that Donald Trump is our next President, the leader of the freest county in the free world, and get on with governing this blessed great nation. Thank you.

    GBC , Canada December 13, 2016

    I suppose Hillary's email server could have been hacked like this too. Could this be the reason for Comey's stern reprimand of her? It is a little ironic, isn't it, that the DNC, while down playing Hillary's issues with her private server and criticizing Comey for his handling of the investigation, should itself suffer a damaging security breach of its own servers at the hands of a foreign power, which was exactly Comey's concern. Not to mention the fact that the NYT, which told us enough was enough with Hillary's email, is now up in arms about exactly that issue with the shoe on the other foot

    I am struggling with how to react to this, just as i do with the Edward Snowden disclosures. On the one hand Russian meddling in a US election is certainly a concern, and should be investigated. On the other hand the disclosures laid bare things many people had suspected, let the sunlight in, so to speak.

    Would Hillary even have had the nomination were it not for the favoritism shown by the DNC to her campaign at the expense of the Sanders campaign? What was more meddlesome, the Russian hack and release or the DNC's unfair treatment of Bernie? There is no suggestion that the leaked documents were altered. The effect of the hack was to reveal the truth. Is that the Russian goal, to delegitimize the election process by revealing the truth?

    Mark Bratanov FL December 13, 2016

    I suppose we finally got a taste of our own medicine -- countless governments overthrown and elections influenced at the hand of the United States. Not fun is it? Perhaps we can learn a lesson from this.

    Eric Lipton is an NYTimes reporter Reporter December 13, 2016

    The agent could have walked over to the DNC headquarters and shown the DNC IT consultant his badge. Or he could have invited the DNC IT consultant to his office--confirming his true identity. Instead, the two communicated for several months just by phone, and as a result, the DNC IT consultant did not fully believe he was speaking to an FBI agent, and so he did not act as aggressively to search for the possible cyber intrusion.

    GC carrboro, nc December 13, 2016

    She lost, get over it. Yes the Electoral College is obsolete. Yes some voting machines can be hacked, but no-one is claiming that in states with tight results. Let's see what the official investigation says, and who says it.

    For better or worse Mr. Trump will be our next President because he won the election. Personally I'm delighted that he may damp down the over-the-top Russophobia that is swirling around DC, "defense" contractor Congressional shills, & the offices of the NYT but nowhere else in the country.

    It's time for progressives to emerge from Obama-daze and convince the rest of the country that they have a better vision for this country's future than that offered by conservatives/reactionaries. One that doesn't involve bombing hapless foreigners. Articulate your policies as best you can, learn from your defeats and from your victories. Onward!

    Southern Boy The Volunteer State December 13, 2016

    If the hacking had tampered with voting, I would be extremely concerned, but since it only involved email systems, I am not concerned. The hacked and subsequently published emails revealed the dishonest, deceitful, and unethical practices of the Democrats, especially in the treatment of Sanders, who should have ditched the Democrats run for president as an Independent. The emails also revealed that Obama was a participant in HRC's use of a nongovernmental email system when he stated emphatically that the first time he had ever heard of it was when the media first reported it. That's not the first and probably not the last time he will lie to the public. And the emails revealed the satanic practices of Podesta. The published emails made the election interesting and entertaining. But it is over and mow its time to put this issue to rest, accept the fact that Donald Trump is our next President, the leader of the freest county in the free world, and get on with governing this blessed great nation. Thank you.

    Louisa is a trusted commenter New York December 13, 2016

    The police call and tell you to be sure to lock your doors and windows--there have been people seen lurking around your house.

    You hang up on them. And do nothing about your doors or windows.

    The police call repeatedly. You ignore all their calls.

    The police advise you to install an alarm system. You, making millions a year, say you can't afford it.

    You receive a notice in the mail telling you you've received 6 months worth of free storage. A van will arrive to pick up your stuff.

    You let the movers take your stuff away. You did not supervise what they took.

    You are the DNC, in terms of how they acted during this mess.

    [Dec 21, 2016] Russians are everywhere, much like Jews in traditional anti-Semitic propaganda.

    Notable quotes:
    "... Can you please explain to me why you are thinking that this was a hack, not a leak by an insider? ..."
    "... Yes, of course, Russians are everywhere, much like Jews in traditional anti-Semitic propaganda. ..."
    "... Or in good McCarthyism tradition, they are under each bed. This evil autocrat Putin (who actually looks like yet another corrupt neoliberal ruler, who got Russia into WTO mousetrap and invests state money in the USA debt) manages to get everywhere, control everything and at the same time (German elections, Ukraine, Syria, world oil prices, Chechnya Islamic insurgence, US Presidential election, US stock market, you name it.) Amazing fit for a man over 60. ..."
    "... And citing NYT article as for Russian hacks is probably not so much different from citing The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to support anti-Semitic propaganda. NYT was and still is one of the most enthusiastic supporters of Hillary campaign. Hardly a neutral observer. ..."
    "... This level of anti-Russian hysteria that several people here are demonstrating is absolutely disgusting. Do you really want a military confrontation with Russia in Syria as most neocons badly want (but would prefer that other fought for them in the trenches) ? ..."
    Dec 21, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com

    likbez -> im1dc... , December 18, 2016 at 07:15 PM

    Can you please explain to me why you are thinking that this was a hack, not a leak by an insider?

    One DNC staffer, 27-year-old Seth Rich, the DNC's director of voter expansion, was killed around this time in pretty strange circumstances. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/07/12/democratic-national-committee-staffer-shot-and-killed-in-washington.html

    Former British Ambassador and current Wikileaks operative Craig Murray recently said he has met the person who leaked DNC and Clinton campaign emails, and they aren't Russian.

    http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/bombshell-wikileaks-figure-says-insider-russia-hack/

    Or it can come from a dissident within the US agency that did have access to all emails.

    Do you remember such a person as Edward Snowden ?

    It might be very educational for you to read his opinion about this case:

    While he is highly critical of Wikileaks, he suggests that without NSA coming forward with hard data obtained via special program that uncover multiple levels of indirection, those charges are just propaganda and insinuations.

    And BTW after the fact it is usually impossible to discover who obtained the information, as they use multiple levels of indirection and Russia might be just one of those indirection levels. Use of Russian IP-space or Russian IPS might be just an attempt to create a false trail and to implicate a wrong party.

    As in any complex case you should not jump to conclusions so easily.

    DeDude -> likbez... , December 18, 2016 at 08:05 PM
    Or you can explain why you believe strange Faux news conspiracy stories with absolutely no evidence that this person was in a position to hack the computers? Or why do you believe the obvious hugely conflicted statements from Wikileaks operatives, who would never want to admit that they were played by the Russians? Or a guy like Snowden who's life depend on Putins charity? Why would those sources make anybody question the clear evidence already presented?

    The fact that NSA is not going to publish all its evidence, is not a surprise. No need to tell the Russians and other hackers how they can avoid detection. But it is not just the government that conclude Russian involvement. Private company experts have reached the same conclusion. The case for a Russian government hack is about as good as it can get.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us/politics/russia-hack-election-dnc.html?_r=0

    likbez -> DeDude... , December 18, 2016 at 09:48 PM
    Yes, of course, Russians are everywhere, much like Jews in traditional anti-Semitic propaganda.

    Or in good McCarthyism tradition, they are under each bed. This evil autocrat Putin (who actually looks like yet another corrupt neoliberal ruler, who got Russia into WTO mousetrap and invests state money in the USA debt) manages to get everywhere, control everything and at the same time (German elections, Ukraine, Syria, world oil prices, Chechnya Islamic insurgence, US Presidential election, US stock market, you name it.) Amazing fit for a man over 60.

    And citing NYT article as for Russian hacks is probably not so much different from citing The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to support anti-Semitic propaganda. NYT was and still is one of the most enthusiastic supporters of Hillary campaign. Hardly a neutral observer.

    This level of anti-Russian hysteria that several people here are demonstrating is absolutely disgusting. Do you really want a military confrontation with Russia in Syria as most neocons badly want (but would prefer that other fought for them in the trenches) ?

    That's what this hysteria is now about, I think.

    RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> likbez... , -1
    The NSA is very good at finding the source of intrusion attempts because they happen all the time every day from China, Russia, North Korea and just little island backwaters in the Pacific.

    Doing something to stop or punish the perpetrators is what is hard. Individual US installation instances must each be protected by their own firewalls and then still monitored for unusual variations in traffic patterns through firewalls to detect IP spoofing.

    [Dec 18, 2016] DNC did not take even elementary steps to protect its infrastructure, steps described in NIST guidelines, it operated like a non profit and did not even have 24 x7 monitoring of its servers to say nothing about firewalls and proxy infrastructure corresponding to the level of sensitivity of information they handle. In other words they were suckers and pays for their machinations, greed and incompetence

    Notable quotes:
    "... To whom do US intelligence agencies owe protection against hackers? The DNC was informed that the Russians or someone pretending to be the Russians was on them. To put your political dirty tricks or your apprehensions about the possible discovery of apparent pay-to-play games in your client's foundation in your emails after being warned was just plain foolish. ..."
    "... The Clintons' venality has been an open secret for 30 years, though Dem-leaning pundits prefer to ignore it or attribute it to the evil right wing conspiracy. From the Arkansas arrangements permitting the purchase of influence by engaging as attorney the wife of the AG or the Governor, the miraculous commodity investment, the Marc Rich and other pardons all stunk. ..."
    "... That the Clinton Foundation and its generous support for Clinton political operators might be a pay-to-play operation was not a surprise to longtime observers. I thought it was admirably bold and clever myself. Nobody else has been able to organize a tax-exempt political slush fund under personal control except even in Illinois where we have a lot of smart lawyers in politics. I suspect we will see a lot more political slush funds disguised as foundations in the future. ..."
    "... We also need to think about what political parties actually are. Then are not government agencies or acting on behalf of government agencies or the people at large. Political parties are large private lobbying firms for a set of loosely affiliated private interests that promote an agenda and communications expressly triangulated to satisfy both their donor class and voting majority constituencies. They are more like corporations with owners, employees, and clients than any public entity. ..."
    "... Former British Ambassador and current Wikileaks operative Craig Murray recently said he has met the person who leaked DNC and Clinton campaign emails, and they aren't Russian. ..."
    "... And BTW after the fact it is usually impossible to discover who obtained the information, as they use multiple levels of indirection and Russia might be just one of those indirection levels. Use of Russian IP-space or Russian IPS might be just an attempt to create a false trail and to implicate a wrong party. ..."
    Dec 18, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com
    RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to im1dc... , December 18, 2016 at 10:06 AM
    It was only after listening to the Donna Brazile interview that I decided to comment on the hacking because of how wrong that Donna Brazile was in so many ways. What responsibility do you think that the Federal government should have for protecting the data of a private political operation? What legal or regulatory responsibility do you think that the Federal government has towards the protection of data for private civilian entities? The second question is rhetorical only to put the first question in perspective since they are materially exactly the same thing according to law. How difficult do you think it is to avoid exposure of incriminating or covert E-mails simply by not having such things?
    sglover -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron... , December 18, 2016 at 06:19 PM
    I just can't get past imagining that Donna Brazile is an honest, competent observer at all, and particularly this episode.
    mrrunangun said in reply to im1dc... , December 18, 2016 at 11:13 AM
    To whom do US intelligence agencies owe protection against hackers? The DNC was informed that the Russians or someone pretending to be the Russians was on them. To put your political dirty tricks or your apprehensions about the possible discovery of apparent pay-to-play games in your client's foundation in your emails after being warned was just plain foolish.

    The Clintons' venality has been an open secret for 30 years, though Dem-leaning pundits prefer to ignore it or attribute it to the evil right wing conspiracy. From the Arkansas arrangements permitting the purchase of influence by engaging as attorney the wife of the AG or the Governor, the miraculous commodity investment, the Marc Rich and other pardons all stunk.

    HRC was elected senator from NY despite that. That the Clinton Foundation and its generous support for Clinton political operators might be a pay-to-play operation was not a surprise to longtime observers. I thought it was admirably bold and clever myself. Nobody else has been able to organize a tax-exempt political slush fund under personal control except even in Illinois where we have a lot of smart lawyers in politics. I suspect we will see a lot more political slush funds disguised as foundations in the future.

    DeDude -> mrrunangun... , December 18, 2016 at 12:14 PM
    If it wasn't that none of what you write has any connection to the fact; it sounds good. What right wing website did you copy-paste it from?
    RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to mrrunangun... , December 18, 2016 at 11:52 AM
    THANKS! We better get used to Republicans, at least until they "d'oh" their way out of political power just like the Democrats did. Democrats will never get it back on their own.

    DeDude -> im1dc..., December 18, 2016 at 11:52 AM

    I think there was a serious lack of IT competence in the DNC playing a big role. One being with the obvious incompetence of their cyber-security contractor and another the lack of supervision or procedures set for this person:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us/politics/russia-hack-election-dnc.html?_r=0

    I agree that the procedures and rules at the FBI could have been much better. Why the FBI agent didn't (or maybe (s)he did) send the information up higher in the chain (all the way to the President) is a bit of a mystery. Hacking of one of our two major parties should have been Presidential level info, or at least cabinet level.

    RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to DeDude... , December 18, 2016 at 12:25 PM
    How about the possibility of not even having any E-mails incriminating Democrats of political corruption? Would that have been to hard? I am not saying that they should not be corrupt, just don't put it in an E-mail for Christ's sake.
    RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to RC AKA Darryl, Ron... , December 18, 2016 at 12:37 PM
    [Interesting that Putin is the bad guy here for exposing the behavior of the DNC. Why so much talk of Russians and so little talk of what was in those Emails?]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Committee_email_leak

    2016 Democratic National Committee email leak

    The 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak is a collection of Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails leaked to and subsequently published by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016. This collection included 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments from the DNC, the governing body of the United States' Democratic Party.[1] The leak includes emails from seven key DNC staff members, and date from January 2015 to May 2016.[2] The leak prompted the resignation of DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz before the Democratic National Convention.[3] After the convention, DNC CEO Amy Dacey, CFO Brad Marshall, and Communications Director Luis Miranda also resigned in the wake of the controversy.[4]

    WikiLeaks did not reveal its source; a self-styled hacker going by the moniker Guccifer 2.0 claimed responsibility for the attack. On July 25, 2016, the FBI announced that it would investigate the hack[5][6][7][8][9][10][11] The same day, the DNC issued a formal apology to Bernie Sanders and his supporters, stating, "On behalf of everyone at the DNC, we want to offer a deep and sincere apology to Senator Sanders, his supporters, and the entire Democratic Party for the inexcusable remarks made over email," and that the emails did not reflect the DNC's "steadfast commitment to neutrality during the nominating process."[12] On November 6, 2016, WikiLeaks released a second batch of DNC emails, adding 8,263 emails to its collection.[13]

    On December 9, 2016, the CIA told U.S. legislators that the U.S. Intelligence Community concluded Russia conducted operations during the 2016 U.S. election to assist Donald Trump in winning the presidency.[14] Multiple U.S intelligence agencies concluded people with direct ties to the Kremlin gave WikiLeaks hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee...

    ...Bernie Sanders' campaign

    In the emails, DNC staffers derided the Sanders campaign.[45] The Washington Post reported: "Many of the most damaging emails suggest the committee was actively trying to undermine Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign. Basically, all of these examples came late in the primary-after Hillary Clinton was clearly headed for victory-but they belie the national party committee's stated neutrality in the race even at that late stage."[46]

    In a May 2016 email chain, the DNC chief financial officer (CFO) Brad Marshall told the DNC chief executive officer, Amy Dacy, that they should have someone from the media ask Sanders if he is an atheist prior to the West Virginia primary.[46][47] In another email, Wasserman Schultz said of Bernie Sanders, "He isn't going to be president."[45]

    On May 21, 2016, DNC National Press Secretary Mark Paustenbach sent an email to DNC Spokesman Luis Miranda mentioning a controversy that ensued in December 2015 when the National Data Director of the Sanders campaign and three subordinate staffers accessed the Clinton campaign's voter information on the NGP VAN database.[48] (The party accused Sanders' campaign of impropriety and briefly limited their access to the database. The Sanders campaign filed suit for breach of contract against the DNC; they dropped the suit on April 29, 2016.)[47][49][50] Paustenbach suggested that the incident could be used to promote a "narrative for a story, which is that Bernie never had his act together, that his campaign was a mess." (The suggestion was rejected by the DNC.) [46][47] The Washington Post wrote: "Paustenbach's suggestion, in that way, could be read as a defense of the committee rather than pushing negative information about Sanders. But this is still the committee pushing negative information about one of its candidates."...

    ...Financial and donor information

    The New York Times wrote that the cache included "thousands of emails exchanged by Democratic officials and party fund-raisers, revealing in rarely seen detail the elaborate, ingratiating and often bluntly transactional exchanges necessary to harvest hundreds of millions of dollars from the party's wealthy donor class. The emails capture a world where seating charts are arranged with dollar totals in mind, where a White House celebration of gay pride is a thinly disguised occasion for rewarding wealthy donors and where physical proximity to the president is the most precious of currencies."[60] As is common in national politics, large party donors "were the subject of entire dossiers, as fund-raisers tried to gauge their interests, annoyances and passions."[60]

    In a series of email exchanges in April and May 2016, DNC fundraising staff discussed and compiled a list of people (mainly donors) who might be appointed to federal boards and commissions.[61] Center for Responsive Politics senior fellow Bob Biersack noted that this is a longstanding practice in the United States: "Big donors have always risen to the top of lists for appointment to plum ambassadorships and other boards and commissions around the federal landscape."[61] The White House denied that financial support for the party was connected to board appointments, saying: "Being a donor does not get you a role in this administration, nor does it preclude you from getting one. We've said this for many years now and there's nothing in the emails that have been released that contradicts that."...

    RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to RC AKA Darryl, Ron... , December 18, 2016 at 12:41 PM
    That does not make Putin a good guy. I was not a fan of Snowden's either. But it is easier for me to avoid incriminating myself in Emails than it is to get a foreign leader half way around the world to not expose my self-incrimination if it is in his self-interest to do so and he has the resources to do so.
    RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to RC AKA Darryl, Ron... , December 18, 2016 at 12:52 PM
    We also need to think about what political parties actually are. Then are not government agencies or acting on behalf of government agencies or the people at large. Political parties are large private lobbying firms for a set of loosely affiliated private interests that promote an agenda and communications expressly triangulated to satisfy both their donor class and voting majority constituencies. They are more like corporations with owners, employees, and clients than any public entity.
    RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to RC AKA Darryl, Ron... , December 18, 2016 at 12:53 PM
    I probably should have said investors instead of owners to be more precise.
    DeDude -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron... , December 18, 2016 at 01:20 PM
    So a bunch of nothing burgers about how the sausage is made. You don't say that there is actually people in the DNC that have their own personal favorite among the primary candidates - shocking??? And campaign donations in exchange for the ability to gain influence -- almost half a chocking as the K-Street project - and a quarter as shocking as the revelation that donating to the Clinton foundation could NOT give the donors what they wanted from the State Department (what an absurdly incompetent scheme of corruption - how could we let her run the gobinment).

    I am sure that the Russian governments hack of the GOP didn't find anything like that - and that's the reason they didn't make those emails public.

    The general advice that you should not send anything by email that you don't want the public to know should have been headed by all involved. Maybe the DNC could learn from Hillary - who had > 30K emails examined and not a single one where she had said anything not good for public consumption.

    RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to DeDude... , December 18, 2016 at 02:38 PM
    "...Maybe the DNC could learn from Hillary - who had > 30K emails examined and not a single one where she had said anything not good for public consumption."

    [Now you are starting to come around.

    NO, I did not find anything in the Emails shocking. None of it was a surprise at all to me. However, it was enough for a lot of other people to be influenced in their voting (likely to stay home and maybe it helped the Green Party get a few more votes), otherwise no one would care that they were hacked.

    Observer's comment just down thread shows that he got it. Now he was not a Hillary supporter and more likely than not a Libertarian of sorts, but the principle here is universal, simple risk management where there was nothing to be gained and everything to lose.

    Also, going to war over the hacked Emails of any political party is probably off the table:<) Where Hillary made a mistake was making an enemy that had one of the worlds most aggressive state sponsored internet hacking programs (China and the US being the only ones that are more capable, but still less aggressive and more covert).]

    im1dc -> RC AKA Darryl, Ron... , December 18, 2016 at 05:18 PM
    You have exhaustively proven that there was no crime or wrong doing committed by the DNC or Hillary. Thanks. You have provided evidence that politics is politics and like sausage making you don't want to actually see it up close and personal.

    Nothing here, nothing at all.

    Except for Marshall McLuhan's observation that the media is the message. In this case the Russian leaked emails to Assange lead Wikileaks calculated to dribble out over the months and weeks before the November election to suggest there were illegalities and criminal behavior being covered up by Hillary and the DNC at EXACTLY the same time Donald Trump is jetting around the country telling everybody who listened that the election was rigged, Hillary is a crook, and the MSM was out to get him.

    Wow, how did you miss that and the implications derived from it?

    likbez -> im1dc... , December 18, 2016 at 05:41 PM
    Can you please explain to me why you are thinking that this was a hack, not a leak by an insider?

    One DNC staffer, 27-year-old Seth Rich, the DNC's director of voter expansion, was killed around this time in pretty strange circumstances. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/07/12/democratic-national-committee-staffer-shot-and-killed-in-washington.html

    Former British Ambassador and current Wikileaks operative Craig Murray recently said he has met the person who leaked DNC and Clinton campaign emails, and they aren't Russian.

    http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/bombshell-wikileaks-figure-says-insider-russia-hack/

    Or it can come from a dissident within the US agency that did have access to all emails.

    Do you remember such a person as Edward Snowden ? It might be very educational for you to read his opinion about this case:

    While he is highly critical of Wikileaks, he suggests that without NSA coming forward with hard data obtained via special program that uncover multiple levels of indirection, those charges are just propaganda and insinuations.

    And BTW after the fact it is usually impossible to discover who obtained the information, as they use multiple levels of indirection and Russia might be just one of those indirection levels. Use of Russian IP-space or Russian IPS might be just an attempt to create a false trail and to implicate a wrong party.

    As in any complex case you should not jump to conclusions so easily.

    ilsm -> im1dc... , -1
    Nothing Ron says is clearing. The e-mail thing is about safeguarding and preserving public records. The content of mishandled records is not an issue.

    The public demanded to know what government does. Congress passed the federal records act. The crime has nothing to do with content.

    That is one felony Comey could complain about justice whitewashing. The elements of friendly information released must never be discussed, that would make the breeches worse. Except in closed, secure rooms with no electronic bugging devices.

    Clinton would have been impeached!

    [Dec 18, 2016] The US medias neo-McCarthyite campaign for war against Russia by Andre Damon

    Notable quotes:
    "... These allegations were followed Wednesday by a press briefing in which White House spokesman Josh Earnest declared that media outfits in the US, in reporting on the Democratic Party emails released by WikiLeaks, "essentially became the arms of Russian intelligence." ..."
    "... Later that day, President Obama threatened to retaliate against Russia, telling National Public Radio, "I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections, that we need to take action and we will." ..."
    "... The Times followed up its inflammatory article with an editorial Thursday all but accusing the president-elect of acting as a Russian agent. ..."
    "... There are bitter and raging conflicts within the state, and a faction of the military-intelligence apparatus is determined that there be no retreat from an aggressive confrontation with Russia. This is connected to anger over the debacle of the CIA-led regime-change operation in Syria. ..."
    "... Bound up with this internecine conflict within the ruling class, there is a concerted effort to politically bludgeon the American people into supporting further military escalation, both in the Middle East and against Russia itself. ..."
    Dec 18, 2016 | www.defenddemocracy.press

    The American population is being subjected to a furious barrage of propaganda by the media and political establishment aimed at paving the way to war.

    The campaign was sharply escalated this week, beginning with Wednesday's publication of a lead article in the New York Times . Based entirely on unnamed sources and flimsy and concocted evidence, it was presented as definitive proof of Russia's hacking of Democratic Party emails and waging of "cyberwar" against the United States.

    These allegations were followed Wednesday by a press briefing in which White House spokesman Josh Earnest declared that media outfits in the US, in reporting on the Democratic Party emails released by WikiLeaks, "essentially became the arms of Russian intelligence."

    On Thursday, Earnest declared that president-elect Trump had encouraged "Russia to hack his opponent because he believed it would help his campaign." Later that day, President Obama threatened to retaliate against Russia, telling National Public Radio, "I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections, that we need to take action and we will."

    These warmongering comments by the Obama administration were accompanied by editorials in leading US and international newspapers denouncing Trump's accommodative stance toward Russia and clamoring for a more aggressive response to the alleged hacking. News reports, based on unnamed intelligence officials, breathlessly proclaim that Russian President Vladimir Putin directly ordered and oversaw the hacking.

    The Times followed up its inflammatory article with an editorial Thursday all but accusing the president-elect of acting as a Russian agent. "There could be no more 'useful idiot,' to use Lenin's term of art, than an American president who doesn't know he's being played by a wily foreign power," the Times declared. The editorial further defined Russia as "one of our oldest, most determined foreign adversaries," adding, "Kremlin meddling in the 2016 election" justifies "retaliatory measures."

    The declarations by the Times and other media outlets combine all of the noxious elements of 1950s McCarthyism, with capitalist Russia replacing the Soviet Union: hysterical denunciation of "wily" Russia, shameless lying and attacks on domestic opponents as spies, traitors and agents of foreign governments.

    There are bitter and raging conflicts within the state, and a faction of the military-intelligence apparatus is determined that there be no retreat from an aggressive confrontation with Russia. This is connected to anger over the debacle of the CIA-led regime-change operation in Syria. Trump has packed his cabinet with generals and is planning a massive escalation of war, but he has also indicated a preference for greater accommodation with Russia.

    Bound up with this internecine conflict within the ruling class, there is a concerted effort to politically bludgeon the American people into supporting further military escalation, both in the Middle East and against Russia itself.

    The propaganda campaign alleging Russian interference in the US election parallels a related media blitzkrieg claiming that Syrian government troops, backed by Russia, are carrying out massacres as they retake the Syrian city of Aleppo.

    The Times ' lead editorial on Thursday, titled "Aleppo's Destroyers: Assad, Putin, Iran," declares: "After calling on Mr. Assad to 'step aside' in 2011, Mr. Obama was never able to make it happen, and it may never have been in his power to make it happen, at least at a cost acceptable to the American people." The front-page lead of Thursday's Times bemoans the fact that efforts to whip up public support for US military intervention in Syria have "not resonated" as much as previous propaganda campaigns.

    The international press has joined in the hysteria. An op-ed in Germany's Der Spiegel bitterly complains that "Obama sought a diplomatic, not a military solution" to the crisis in Syria. It "made him popular, both in the United States and here [in Germany]," the piece states, but adds that such "self-righteousness is wrong."

    Such media propaganda campaigns are not new. Without exception, they have preceded every bloody military adventure: the attempts to blame Afghanistan for the September 11 terrorist attacks in the run-up to that country's invasion in 2001; the lying claims about "weapons of mass destruction" before the 2003 invasion of Iraq; and the reports of an imminent massacre of civilians in Benghazi that preceded the US bombing and destruction of Libya in 2011.

    The difference now, however, is that this campaign is directed not at a virtually defenseless and impoverished former colony, but at Russia, the world's second-ranked nuclear power. None of the figures carrying out this campaign care to explain how a war against Russia should be fought, how many people will die, and how such a war could avoid a nuclear exchange leading to the destruction of human civilization.

    Behind the banner headlines and vituperative editorials, real steps are being taken to prepare for warfare on a scale not seen for 60 years. Earlier this year, US Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley told the Association of the United States Army that the military must prepare for wars against great powers, which will be "very highly lethal, unlike anything our Army has experienced since World War II."

    The campaign that has developed over the past two weeks makes clear what the policy of a Clinton administration would have been. The Democratic Party and its allied media outlets have rooted their opposition to Trump not on the basis of his losing the popular vote by nearly three million ballots, or that he is appointing a cabinet dominated by right-wing, reactionary billionaires, bankers, business executives and generals, but on the charge that he is "soft" on Russia. That is, the Democratic Party has managed to attack Trump from the right.

    Whatever the outcome of the conflict within the state, the American ruling class is preparing for war. The dissolution of the USSR 25 years ago was greeted with enraptured declarations of an era of perpetual peace, in which a world under the unrivaled hegemony of the United States would be free of the wars that plagued mankind in the 20th century. Now, after a quarter century of bloody regional conflicts, the blood-curdling declarations of the press make it clear that a new world war is in the making.

    Among broad sections of workers and young people, there is deep skepticism toward government lies and hostility to war. However, this opposition can find no reflection within any faction of the political establishment. The building of a new anti-war movement, based on the international unity of the working class in opposition to capitalism and all the political parties of the ruling class, is the urgent task.

    Andre Damon

    [Dec 18, 2016] Two more states confirm election hacks traced to US government

    "Oh dear. How are they going to keep their 'Putin did it' story straight if they keep shooting themselves in the foot like this?"
    www.sott.net

    Last week we reported that the State of Georgia had traced an attempted break-in to its voter registration database to none other than the famous Russian government agency, the Department of Homeland Security.

    Now it has been revealed that Kentucky and West Virginia "have confirmed suspected cyberattacks linked to the same U.S. Department of Homeland Security IP address as last month's massive attack in Georgia". There must be some way to blame Moscow:

    While there could be an "innocent" explanation for such attacks (testing network security, for example), the Department of Homeland Security did not inform any of these states - before or after the attacks - that they had been conducted, for security-checking purposes or otherwise. In other words: These states still don't know why DHS targeted, and they're still waiting for an answer:

    In the past week, the Georgia Secretary of State's Office has confirmed 10 separate cyberattacks on its network over the past 10 months that were traced back to DHS addresses.

    "We're being told something that they think they have it figured out, yet nobody's really showed us how this happened," Kemp said. "We need to know."

    He says the new information from the two other states presents even more reason to be concerned.

    "So now this just raises more questions that haven't been answered about this and continues to raise the alarms and concern that I have," Kemp said.
    Georgia's Secretary of State says he has already sent an appeal to the incoming Trump administration, asking for assistance in resolving this bizarre string of cyber attacks.

    Stay tuned.

    [Dec 18, 2016] Revealed! Putin personally hacked DNC from surveillance aircraft with bear on board

    Notable quotes:
    "... Washington Post ..."
    "... Danielle Ryan is an Irish freelance writer, journalist and media analyst. She has lived and traveled extensively in the US, Germany, Russia and Hungary. Her byline has appeared at RT, The Nation, Rethinking Russia, The BRICS Post, New Eastern Outlook, Global Independent Analytics and many others. She also works on copywriting and editing projects. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook or at her website www.danielleryan.net. ..."
    Dec 18, 2016 | www.rt.com
    Danielle Ryan
    RT
    Sat, 17 Dec 2016 21:42 UTC Map © Alexey Nikolsky / Reuters Shocking revelations earlier this week as US intelligence officials confirmed with "high confidence" that Russian President Vladimir Putin was "personally involved" in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee.

    According to the anonymous sources inside the anonymous US intelligence agency, Putin's objectives were multifaceted, but the whole thing began as a "vendetta" against Hillary Clinton because she said some mean things about him a few times. Putin is also an "immature 12 year-old child," a former US official with links to the defense industry, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed (with high confidence).

    The high level, anonymous and completely trustworthy sources also told a major US news agency that Putin himself had piloted a specially-designed Russian spy plane across the Atlantic to personally direct the still-ongoing hacking operations from the air.

    via GIPHY
    Satellite images seen by a separate anonymous NASA whistleblower are believed to show Putin in the cockpit of the spy plane alongside his co-pilot Boris, a lifelike robotic bear which has been under secret development in the depths of Siberia and has been programmed to attack Putin's enemies on command using a variety of lethal methods.

    The NASA whistleblower did not provide journalists with photographic evidence, but the editors had a chat about it in their morning meeting and concluded that it's probably still true.

    In fact, the American news agency could not verify any of the claims from the officials who commented for the story, but given that their sources used the term "high confidence" they took this to mean the evidence must be "nearly incontrovertible" and relayed the information to the public with this implication. An understandable decision, since, as we all know, only 100 percent factual information is ever released by anonymous intelligence officials.

    Okay, let's rewind. Obviously that bit about the bear and the plane was fake news. And maybe a few other bits, too. But it all demonstrates a point. I've provided you with about the same amount of evidence as NBC has in its story this week claiming Putin personally rigged the US election: I made some allegations, I cited anonymous sources and then I conveyed it to you readers as "nearly incontrovertible" and suggested no further digging or investigation, or even a bit of healthy skepticism, was necessary.

    Journalism is dying

    There was a time when journalists needed more than 'maybes' and 'probablys' before deciding what their sources told them was "incontrovertible" and delivering half-baked conspiracy theories to the public. That time has apparently long gone.

    Imagine for a moment that RT published a story about, oh, let's say Barack Obama personally hacking into Putin's computer. Now imagine the only evidence RT provided was "anonymous FSB officials" and told its readers the story was therefore practically indisputable because these anonymous sources were "confident" in the legitimacy of their secret evidence. Imagine the laughs that would get from sneering Western journalists. Well, that's pretty much exactly what NBC did. And they're not alone. The Washington Post has been at it too, reporting on a "secret" CIA assessment that Russia worked to get Donald Trump elected, quoting anonymous "top officials" and like NBC, providing no evidence.

    Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but for something to be presented to the public as indisputable fact, there must be evidence made available to back it up. Neither the CIA or the FBI have provided any such evidence to the public.

    Perhaps the saddest thing though is having to acknowledge that all our debates over fake news and real news really don't matter because the very people we are told to trust are the people who will most adeptly use the public's concerns over fake news to manipulate them. The CIA, for example, is hardly known for its long history of telling the truth. Its employees are literally trained in the art of deception and disinformation. They are hardly averse to creating a bit of fake news or making up 'evidence' where needed. Anything they say or do can be forgiven once someone utters the words "national security".

    NBC's story claimed Putin not only wanted to embarrass Clinton with the DNC leaks, but to highlight corruption in the American political system; the emails showing, for example, how the DNC colluded with the Clinton campaign to ensure Clinton, not Bernie Sanders, would be the Democratic nominee.

    Now, what better way to encourage people to ignore the corruption in the system than to focus their attention on the idea that Putin is the one who told them about it? Are people really reading these stories and convincing themselves that the CIA is the most credible source of public information on what the Russians are doing?

    Clinton's long-shot

    We've been hearing about Russian hacking for months, long before the election results in November, so why the sudden confidence in all this new and secret evidence? Why the new assertions that Putin himself directed the hacking? Look at your calendar. The Electoral College votes on Monday and it may be Clinton's last hope. It's a long shot, but in true Clinton character, she won't go down without a fight to the last gasp. Her best hope is to convince the Electoral College that Trump's win was influenced by a foreign power, is therefore illegitimate and that national security will be at stake if he takes office.

    Amazingly, in the midst of all this, while Clinton's camp is still trying to get her elected through back-door tactics, Obama has pretty much called the election results legitimate .

    Members of the Electoral College are expected to vote the way their states voted, but they are not required to. If Clinton can get enough members to flip their votes, Trump is deprived of the 270 votes he needs to become president. That's what this is really all about - and the media is serving as Clinton's willing accomplice.

    Danielle Ryan is an Irish freelance writer, journalist and media analyst. She has lived and traveled extensively in the US, Germany, Russia and Hungary. Her byline has appeared at RT, The Nation, Rethinking Russia, The BRICS Post, New Eastern Outlook, Global Independent Analytics and many others. She also works on copywriting and editing projects. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook or at her website www.danielleryan.net.

    [Dec 17, 2016] You think Putin personally supervised the Yahoo hacking? This could make many people patriotic in a hurry.

    Notable quotes:
    "... this will probably be in tomorrow's washington post. "how putin sabotaged the election by hacking yahoo mail". and "proton" and "putin" are 2 syllable words beginning with "p", which is dispositive according to experts who don't want to be indentified. ..."
    "... [Neo]Liberals have gone truly insane, I made the mistake of trying to slog through the comments the main "putin did it" piece on huffpo out of curiosity. Big mistake, liberals come across as right wing nutters in the comments, I never knew they were so very patriotic, they never really expressed it before. ..."
    "... Be sure and delete everything from your Yahoo account BEFORE you push the big red button. They intentionally wait 90 days to delete the account in order that ECPA protections expire and content can just be handed over to the fuzz. ..."
    "... It's a good thing for Obama that torturing logic and evasive droning are not criminal acts. ..."
    "... "Relations with Russia have declined over the past several years" I reflexively did a Google search. Yep, Victoria Nuland is still employed. ..."
    "... With all the concern expressed about Russian meddling in our election process why are we forgetting the direct quid pro quo foreign meddling evidenced in the Hillary emails related to the seldom mentioned Clinton Foundation or the more likely meddling by local election officials? Why have the claims of Russian hacking received such widespread coverage in the Press? ..."
    "... I watched it too and agree with your take on it. For all the build up about this press conference and how I thought we were going to engage in direct combat with Russia for these hacks (or so they say it is Russia, I still wonder about that), he did not add any fuel to this fire. ..."
    "... The whole thing was silly – the buildup to this press conference and then how Obama handled the hacking. A waste of time really. I don't sense something is going on behind the scenes but it is weird that the news has been all about this Russian hacking. He did not get into the questions about the Electoral College either and he made it seem like Trump indeed is the next President. I mean it seems like the MSM was making too much about this issue but then nothing happened. ..."
    Dec 17, 2016 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
    pretzelattack , December 16, 2016 at 3:46 pm

    this will probably be in tomorrow's washington post. "how putin sabotaged the election by hacking yahoo mail". and "proton" and "putin" are 2 syllable words beginning with "p", which is dispositive according to experts who don't want to be indentified.

    HBE , December 16, 2016 at 4:13 pm

    [Neo]Liberals have gone truly insane, I made the mistake of trying to slog through the comments the main "putin did it" piece on huffpo out of curiosity. Big mistake, liberals come across as right wing nutters in the comments, I never knew they were so very patriotic, they never really expressed it before.

    B1whois , December 16, 2016 at 6:45 pm

    The great sucking pit of need that keeps on giving. when will it abate?

    different clue , December 16, 2016 at 6:49 pm

    They are only hurt at the loss of their beloved Clintron, and are seizing on the Puttin Diddit excuse.

    polecat , December 16, 2016 at 7:45 pm

    Did they happen to offer you some Guyana Kool-Aid with that order of vitriol ?

    Brad , December 16, 2016 at 10:26 pm

    Unfortunately the whole "grief cycle" will get a reboot after next Monday's "Election II".

    The rest of us are to be pissed off that the CIA and Clinton clique have continued to agiprop this.

    Knot Galt , December 16, 2016 at 10:48 pm

    Since the ex-Correct The Record key jockeys are out of a job they have to practice their craft somewhere.

    hunkerdown , December 16, 2016 at 5:23 pm

    Be sure and delete everything from your Yahoo account BEFORE you push the big red button. They intentionally wait 90 days to delete the account in order that ECPA protections expire and content can just be handed over to the fuzz.

    auntienene , December 16, 2016 at 8:07 pm

    I don't think I've looked at my yahoo account in 8-10 years and I didn't use their email; just had an address. I don't remember my user name or password. I did get an email from them (to my not-yahoo address) advising of the breach.

    Do I need to do anything at all?

    hunkerdown , December 16, 2016 at 8:22 pm

    auntienene, probably not, but as a general principle it's better to close accounts down properly than to abandon them.

    Tvc15 , December 16, 2016 at 10:50 pm

    I was amazed as I watched a local am news show in Pittsburgh recommend adding your cell phone number in addition to changing your password. Yeah, that's a great idea, maybe my ss# would provide even more security.

    Jeremy Grimm , December 16, 2016 at 4:30 pm

    I use yahoo email. Why should I move? As I understood the breach it was primarily a breach of the personal information used to establish the account. I've already changed my password - did it a couple of days after the breach was reported. I had a security clearance with DoD which requires disclosure of a lot more personal information than yahoo had. The DoD data has been breached twice from two separate servers.

    As far as reading my emails - they may prove useful for phishing but that's about all. I'm not sure what might be needed for phishing beyond a name and email address - easily obtained from many sources I have no control over.

    So - what am I vulnerable to by remaining at yahoo that I'm not already exposed to on a more secure server?

    polecat , December 16, 2016 at 7:53 pm

    You are vulnerable to the knowledge that Marissa Mayer is STILL employed as a high-level corporate twit --

    Lee , December 16, 2016 at 3:05 pm

    It's a good thing for Obama that torturing logic and evasive droning are not criminal acts.

    Ranger Rick , December 16, 2016 at 3:12 pm

    "Relations with Russia have declined over the past several years" I reflexively did a Google search. Yep, Victoria Nuland is still employed.

    Pat , December 16, 2016 at 3:32 pm

    Yeah, it isn't like Mr. 'We go high' is going to admit our relationship has declined because we have underhandedly tried to isolate and knee cap them for pretty much his entire administration.

    Jeremy Grimm , December 16, 2016 at 4:44 pm

    Are you referring to Obama's press conference? If so, I am glad he didn't make a big deal out of the Russian hacking allegations - as in it didn't sound like he planned a retaliation for the fictional event and its fictional consequences. He rose slightly in stature in my eyes - he's almost as tall as a short flea.

    With all the concern expressed about Russian meddling in our election process why are we forgetting the direct quid pro quo foreign meddling evidenced in the Hillary emails related to the seldom mentioned Clinton Foundation or the more likely meddling by local election officials? Why have the claims of Russian hacking received such widespread coverage in the Press?

    Why is a lameduck messing with the Chinese in the South China sea? What is the point of all the "fake" news hogwash? Is it related to Obama's expression of concern about the safety of the Internet? I can't shake the feeling that something is going on below the surface of these murky waters.

    Susan C , December 16, 2016 at 5:44 pm

    I watched it too and agree with your take on it. For all the build up about this press conference and how I thought we were going to engage in direct combat with Russia for these hacks (or so they say it is Russia, I still wonder about that), he did not add any fuel to this fire.

    He did respond at one point to a reporter that the hacks from Russia were to the DNC and Podesta but funny how he didn't say HRC emails. Be it as it may, I think what was behind it was HRC really trying to impress all her contributors that Russia really did do her in, see Obama said so, since she must be in hot water over all the money she has collected from foreign governments for pay to play and her donors.

    The whole thing was silly – the buildup to this press conference and then how Obama handled the hacking. A waste of time really. I don't sense something is going on behind the scenes but it is weird that the news has been all about this Russian hacking. He did not get into the questions about the Electoral College either and he made it seem like Trump indeed is the next President. I mean it seems like the MSM was making too much about this issue but then nothing happened.

    Pat , December 16, 2016 at 7:02 pm

    Unfortunately the nightly news is focusing on Obama says Russia hacked the DNC and had it in for Clinton!!! He warned them to stay out of the vote! There will be consequences! Russia demands the evidence and then a story about the evidence. (This one might have a few smarter people going "huh, that's it?!?!")

    I do like the some private some public on that consequences and retaliation thing. You either have to laugh or throw up about the faux I've got this and the real self-righteousness. Especially since it is supposedly to remind people we can do it to you. Is there anyone left outside of America who doesn't think they already do do it to anyone Uncle Sam doesn't want in office and even some they do? Mind you I'm not sure how many harried people watching the news are actually going to laugh at that one because they don't know how how much we meddle.

    Knot Galt , December 16, 2016 at 10:55 pm

    Obamameter. ty L. Scofield ;-)

    [Dec 17, 2016] Paul Krugman Useful Idiots Galore

    Notable quotes:
    "... Shorter Paul Krugman: nobody acted more irresponsibly in the last election than the New York Times. ..."
    "... Looks like Putin recruited the NYT, the FBI and the DNC. ..."
    "... Dr. Krugman is feeding this "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality. He comes across as increasingly shrill and even unhinged - it's a slide he's been taking for years IMO, which is a big shame. ..."
    "... It is downright irresponsible and dangerous for a major public intellectual with so little information to cast the shadow of legitimacy on a president ("And it means not acting as if this was a normal election whose result gives the winner any kind of a mandate, or indeed any legitimacy beyond the bare legal requirements.") This kind of behavior is EXACTLY what TRUMP and other authoritarians exhibit - using pieces of information to discredit institutions and individuals. Since foreign governments have and will continue to try to influence U.S. policy through increasingly sophisticated means, this opens the door for anyone to declare our elections and policies as illegitimate in the future. ..."
    "... Any influence Russian hacking had was entirely a consequence of U.S. media obsession with celebrity, gotcha and horse race trivia and two-party red state/blue state tribalism. ..."
    "... Without the preceding, neither Trump nor Clinton would have been contenders in the first place. Putin didn't invent super delegates, Citizens United, Fox News, talk radio, Goldman-Sachs, etc. etc. etc. If Putin exploited vulnerabilities, it is because preserving those vulnerabilities was more important to the elites than fostering a democratic political culture. ..."
    "... It's not a "coup". It's an election result that didn't go the way a lot of people want. That's it. It's probably not optimal, but I'm pretty sure that democracy isn't supposed to produce optimal results. ..."
    "... All this talk about "coups" and "illegitimacy" is nuts, and -- true to Dem practice -- incredibly short-sighted. For many, voting for Trump was an available way to say to those people, "We don't believe you any more. At all." Seen in that light, it is a profoundly democratic (small 'd') response to elites that have most consistently served only themselves. ..."
    "... Post Truth is Pre-Fascism. The party that thinks your loyalty is suspect unless you wear a flag pin fuels itself on Post Truth. Isnt't this absurdity the gist of Obama's Russia comments today!?! ..."
    "... Unless the Russians or someone else hacked the ballot box machines, it is our own damn fault. ..."
    "... The ship of neo-liberal trade sailed in the mid-2000's. That you don't get that is sad. You can only milk that so far the cow had been milked. ..."
    "... The people of the United States did not have much to choose between: Either a servant of the Plutocrats or a member of the Plutocratic class. The Dems brought this on us when they refused to play fair with Bernie. (Hillary would almost certainly have won the nomination anyway.) ..."
    "... The Repubs brought this on, by refusing to govern. The media brought this on: I seem to remember Hillary's misfeasances, once nominated, festering in the media, while Trump's were mentioned, and then disappeared. (Correct me if I'm wrong in this.) Also, the media downplayed Bernie until he had no real chance. ..."
    "... The government brought this on, by failing to pursue justice against the bankers, and failing to represent the people, especially the majority who have been screwed by trade and the plutocratic elite and their apologists. ..."
    "... The educational system brought this on, by failing to educate the people to critical thought. For instance: 1) The wealthy run the country. 2) The wealthy have been doing very well. 3) Everybody else has not. It seems most people cannot draw the obvious conclusion. ..."
    "... Krugman is himself one of those most useful idiots. I do not recall his clarion call to Democrats last spring that "FBI investigation" and "party Presidential nominee" was bound to be an ugly combination. Some did; right here as I recall. Or his part in the official "don't vote for third party" week in the Clinton media machine....thanks, hundreds of thousands of Trump votes got the message. ..."
    "... It's too rich to complain about Russia and Wikileaks as if those elements in anyway justified Clinton becoming President. Leaks mess with our democracy? Then for darn sure do not vote for a former Sec. of State willing to use a home server for her official business. Russia is menacing? Just who has been managing US-Russia relations the past 8 years? I voted for her anyway, but the heck if I think some tragic fate has befell the nation here. Republicans picked a better candidate to win this thing than we Democrats did. ..."
    "... The truth of the matter is that Clinton was a very weak candidate with nothing to offer but narcissism ("I'm with her"). It's notable that Clinton has still not accepted responsibility for her campaign, preferring to throw the blame for the loss anywhere but herself. Sociopathy much? ..."
    Dec 17, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com
    Monetas Tuas Requiro -> kthomas... , December 16, 2016 at 05:10 PM
    The secret story of how American advisers helped Yeltsin win

    http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19960715,00.html

    JohnH -> Dan Kervick... , December 16, 2016 at 11:46 AM
    PK seems to be a bitter old man...
    anne -> sanjait... , December 16, 2016 at 03:08 PM
    Nothing to see here, say the useful idiots.

    [ I find it terrifying, simply terrifying, to refer to people as "useful idiots" after all the personal destruction that has followed when the expression was specifically used in the past.

    To me, using such an expression is an honored economist intent on becoming Joseph McCarthy. ]

    anne -> anne... , December 16, 2016 at 03:15 PM
    To demean a person as though the person were a communist or a fool of communists or the like, with all the personal harm that has historically brought in this country, is cruel beyond my understanding or imagining.

    "Useful Idiots Galore," terrifying.

    Necesito Dinero Tuyo -> anne... , December 16, 2016 at 05:25 PM
    Dale : , December 16, 2016 at 10:51 AM
    trouble is that his mind reflects an accurate perception of our common reality.
    Procopius -> Dale... , December 17, 2016 at 02:37 AM
    Well, not really. For example he referred to "the close relationship between Wikileaks and Russian intelligence." But Wikileaks is a channel. They don't seek out material. They rely on people to bring material to them. They supposedly make an effort to verify that the material is not a forgery, but aside from that what they release is what people bring to them. Incidentally, like so many people you seem to not care whether the material is accurate or not -- Podesta and the DNC have not claimed that any of the emails are different from what they sent.
    Tom aka Rusty : , December 16, 2016 at 11:06 AM
    PK's head explodes!

    One thought....

    When politicians and business executives and economists cuddle up to the totalitarian Chinese it is viewed as an act of enlightment and progress.

    When someone cuddles up to the authoritarian thug Putin it is an act of evil.

    Seems a bit of a double standard.

    We are going to have to do "business" with both the Chinese and the Russians, whoever is president.

    Ben Groves -> Tom aka Rusty... , December 16, 2016 at 11:07 AM
    Your head should explode considering Trump's deal with the "establishment" in July was brokered by foreign agents.
    ilsm -> Ben Groves... , December 16, 2016 at 04:11 PM
    curiouser and curiouser! while Obama and administration arm jihadis and call its support for jihadis funded by al Qaeda a side in a civil war.

    the looking glass you all went through.

    Trump has more convictions than any democrat

    ... ... ...

    Tom aka Rusty -> kthomas... , December 16, 2016 at 01:36 PM
    In a theatre of the absurd sort of way.
    dilbert dogbert -> Tom aka Rusty... , December 16, 2016 at 12:11 PM
    One thought:
    Only Nixon can go to China.
    anne -> sanjait... , December 16, 2016 at 03:22 PM
    Putin is a murderous thug...

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/23/opinion/david-brooks-snap-out-of-it.html

    September 22, 2014

    Snap Out of It
    By David Brooks

    President Vladimir Putin of Russia, a lone thug sitting atop a failing regime....

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/22/opinion/thomas-friedman-putin-and-the-pope.html

    October 21, 2014

    Putin and the Pope
    By Thomas L. Friedman

    One keeps surprising us with his capacity for empathy, the other by how much he has become a first-class jerk and thug....

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/opinion/sunday/thomas-l-friedman-whos-playing-marbles-now.html

    December 20, 2014

    Who's Playing Marbles Now?
    By Thomas L. Friedman

    Let us not mince words: Vladimir Putin is a delusional thug....

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/22/opinion/paul-krugman-putin-neocons-and-the-great-illusion.html

    December 21, 2014

    Conquest Is for Losers: Putin, Neocons and the Great Illusion
    By Paul Krugman

    Remember, he's an ex-K.G.B. man - which is to say, he spent his formative years as a professional thug....

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/28/opinion/thomas-friedman-czar-putins-next-moves.html

    January 27, 2015

    Czar Putin's Next Moves
    By Thomas L. Friedman

    ZURICH - If Putin the Thug gets away with crushing Ukraine's new democratic experiment and unilaterally redrawing the borders of Europe, every pro-Western country around Russia will be in danger....

    anne -> anne... , December 16, 2016 at 03:23 PM
    Putin is a murderous thug...

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/16/world/middleeast/white-house-split-on-opening-talks-with-putin.html

    September 15, 2015

    Obama Weighing Talks With Putin on Syrian Crisis
    By PETER BAKER and ANDREW E. KRAMER

    WASHINGTON - Mr. Obama views Mr. Putin as a thug, according to advisers and analysts....

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/opinion/mr-putins-mixed-messages-on-syria.html

    September 20, 2015

    Mr. Putin's Mixed Messages on Syria

    Mr. Obama considers Mr. Putin a thug, his advisers say....

    Gibbon1 -> anne... , December 16, 2016 at 07:15 PM
    > By David Brooks
    > By Thomas L. Friedman
    > By Paul Krugman
    > By Peter Baker and Andrew E. Kramer

    I feel these authors have intentionally attempted to mislead in the past. They also studiously ignore the United States thuggish foreign policy.

    Sandwichman : , December 16, 2016 at 11:06 AM
    "...not acting as if this was a normal election..." The problem is that it WAS a "normal" U.S. election.
    Ben Groves -> Sandwichman ... , December 16, 2016 at 11:09 AM
    Yup, like the other elections, the bases stayed solvent and current events factored into the turnout and voting patterns which spurred the independent vote.
    Gibbon1 -> Ben Groves... , December 16, 2016 at 11:57 AM
    When people were claiming Clinton was going to win big, I thought no Republican and Democratic voters are going to pull the lever like a trained monkey as usual. Only difference in this election was Hillary's huge negatives due entirely by her and Bill Clinton's support for moving manufacturing jobs to Mexico and China in the 90s.
    dilbert dogbert -> Sandwichman ... , December 16, 2016 at 12:13 PM
    I would have thought in a "normal" murika and election, the drumpf would have gotten at most 10 million votes.
    Sandwichman -> dilbert dogbert... , December 16, 2016 at 01:54 PM
    The trouble with normal is it always gets worse.
    Fred C. Dobbs : , December 16, 2016 at 11:08 AM
    To Understand Trump, Learn Russian http://nyti.ms/2hLcrB1
    NYT - Andrew Rosenthal - December 15

    The Russian language has two words for truth - a linguistic quirk that seems relevant to our current political climate, especially because of all the disturbing ties between the newly elected president and the Kremlin.

    The word for truth in Russian that most Americans know is "pravda" - the truth that seems evident on the surface. It's subjective and infinitely malleable, which is why the Soviet Communists called their party newspaper "Pravda." Despots, autocrats and other cynical politicians are adept at manipulating pravda to their own ends.

    But the real truth, the underlying, cosmic, unshakable truth of things is called "istina" in Russian. You can fiddle with the pravda all you want, but you can't change the istina.

    For the Trump team, the pravda of the 2016 election is that not all Trump voters are explicitly racist. But the istina of the 2016 campaign is that Trump's base was heavily dependent on racists and xenophobes, Trump basked in and stoked their anger and hatred, and all those who voted for him cast a ballot for a man they knew to be a racist, sexist xenophobe. That was an act of racism.

    Trump's team took to Twitter with lightning speed recently to sneer at the conclusion by all 17 intelligence agencies that the Kremlin hacked Democratic Party emails for the specific purpose of helping Trump and hurting Hillary Clinton. Trump said the intelligence agencies got it wrong about Iraq, and that someone else could have been responsible for the hack and that the Democrats were just finding another excuse for losing.

    The istina of this mess is that powerful evidence suggests that the Russians set out to interfere in American politics, and that Trump, with his rejection of Western European alliances and embrace of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, was their chosen candidate.

    The pravda of Trump's selection of Rex Tillerson, head of Exxon Mobil, as secretary of state is that by choosing an oil baron who has made billions for his company by collaborating with Russia, Trump will make American foreign policy beholden to American corporate interests.

    That's bad enough, but the istina is far worse. For one thing, American foreign policy has been in thrall to American corporate interests since, well, since there were American corporations. Just look at the mess this country created in Latin America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and the Middle East to serve American companies.

    Yes, Tillerson has ignored American interests repeatedly, including in Russia and Iraq, and has been trying to remove sanctions imposed after Russia's seizure of Crimea because they interfered with one of his many business deals. But take him out of the equation in the Trump cabinet and nothing changes. Trump has made it plain, with every action he takes, that he is going to put every facet of policy, domestic and foreign, at the service of corporate America. The istina here is that Tillerson is just a symptom of a much bigger problem.

    The pravda is that Trump was right in saying that the intelligence agencies got it wrong about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction.

    But the istina is that Trump's contempt for the intelligence services is profound and dangerous. He's not getting daily intelligence briefings anymore, apparently because they are just too dull to hold his attention.

    And now we know that Condoleezza Rice was instrumental in bringing Tillerson to Trump's attention. As national security adviser and then secretary of state for president George W. Bush, Rice was not just wrong about Iraq, she helped fabricate the story that Hussein had nuclear weapons.

    Trump and Tillerson clearly think they are a match for the wily and infinitely dangerous Putin, but as they move foward with their plan to collaborate with Russia instead of opposing its imperialist tendencies, they might keep in mind another Russian saying, this one from Lenin.

    "There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience," he wrote. "A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel."

    Putin has that philosophy hard-wired into his political soul. When it comes to using scoundrels to get what he wants, he is a professional, and Trump is only an amateur. That is the istina of the matter.

    Fred C. Dobbs -> Fred C. Dobbs... , December 16, 2016 at 11:25 AM
    If nothing else, Russia - with a notably un-free press - has shrewdly used our own 'free press' against US.

    RUSSIA'S UNFREE PRESS

    The Boston Globe - Marshall Goldman - January 29, 2001

    AS THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION DEBATES ITS POLICY TOWARD RUSSIA, FREEDOM OF THE PRESS SHOULD BE ONE OF ITS MAJOR CONCERNS. UNDER PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN THE PRESS IS FREE ONLY AS LONG AS IT DOES NOT CRITICIZE PUTIN OR HIS POLICIES. WHEN NTV, THE TELEVISION NETWORK OF THE MEDIA GIANT MEDIA MOST, REFUSED TO PULL ITS PUNCHES, MEDIA MOST'S OWNER, VLADIMIR GUSINSKY, FOUND HIMSELF IN JAIL, AND GAZPROM, A COMPANY DOMINATED BY THE STATE, BEGAN TO CALL IN LOANS TO MEDIA MOST. Unfortunately, Putin's actions are applauded by more than 70 percent of the Russian people. They crave a strong and forceful leader; his KGB past and conditioned KGB responses are just what they seem to want after what many regard as the social, political, and economic chaos of the last decade.

    But what to the Russians is law and order (the "dictatorship of the law," as Putin has so accurately put it) looks more and more like an old Soviet clampdown to many Western observers.

    There is no complaint about Putin's promises. He tells everyone he wants freedom of the press. But in the context of his KGB heritage, his notion of freedom of the press is something very different. In an interview with the Toronto Globe and Mail, he said that that press freedom excludes the "hooliganism" or "uncivilized" reporting he has to deal with in Moscow. By that he means criticism, especially of his conduct of the war in Chechnya, his belated response to the sinking of the Kursk, and the heavy-handed way in which he has pushed aside candidates for governor in regional elections if they are not to Putin's liking.

    He does not take well to criticism. When asked by the relatives of those lost in the Kursk why he seemed so unresponsive, Putin tried to shift the blame for the disaster onto the media barons, or at least those who had criticized him. They were the ones, he insisted, who had pressed for reduced funding for the Navy while they were building villas in Spain and France. As for their criticism of his behavior, They lie! They lie! They lie!

    Our Western press has provided good coverage of the dogged way Putin and his aides have tried to muscle Gusinsky out of the Media Most press conglomerate he created. But those on the Putin enemies list now include even Boris Berezovsky, originally one of Putin's most enthusiastic promoters who after the sinking of the Kursk also became a critic and thus an opponent.

    Gusinsky would have a hard time winning a merit badge for trustworthiness (Berezovsky shouldn't even apply), but in the late Yeltsin and Putin years, Gusinsky has earned enormous credit for his consistently objective news coverage, including a spotlight on malfeasance at the very top. More than that, he has supported his programmers when they have subjected Yeltsin and now Putin to bitter satire on Kukly, his Sunday evening prime-time puppet show.

    What we hear less of, though, is what is happening to individual reporters, especially those engaged in investigative work. Almost monthly now there are cases of violence and intimidation. Among those brutalized since Putin assumed power are a reporter for Radio Liberty who dared to write negative reports about the Russian Army's role in Chechnia and four reporters for Novaya Gazeta. Two of them were investigating misdeeds by the FSB (today's equivalent of the KGB), including the possibility that it rather than Chechins had blown up a series of apartment buildings. Another was pursuing reports of money-laundering by Yeltsin family members and senior staff in Switzerland. Although these journalists were very much in the public eye, they were all physically assaulted.

    Those working for provincial papers labor under even more pressure with less visibility. There are numerous instances where regional bosses such as the governor of Vladivostok operate as little dictators, and as a growing number of journalists have discovered, challenges are met with threats, physical intimidation, and, if need be, murder.

    True, freedom of the press in Russia is still less than 15 years old, and not all the country's journalists or their bosses have always used that freedom responsibly. During the 1996 election campaign, for example, the media owners, including Gusinsky conspired to denigrate or ignore every viable candidate other than Yeltsin. But attempts to muffle if not silence criticism have multiplied since Putin and his fellow KGB veterans have come to power. Criticism from any source, be it an individual journalist or a corporate entity, invites retaliation.

    When Media Most persisted in its criticism, Putin sat by approvingly as his subordinates sent in masked and armed tax police and prosecutors. When that didn't work, they jailed Gusinsky on charges that were later dropped, although they are seeking to extradite and jail him again. along with his treasurer, on a new set of charges. Yesterday the prosecutor general summoned Tatyana Mitkova, the anchor of NTV's evening news program, for questioning. Putin's aides are also doing all they can to prevent Gusinsky from refinancing his debt-ridden operation with Ted Turner or anyone else in or outside of the country.

    According to one report, Putin told one official, You deal with the shares, debts, and management and I will deal with the journalists. His goal simply is to end to independent TV coverage in Russia. ...

    (No link; from their archives.)

    DeDude -> Fred C. Dobbs... , December 16, 2016 at 11:33 AM
    "Unfortunately, Putin's actions are applauded by more than 70 percent of the Russian people"

    Exactly; the majority of people are so stupid and/or lazy that they cannot be bothered understanding what is going on; and how their hard won democracy is being subjugated. But thank God that is in Russia not here in the US - right?

    anne -> Fred C. Dobbs... , December 16, 2016 at 11:45 AM
    https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2001-02-07/html/CREC-2001-02-07-pt1-PgE133-4.htm

    February 7, 2001

    Russia's Unfree Press
    By Marshall I. Goldman

    Watermelonpunch -> Fred C. Dobbs... , December 16, 2016 at 04:55 PM
    "Infinitely dangerous" As in the event horizon of a black hole, for pity's sake?

    Odd choice of words. Should there have been a "more" in between there? Was it a typo?

    cm -> Fred C. Dobbs... , December 17, 2016 at 03:42 PM
    "Pravda" is etymologically derived from "prav-" which means "right" (as opposed to "left", other connotations are "proper", "correct", "rightful", also legal right). It designates the social-construct aspect of "righteousness/truthfulness/correctness" as opposed to "objective reality" (conceptually independent of social standards, in reality anything but). In formal logic, "istina" is used to designate truth. Logical falsity is designated a "lie".

    It is a feature common to most European languages that rightfulness, righteousness, correctness, and legal rights are identified with the designation for the right side. "Sinister" is Latin for "left".

    Ben Groves : , December 16, 2016 at 11:18 AM
    If you believe 911 was a Zionist conspiracy, so where the Paris attacks of November 2015, when Trump was failing in the polls as the race was moving toward as you would expect, toward other candidates. After the Paris attacks, his numbers reaccelerated.

    If "ZOG" created the "false flag" of the Paris attacks to start a anti-Muslim fervor, they succeeded, much like 911. Bastille day attacks were likewise, a false flag. This is not new, this goes back to when the aristocracy merged with the merchant caste, creating the "bourgeois". They have been running a parallel government in the shadows to effect what is seen.

    cm -> sanjait... , December 17, 2016 at 03:46 PM
    There used to be something called Usenet News, where at the protocol level reader software could fetch meta data (headers containing author, (stated) origin, title, etc.) independently from comment bodies. This was largely owed to limited download bandwidth. Basically all readers had "kill files" i.e. filters where one could configure that comments with certain header parameters should not be downloaded, or even hidden.
    cm -> cm... , December 17, 2016 at 03:48 PM
    The main application was that the reader would download comments in the background when headers were already shown, or on demand when you open a comment.

    Now you get the whole thing (or in units of 100) by the megabyte.

    tew : , December 16, 2016 at 11:19 AM
    A major problem is signal extraction out of the massive amounts of noise generated by the media, social media, parties, and pundits.

    It's easy enough to highlight this thread of information here, but in real time people are being bombarded by so many other stories.

    In particular, the Clinton Foundation was also regularly being highlighted for its questionable ties to foreign influence. And HRC's extravagant ties to Wall St. And so much more.

    And there is outrage fatigue.

    Ben Groves -> DeDude... , December 16, 2016 at 11:34 AM
    The media's job was to sell Trump and denounce Clinton. The mistake a lot of people make is thinking the global elite are the "status quo". They are not. They are generally the ones that break the status quo more often than not.

    The bulk of them wanted Trump/Republican President and made damn sure it was President. Buffering the campaign against criticism while overly focusing on Clinton's "crap". It took away from the issues which of course would have low key'd the election.

    cm -> DeDude... , December 17, 2016 at 03:55 PM
    Not much bullying has to be applied when there are "economic incentives". The media attention economy and ratings system thrive on controversy and emotional engagement. This was known a century ago as "only bad news is good news". As long as I have lived, the non-commercial media not subject (or not as much) to these dynamics have always been perceived as dry and boring.

    I heard from a number of people that they followed the campaign "coverage" (in particular Trump) as gossip/entertainment, and those were people who had no sympathies for him. And even media coverage by outlets generally critical of Trump's unbelievable scandals and outrageous performances catered to this sentiment.

    Jim Harrison : , December 16, 2016 at 11:24 AM
    Shorter Paul Krugman: nobody acted more irresponsibly in the last election than the New York Times.
    Sandwichman -> Jim Harrison ... , December 16, 2016 at 11:53 AM
    Looks like Putin recruited the NYT, the FBI and the DNC.
    DrDick -> Sandwichman ... , December 16, 2016 at 11:57 AM
    Nah, Wall Street and the GOP recruited them to the effort.
    Sandwichman -> DrDick... , December 16, 2016 at 01:57 PM
    GOP included in FBI. Wall Street included in DNC, GOP. It's all just one big FBIDNCGOPCNNWSNYT.
    sanjait -> Jim Harrison ... , December 16, 2016 at 03:06 PM
    He can't say it out loud but you know he's including the NYT on his list of UIs.
    tew : , December 16, 2016 at 11:26 AM
    Let me also add some levelheaded thoughts:

    First, let me disclose that I detest TRUMP and that the Russian meddling has me deeply concerned. Yet...

    We only have assertions that the Russian hacking had some influence. We do not know whether it likely had *material* influence that could have reasonably led to a swing state(s) going to TRUMP that otherwise would have gone to HRC.

    Dr. Krugman is feeding this "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality. He comes across as increasingly shrill and even unhinged - it's a slide he's been taking for years IMO, which is a big shame.

    It is downright irresponsible and dangerous for a major public intellectual with so little information to cast the shadow of legitimacy on a president ("And it means not acting as if this was a normal election whose result gives the winner any kind of a mandate, or indeed any legitimacy beyond the bare legal requirements.") This kind of behavior is EXACTLY what TRUMP and other authoritarians exhibit - using pieces of information to discredit institutions and individuals. Since foreign governments have and will continue to try to influence U.S. policy through increasingly sophisticated means, this opens the door for anyone to declare our elections and policies as illegitimate in the future.

    DrDick -> tew... , December 16, 2016 at 11:56 AM
    It is quite clear that the Russians intervened on Trump's behalf and that this intervention had an impact. The problem is that we cannot actually quantify that impact.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-backs-cia-view-that-russia-intervened-to-help-trump-win-election/2016/12/16/05b42c0e-c3bf-11e6-9a51-cd56ea1c2bb7_story.html?pushid=breaking-news_1481916265&tid=notifi_push_breaking-news&utm_term=.25d35c017908

    Sandwichman -> tew... , December 16, 2016 at 01:17 PM
    "We only have assertions that the Russian hacking had some influence."

    Any influence Russian hacking had was entirely a consequence of U.S. media obsession with celebrity, gotcha and horse race trivia and two-party red state/blue state tribalism.

    Without the preceding, neither Trump nor Clinton would have been contenders in the first place. Putin didn't invent super delegates, Citizens United, Fox News, talk radio, Goldman-Sachs, etc. etc. etc. If Putin exploited vulnerabilities, it is because preserving those vulnerabilities was more important to the elites than fostering a democratic political culture.

    cm -> Sandwichman ... , December 17, 2016 at 04:00 PM
    But this is how influence is exerted - by using the dynamics of the adversary's/targets organization as an amplifier. Hierarchical organizations are approached through their management or oversight bodies, social networks through key influencers, etc.
    David : , December 16, 2016 at 11:58 AM
    I see this so much and it's so right wing cheap: I hate Trump, but assertions that Russia intervened are unproven.

    First, Trump openly invited Russia to hack DNC emails. That is on its face treason and sedition. It's freaking on video. If HRC did that there would be calls of the right for her execution.

    Second, a NYT story showed that the FBI knew about the hacking but did not alert the DNC properly - they didn't even show up, they sent a note to a help desk.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fbi-probe-dnc-hacked-emails_us_57a19f22e4b08a8e8b601259

    This was a serious national security breach that was not addressed properly. This is criminal negligence.

    This was a hacked election by collusion of the FBI and the Russian hackers and it totally discredits the FBI as it throwed out chum and then denied at the last minute. Now the CIA comes in and says PUTIN, Trump's bff, was directly involved in manipulating the timetable that the hacked emails were released in drip drip form to cater to the media - creating story after story about emails.

    It was a perfect storm for a coup. Putin played us. And he will play Trump. And God knows how it ends. But it doesn't matter b/c we're all screwed with climate change anyway.

    sglover -> David... , December 16, 2016 at 02:50 PM
    "It was a perfect storm for a coup. Putin played us. And he will play Trump. And God knows how it ends. But it doesn't matter b/c we're all screwed with climate change anyway."

    It's not a "coup". It's an election result that didn't go the way a lot of people want. That's it. It's probably not optimal, but I'm pretty sure that democracy isn't supposed to produce optimal results.

    All this talk about "coups" and "illegitimacy" is nuts, and -- true to Dem practice -- incredibly short-sighted. For many, voting for Trump was an available way to say to those people, "We don't believe you any more. At all." Seen in that light, it is a profoundly democratic (small 'd') response to elites that have most consistently served only themselves.

    Trump and his gang will be deeply grateful if the left follows Krugman's "wisdom", and clings to his ever-changing excuses. (I thought it was the evil Greens who deprived Clinton of her due?)

    100panthers : , December 16, 2016 at 02:17 PM
    Post Truth is Pre-Fascism. The party that thinks your loyalty is suspect unless you wear a flag pin fuels itself on Post Truth. Isnt't this absurdity the gist of Obama's Russia comments today!?!
    ilsm -> 100panthers... , December 16, 2016 at 04:29 PM
    Obama and the Clintons are angered; Russia keeping US from giving Syria to al Qaeda. Like Clinton gave them Libya.
    Jerry Brown -> sanjait... , December 16, 2016 at 04:46 PM
    I agree. Unless the Russians or someone else hacked the ballot box machines, it is our own damn fault.
    ilsm : , December 16, 2016 at 04:27 PM
    the US media is angered putin is killing US' jihadis in Syria
    Mr. Bill : , December 16, 2016 at 08:27 PM
    "On Wednesday an editorial in The Times described Donald Trump as a "useful idiot" serving Russian interests." I think that is beyond the pale. Yes, I realize that Adolph Hitler was democratically elected. I agree that Trump seems like a scary monster under the bed. That doesn't mean we have too pee our pants, Paul. He's a bully, tough guy, maybe, the kind of kid that tortured you before you kicked the shit out of them with your brilliance. That's not what is needed now.
    Mr. Bill -> Mr. Bill... , December 16, 2016 at 08:39 PM
    What really is needed, is a watchdog, like Dean Baker, that alerts we dolts of pending bills and their ramifications. The ship of neo-liberal trade bullshit has sailed. Hell, you don't believe it yourself, you've said as much. Be gracious, and tell the truth. We can handle it.
    Ben Groves -> Mr. Bill... , December 16, 2016 at 09:51 PM
    The ship of neo-liberal trade sailed in the mid-2000's. That you don't get that is sad. You can only milk that so far the cow had been milked.

    Trump was a coo, he was not supported by the voters. But by the global elite.

    Mr. Bill : , December 16, 2016 at 10:28 PM
    Hillary Clinton lost because she is truly an ugly aristocrat.
    Mr. Bill -> Mr. Bill... , December 16, 2016 at 11:49 PM
    The experience of voting for the Hill was painful, vs Donald Trump.

    The Hill seemed like the least likely aristocrat, given two choices, to finish off all government focus on the folks that actually built this society. Two Titans of Hubris, Hillary vs Donald, each ridiculous in the concept of representing the interests of the common man.

    At the end of the day. the American people decided that the struggle with the unknown monster Donald was worth deposing the great deplorable, Clinton.

    Mr. Bill -> Mr. Bill... , December 17, 2016 at 12:11 AM
    The real argument is whether the correct plan of action is the way of FDR, or the way of the industrialists, the Waltons, the Kochs, the Trumps, the Bushes and the outright cowards like the Cheneys and the Clintons, people that never spent a day defending this country in combat. What do they call it, the Commander in Chief.
    Mr. Bill -> Mr. Bill... , December 17, 2016 at 12:29 AM
    My father was awarded a silver and a bronze star for his efforts in battle during WW2. He was shot in the face while driving a tank destroyer by a German sniper in a place called Schmitten Germany.

    He told me once, that he looked over at the guy next to him on the plane to the hospital in England, and his intestines were splayed on his chest. It was awful.

    Mr. Bill -> Mr. Bill... , December 17, 2016 at 12:55 AM
    What was he fighting for ? Freedom, America. Then the Republicans, Ronald Reagan, who spent the war stateside began the real war, garnering the wealth of the nation to the entitled like him. Ronald Reagan was a life guard.
    btg : , December 16, 2016 at 11:09 PM
    Other idiots...

    Anthony Weiner
    Podesta
    Biden (for not running)
    Tim Kaine (for accepting the nomination instead of deferring to a latino)
    CNN and other TV news media (for giving trump so much coverage- even an empty podium)
    Donna Brazile
    etc.

    greg : , December 16, 2016 at 11:57 PM
    The people of the United States did not have much to choose between: Either a servant of the Plutocrats or a member of the Plutocratic class. The Dems brought this on us when they refused to play fair with Bernie. (Hillary would almost certainly have won the nomination anyway.)

    The Repubs brought this on, by refusing to govern. The media brought this on: I seem to remember Hillary's misfeasances, once nominated, festering in the media, while Trump's were mentioned, and then disappeared. (Correct me if I'm wrong in this.) Also, the media downplayed Bernie until he had no real chance.

    The government brought this on, by failing to pursue justice against the bankers, and failing to represent the people, especially the majority who have been screwed by trade and the plutocratic elite and their apologists.

    The educational system brought this on, by failing to educate the people to critical thought. For instance: 1) The wealthy run the country. 2) The wealthy have been doing very well. 3) Everybody else has not. It seems most people cannot draw the obvious conclusion.

    The wealthy brought this on. For 230 years they have, essentially run this country. They are too stupid to be satisfied with enough, but always want more.

    The economics profession brought this on, by excusing treasonous behavior as efficient, and failing to understand the underlying principles of their profession, and the limits of their understanding. (They don't even know what money is, or how a trade deficit destroys productive capacity, and thus the very ability of a nation to pay back the debts it incurs.)

    The people brought this on, by neglecting their duty to be informed, to be educated, and to be thoughtful.

    Anybody else care for their share of blame? I myself deserve some, but for reasons I cannot say.

    What amazes me now is, the bird having shown its feathers, there is no howl of outrage from the people who voted for him. Do they imagine that the Plutocrats who will soon monopolize the White House will take their interests to heart?

    As far as I can tell, not one person of 'the people' has been appointed to his cabinet. Not one. But the oppressed masses who turned to Mr Trump seem to be OK with this.
    I can only wonder, how much crap will have to be rubbed in their faces, before they awaken to the taste of what it is?

    Eric377 : , -1
    Krugman is himself one of those most useful idiots. I do not recall his clarion call to Democrats last spring that "FBI investigation" and "party Presidential nominee" was bound to be an ugly combination. Some did; right here as I recall. Or his part in the official "don't vote for third party" week in the Clinton media machine....thanks, hundreds of thousands of Trump votes got the message.

    It's too rich to complain about Russia and Wikileaks as if those elements in anyway justified Clinton becoming President. Leaks mess with our democracy? Then for darn sure do not vote for a former Sec. of State willing to use a home server for her official business. Russia is menacing? Just who has been managing US-Russia relations the past 8 years? I voted for her anyway, but the heck if I think some tragic fate has befell the nation here. Republicans picked a better candidate to win this thing than we Democrats did.

    Greg -> Eric377... , December 17, 2016 at 12:11 PM
    Well said, Eric377.

    The truth of the matter is that Clinton was a very weak candidate with nothing to offer but narcissism ("I'm with her"). It's notable that Clinton has still not accepted responsibility for her campaign, preferring to throw the blame for the loss anywhere but herself. Sociopathy much?

    This has made me cynical. I used to think that at least *some* members of the US political elite had the best interests of ordinary households in mind, but now I see that it's just ego vs. ego, whatever the party.

    As for democracy being on the edge: I believe Adam Smith over Krugman: "there is a lot of ruin in a nation". It takes more than this to overturn an entrenched institution.

    I think American democracy will survive a decade of authoritarianism, and if it does not, then H. L. Mencken said it best: "The American people know what they want, and they deserve to get it -- good and hard."

    [Dec 17, 2016] Obama, The Divider in Chief, Invokes Reagan 'Rolling Over in His Grave' in Attempt to Shame Republicans into Hating Putin

    Dec 17, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com

    The agitprop out of the White House isn't working these days, thanks to the advent of fake news of course. Following weeks of hysteria, following Donald J. Trump's triumphant victory of Hillary Clinton and Obama's legacy, Obama took to the podium for one last time to divide Americans -- this time invoking the revered late President Ronald Reagan -- saying he'd be 'rolling over in his grave' now had he known that over a third of republicans approve of Putin in some random poll.

    If Obama truly wants to know why Americans are willing to accept the words of Putin, undoubtedly a strong man leader, over his -- he should take a look in the mirror and then gander over to his computer to re-read all of the Wikileaks from John Podesta's email that Putin so graciously made available to us all. They speak volumes about the corruptness and the rot permeating in our capitol. Even without the emails, we see the neocon strategy of persistent war and deceit hollowing out this nation -- devouring its resources, emptying its treasury, and there is nothing redeeming about it.

    During the press conference, Obama provided his media with incontrovertible evidence that Russia was behind the WikiLeaks, saying 'not much happens in Russia without Putin's approval.'

    Russia has a land mass of 6,592,800 sq miles and Putin controls every single inch of it. This is retard level thinking.

    Moreover, Obama says he told Putin to 'cut it out' when he last saw him in China, warning him of serious consequences. Luckily for us, Putin got scared and ceased all further hackings. However, the damage had already been done and the Wikileaks released.

    I suppose this type of lazy thinking appeals to a certain subset of America, else why would he make such infantile statements?

    The Divider in Chief, one last time reminding himself and the press that XENOPHOBIA against Russians is good. The Russians are a useless sort, who produce nothing of interest, a very small and weak country, only capable of wiping out the entirety of America 10x over via very large nuclear detonations. Oh, and you pesky republicans love Putin because you're sooo political.

    This is what some might call 'idiotic diplomacy', mocking and deriding a rival nation to the point of war, a war that could exterminate life on planet earth for at least a millennia. Genius.

    Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

    [Dec 17, 2016] Top 11 Russian-Hack Questions the Rogue-Electors Should Ask the CIA The Daily Sheeple

    Notable quotes:
    "... (To read about Jon's mega-collection, Power Outside The Matrix , click here .) ..."
    Dec 17, 2016 | www.thedailysheeple.com
    Assuming these "rogue-Electors" from the Electoral College get a briefing on the "Russian election-hack" from the CIA , and assuming the Electors have a few working brain cells, and assuming they care, here are the top 11 questions they should ask the CIA presenter.

    Questions One through Three (repeated with enthusiasm and fervor): Are you just going to feed us generalities and tell us you can't detail specifics because that would compromise your methods and personnel? We can read the generalities in the Washington Post, whose owner, Jeff Bezos, chief honcho at Amazon, has a $600 million contract with the CIA to provide cloud computing services, so he and the Post and the CIA are in bed together.

    Question Four: We need a precise distinction here. How did "Russia hacked the DNC, Hillary, Podesta, and Weiner emails and fed the emails to WikiLeaks who released them" suddenly morph into "Russia hacked the election vote"?

    Question Five: The security systems that protected the DNC, Hillary, Podesta, and Weiner emails were so feeble a child could have gotten past them in a few minutes. Why should we assume high-level Russian agents were involved?

    Question Six: Not only does the CIA have a history of lying to the American people, lying is part of your job description. Why should we believe you? Take your time. We can have food brought in.

    Question Seven: We're getting the feeling you're talking down to us as if we're the peasants and you're the feudal barons. Why is that? Do you work for us, or do we work for you? Once upon a time, before you went to work for the Agency, were you like us, or were you always arrogant and dismissive?

    Question Eight: Let's put aside for a moment the question of who leaked all those emails. What about the substance and content of the emails? Was all that forged or was it real? If you claim there was forgery, prove it. Put a dozen emails up on that big screen and take us through them, piece by piece, and show us where and how the forgery occurred. By the way, why didn't you allow us to bring several former NSA analysts into this briefing? Are we living in the US or the USSR?

    Question Nine: Are you personally a computer expert, sir? Or are you merely relaying what someone else at the CIA told you? Would you spell your name for us again? What is your job description at the Agency? Do you work in public information? Are you tasked with "being convincing"?

    Question Ten: Do you think we're completely stupid?

    Question Eleven: Let's all let our hair down, okay? Forget facts and specifics. Of course we want to overthrow the election and install Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office. So do you. We're on the same team. But we need you to give us something, anything. So far, this briefing is embarrassing. Once we get out of here, we want to tell a few persuasive lies. Give us a Russian name, any name. Or a location in Russia we can use. The brand name of a Russian vodka. Caviar. Something that sounds Russian. Make up a code with letters and numbers. Help us out. How about the name of an American who who's actually a Russian spy? You could shoot him later today in a "gun battle at a shopping mall." That would work.

    Good luck.

    (To read about Jon's mega-collection, Power Outside The Matrix , click here .)

    Related Reads

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    National Intelligence Office: 'We Won't Say the CIA Is Wrong, But They Can't Prove Russian Intent to Tamper with the Election'

    Wow: Now US Officials and Mainstream Media Claim Putin PERSONALLY Involved in Election Hacks

    Russian Narrative Falls Apart – Wikileaks Operative Claims Clinton Emails Handed Over By "Disgusted" Democrat Whistleblowers

    "Sorry, I Meant Russia": Watch WH Press Secretary Josh Earnest "Accidentally" Accuse China of Hacking Our Elections

    Delivered by The Daily Sheeple

    We encourage you to share and republish our reports, analyses, breaking news and videos ( Click for details ).

    Contributed by Jon Rappoport of No More Fake News .

    The author of an explosive collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED , Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world.

    [Dec 16, 2016] Questions for the Electors on Russian Hacking by Andrew Cockburn

    Podesta essentially gave up his email due to committed by him blunder: sending his password to the attacker. As such it was far from high-end hacking, which can be attributed to intelligence agencies. It is more like a regular, primitive phishing expedition which became successful due to Podesta blunder. So this is not hacking but phishing expedition... That makes big difference.
    Notable quotes:
    "... The DNC hackers inserted the name of the founder of Russian intelligence, in Russian, in the metadata of the hacked documents. Why would the G.R.U., Russian military intelligence do that? ..."
    "... If the hackers were indeed part of Russian intelligence, why did they use a free Russian email account, or, in the hack of the state election systems, a Russian-owned server? Does Russian intelligence normally display such poor tradecraft? ..."
    "... Why would Russian intelligence, for the purposes of hacking the election systems of Arizona and Illinois, book space on a Russian-owned server and then use only English, as documents furnished by Vladimir Fomenko, proprietor of Kings Servers, the company that owned the server in question, clearly indicate? ..."
    "... Numerous reports ascribe the hacks to hacking groups known as APT 28 or "Fancy Bear" and APT 29 or "Cozy Bear." But these groups had already been accused of nefarious actions on behalf of Russian intelligence prior to the hacks under discussion. Why would the Kremlin and its intelligence agencies select well-known groups to conduct a regime-change operation on the most powerful country on earth? ..."
    "... The joint statement issued by the DNI and DHS on October 7 2016 confirmed that US intelligence had no evidence of official Russian involvement in the leak of hacked documents to Wikileaks, etc, saying only that the leaks were " consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts." Has the US acquired any evidence whatsoever since that time regarding Russian involvement in the leaks? ..."
    Dec 14, 2016 | www.counterpunch.org

    It is being reported that John Podesta, Chairman of the defeated $1.2 billion Clinton presidential campaign, is supporting the call by various officials, including at least forty Electors, that the members of the Electoral College be given a classified intelligence briefing on the alleged Russian hacking before the College votes on December 19.

    In the event such a briefing comes to pass, it might be helpful if the Electors had some informed questions to ask the CIA

    1. The DNC hackers inserted the name of the founder of Russian intelligence, in Russian, in the metadata of the hacked documents. Why would the G.R.U., Russian military intelligence do that?
    2. If the hackers were indeed part of Russian intelligence, why did they use a free Russian email account, or, in the hack of the state election systems, a Russian-owned server? Does Russian intelligence normally display such poor tradecraft?
    3. Why would Russian intelligence, for the purposes of hacking the election systems of Arizona and Illinois, book space on a Russian-owned server and then use only English, as documents furnished by Vladimir Fomenko, proprietor of Kings Servers, the company that owned the server in question, clearly indicate?
    4. Numerous reports ascribe the hacks to hacking groups known as APT 28 or "Fancy Bear" and APT 29 or "Cozy Bear." But these groups had already been accused of nefarious actions on behalf of Russian intelligence prior to the hacks under discussion. Why would the Kremlin and its intelligence agencies select well-known groups to conduct a regime-change operation on the most powerful country on earth?
    5. It has been reported in the New York Times , without attribution, that U.S. intelligence has identified specific G.R.U. officials who directed the hacking. Is this true, and if so, please provide details (Witness should be sworn)
    6. The joint statement issued by the DNI and DHS on October 7 2016 confirmed that US intelligence had no evidence of official Russian involvement in the leak of hacked documents to Wikileaks, etc, saying only that the leaks were " consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts." Has the US acquired any evidence whatsoever since that time regarding Russian involvement in the leaks?
    7. Since the most effective initiative in tipping the election to Donald Trump was the intervention of FBI Director Comey, are you investigating any possible connections he might have to Russian intelligence and Vladimir Putin?

    [Dec 16, 2016] The Cold War, Continued: Post-Election Russophobia

    Dec 16, 2016 | www.counterpunch.org
    by Gary Leupp Mainstream TV news anchors including MSNBC's Chris Hayes are reporting as fact---with fuming indignation---that Russia (and specifically Vladimir Putin) not only sought to influence the U.S. election (and---gosh!---promote "doubt" about the whole legitimacy of the U.S. electoral system) but to throw the vote to Donald Trump.

    The main accusation is that the DNC and Podesta emails leaked through Wikileaks were provided by state-backed Russian hackers (while they did not leak material hacked from the Republicans). I have my doubts on this. Former U.S. ambassador to Uzbekistan and torture whistle-blower Craig Murray, a friend of Julian Assange, has stated that the DNC emails were leaked by a DNC insider whose identity he knows. The person, Murray contends, handed the material over to him, in a D.C. park. I have met Murray, admire and am inclined to believe him. (I just heard now that John Bolton, of all people, has also opined this was an inside job.)

    [Dec 16, 2016] Putin Lashes Out At Obama Show Some Proof Or Shut Up Zero Hedge

    Dec 16, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com
    Putin Lashes Out At Obama: "Show Some Proof Or Shut Up" Tyler Durden Dec 16, 2016 9:09 AM 0 SHARES Putin has had enough of the relentless barrage of US accusations that he, personally, "hacked the US presidential election."

    The Russian president's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Friday that the US must either stop accusing Russia of meddling in its elections or prove it. Peskov said it was "indecent" of the United States to "groundlessly" accuse Russia of intervention in its elections.

    "You need to either stop talking about it, or finally show some kind of proof. Otherwise it just looks very indecent ", Peskov told Reporters in Tokyo where Putin is meeting with Japan PM Abe, responding to the latest accusations that Russia was responsible for hacker attacks.

    Peskov also warned that Obama's threat to "retaliate" to the alleged Russian hack is "against both American and international law", hinting at open-ended escalation should Obama take the podium today at 2:15pm to officially launch cyberwar against Russia.

    Previously, on Thursday, Peskov told the AP the report was " laughable nonsense ", while Russian foreign ministry spox Maria Zakharova accused "Western media" of being a "shill" and a "mouthpiece of various power groups", and added that "it's not the general public who's being manipulated," Zakharova said. "the general public nowadays can distinguish the truth. It's the mass media that is manipulating themselves."

    Meanwhile, on Friday Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister told state television network, Russia 24, he was "dumbstruck" by the NBC report which alleges that Russian President Vladimir Putin was personally involved in an election hack.

    The report cited U.S. intelligence officials that now believe with a "high level of confidence" that Putin became personally involved in a secret campaign to influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. "I think this is just silly, and the futility of the attempt to convince somebody of this is absolutely obvious," Lavrov added, according to the news outlet.

    As a reminder, last night Obama vowed retaliatory action against Russia for its meddling in the US presidential election last month. "I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections that we need to take action and we will at a time and place of our own choosing," Obama told National Public Radio.

    US intelligence agencies in October pinned blame on Russia for election-related hacking. At the time, the White House vowed a "proportional response" to the cyberactivity, though declined to preview what that response might entail. Meanwhile, both President-elect Donald Trump, the FBI, and the ODNI have dismissed the CIA's intelligence community's assessment, for the the same reason Putin finally lashed out at Obama: there is no proof.

    That, however, has never stopped the US from escalating a geopolitical conflict to the point of war, or beyond, so pay close attention to what Obama says this afternoon.

    According to an NBC report , a team of analysts at Eurasia Group said in a note on Friday that they believe the outgoing administration is likely to take action which could result in a significant barrier for Trump's team once he takes office in January .

    "It is unlikely that U.S. intelligence reports will change Trump's intention to initiate a rapprochement with Moscow, but the congressional response following its own investigations could obstruct the new administration's effort ," Eurasia Group analysts added.

    At the same time, Wikileaks offered its "validation" services, tweeting that " Obama should submit any Putin documents to WikiLeaks to be authenticated to our standards if he wants them to be seen as credible. "

    Obama should submit any Putin documents to WikiLeaks to be authenticated to our standards if he wants them to be seen as credible.

    - WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 16, 2016

    We doubt Obama would take the whistleblower organization on its offer, even if he did have any Putin documents to authenticate.

    Luc X. Ifer Ignatius , Dec 16, 2016 9:21 AM
    No joke anymore today USSA declares war to Russia just for keeping Obama the 1st on the trone. 'Election hacking called the new 9/11' officially

    http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/12/16/elijah-cummings-russia-hac...

    Ignatius Luc X. Ifer , Dec 16, 2016 9:27 AM
    If it's "another 9/11," doesn't that mean it's another phony, constructed event (that killed 3,000 people)?
    Luc X. Ifer Ignatius , Dec 16, 2016 9:36 AM
    Correct but this time they will not engage a tin can dictator but an equivalent nuclear power lead by the best strategy trained minds in the world
    ThanksChump Luc X. Ifer , Dec 16, 2016 10:39 AM
    And they would do so over what, apparently, was a typo by Podesta's aide:

    http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/12/15/report-podesta-email-hack-due-t...

    TeamDepends Ignatius , Dec 16, 2016 9:38 AM
    And orchestrated by Mossad/CIA Millions upon millions of ordinary folks just got up and voted to take out the trash, and by God their will be done. If we don't remove the cancerous tumors now, they will regrow and regroup and in our weakened state it will be GAME OVER.
    Ignatius TeamDepends , Dec 16, 2016 9:43 AM
    One of the slickest, most corrupt urban renewal projects in history, or at least in NYC history.

    Don't ask me, ask "Lucky Larry."

    http://www.ae911truth.org/news.html

    Crash Overide Luc X. Ifer , Dec 16, 2016 10:04 AM
    The sad part is they are spinning this as election tampering when in fact there was none, some decent human beings found out the truth of how corrupt, evil, and treasonous these people are and wanted the American public to know.

    You can tell they are desperate now, I just hope the law enforcement community is ready to uphold their oath.

    MFL5591 IridiumRebel , Dec 16, 2016 10:14 AM
    False testimony to Congress on NSA surveillance programs [ edit ]

    Excerpt of James Clapper's testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

    On March 12, 2013, during a United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing, Senator Ron Wyden quoted the keynote speech at the 2012 DEF CON by the director of the NSA, Keith B. Alexander . Alexander had stated that "Our job is foreign intelligence" and that "Those who would want to weave the story that we have millions or hundreds of millions of dossiers on people, is absolutely false From my perspective, this is absolute nonsense." Senator Wyden then asked Clapper, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" He responded "No, sir." Wyden asked "It does not?" and Clapper said "Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly." [30]

    When Edward Snowden was asked during his January 26, 2014 TV interview in Moscow what the decisive moment was or why he blew the whistle, he replied: "Sort of the breaking point was seeing the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, directly lie under oath to Congress. Seeing that really meant for me there was no going back." [31]

    This is the man reponsible for the newest lie to the American people. Are you serious?

    Mr Pink asteroids , Dec 16, 2016 9:21 AM
    When lying could end up costing hundreds of billions of dollars and many human lives it is called fraud
    JRobby Mr Pink , Dec 16, 2016 9:32 AM
    A new definition of war crimes has presented itself for several years now.

    Day 53 - Where is Eric Braverman?

    Mike Masr , Dec 16, 2016 9:39 AM
    This asshole jack off obozo wants to start WW3 with Russia for Soros and all his globalist neocon pals BEFORE he leaves office. His pals shoveled out way too much money to get that dirty corrupt, crooked pig Hillary elected. The anti-Trump street protests, riots, burning, pillaging and looting didn't work. The recount directed by the Hillary stooge Jill Stein actually got Trump more votes so this didn't work. So now we go with "fake news" accusations against Russia and Putin. The assholes in our goverment pushing this theme are the dirty fucking crooks we voted against by voting for Donald Trump. They won't go down without a fight. So today at 2:15PM ET Obozo will do his best to get the actual war with Russia on deck!!!

    The war mongering neocons won't stop until we have literally minutes to live. Russia has underground facilitities for 70% of the citizens in the Russian Federation. In the US only the so-called elites have some underground place to hide. Like that would save them anyway as it would be delayed death from Cobalt bombs. We peons and serfs will simply be vaporized immediately into non-existance. Obozo and his minions and handlers know this and don't give a fuck.

    Obozo and those around him are insane and believe that a nuclear war with Russia is winnable. The truth is that the world will not even be fit for human life after a full scale nuclear, chemical and biological exchange. Who thinks it stops at nuclear? Russia inherited the WMD arsenal of the Soviet Union. There are enough chemical and biological weapons in the Russian Federation to kill everyone on earth twenty times.

    DirtySanchez , Dec 16, 2016 9:31 AM
    During the days of the Cold War, I generally respected and believed the American press and many of our politicains.

    For the past 25 years, I don't respect or believe the American press or any politician.

    I honestly believe the Russian government and press is more credible and responsible than anything in this country.

    Donald Trump literally gave me my country back.

    Gadfly , Dec 16, 2016 9:43 AM
    This is real simple. Obama and Hillary got their asses kicked by Putin in the Ukraine, Crimea, and Syria because Putin was honest and acted out of integrity and real concern for his people, and Obama and Hillary were evil and pathological liars and up to no good, and acted out of a lust for power, control over others, and stealing their resources. And now the two pathetic losers want revenge. And this is their vile attempt at trying to get it. We're laughing at you Hillary and Obama. You are a disgrace to your country and the human race.
    BitchezGonnaBitch Gadfly , Dec 16, 2016 10:18 AM
    You must remember something here - we laid it on for Vlad / Serg. Our governments made it so easy for them to play the white knights, they didn't even need to try. Russian administration is just like any other - the machine - but we fucked up so tragically bad in our foreign policy conduct that just going against the unilateral actions of US / NATO / UN has won Russians major support in Western societies, sick to the back teeth of the media game BS.

    Our elites came to believe that the world is theirs. That they can take what they want. Citizenry hasn't been best pleased due to cognitive dissonance ("shining house on the hill" =/= 500k dead Iraqis "worth it"). Enter the Russians: central admin personnel = expert level 120, conservative social values, non-interventionist foreign policy, always stressing legality / due process. They showed us up. Simple as. They were the first to dare point at our naked emperors.

    They also have guns. Lots of guns, and big ones too. We will never really fight them head on - we wouldn't stand a chance. Not with their society coalescing around the govt, and ours hating the guts out of our elites. We'd get stomped.

    Phillyguy , Dec 16, 2016 9:39 AM

    To quote Joseph Goebbels "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." There are several things going on. MSM and deep state were counting on a Hillary Clinton victory and continued US bellicose posturing against Russia. The deep state is also apoplectic about the military debacle in Syria. The ministry of propaganda- corporate media (owned by 6 large corporations; Link: www.wakingtimes.com/2015/08/28/the-illusion-of-choice-90-of-american-media-controlled-by-6-corporations ) has been saturating the airwaves and social media with ongoing stories about Russian "hacking" which are probably nonsense. A far more likely scenario is this "hacking" was carried out by people with intimate knowledge of Hillary Clinton's background, her email correspondence and location of servers where this information was stored/archived, such as people in the FBI, CIA, DHS or State Dept. These hacked messages were then forwarded to Judicial Watch, WikiLeaks or contacts in Russia or China to cover their tracks.
    This might be of interest-
    Former NSA Officer – CIA Lying About Russians Hacking DNC By Jim W. Dean Dec 14, 2016; Link: www.veteranstoday.com/2016/12/14/former-nsa-officer-cia-lying-about-russians-hacking-dnc

    Bottom line is that fierce battles are going on between completing economic factions who run the US. Both groups are pursuing increasingly reckless and bellicose foreign policies which are likely to lead to direct military confrontations with Russia and China.

    See:

    http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/12/16/pers-d16.html ; www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-foreign-policy-and-the-electoral-college-vote-...

    az_patriot , Dec 16, 2016 9:49 AM
    I'm a cyber security professional with over 30 years experience and several certifications. Hackers with apparent Russian ties (not necessarily the Russian government) have been involved in global hacking efforts for many years. So have the Chinese. So has everyone else, including the US.

    None of this may be true at all, because hackers that know what they're doing never leave a trail behind. EVER. And if they do leave a trail, it's almost always a false flag -- which means that what you think you see is not actually where it came from. It's highly unlikely that sophisticated hackers connected with the Russian government would be stupid enough to leave anything behind that identified who they were or where they operated from.

    I'm calling BS on this whole thing, for two reasons. One -- the "election" wasn't hacked, the DNC was -- and their extremely dirty laundry aired. We now know for certain that the Democrats are a bunch of liars, thieves, and hooligans that could care less about the country. And two -- the politicization of this by Obama is nauseating. The likelihood that anyone knows for certain that the Russian government was behind it is about zero or less.

    Jack Offelday , Dec 16, 2016 9:44 AM
    Yesterday, Julian Assange emphatically stated on Sean Hannity's radio show that the Russians had absolutely no involvement in the Wikileaks hacks. I'll believe Assange before the Obama administration or US media shills. Assange has never been proven wrong.
    dexter_morgan , Dec 16, 2016 9:57 AM
    is the fake news (MSM) covering this at all, or just the propaganda from CIA?
    mary mary dexter_morgan , Dec 16, 2016 10:56 AM
    The Associated Press and the New York Times are repeating, word for word, whatever CIA and CIA-in-Chief says, and then all Vatican-controlled newspapers are printing the AP and NYT articles. Big dose of CIA in my local newspaper today, and yesterday, and every day since, at least, Merrimack College pointed the way toward The One True Propaganda, with its junior-professor-of-how-Hollywood-and-TV-portray-overweight-people's omniscient and omnipotent list of "Fake News Sites". Still waiting for the Pope to endorse this list: maybe when Rome Freezes Over.
    Braindonor1 , Dec 16, 2016 9:59 AM
    The article nails an important point. The purpose of this exercise is to sabotage any Trump attempts for a rapprochement with Russia. Peace with major powers is bad for business and Obama's Zionist masters need war to advance their one world government plans.

    Obama knows no moral compass and will do anything, say anything, to get the treats from his masters that a faithful lap dog believes it deserves.

    Dilluminati , Dec 16, 2016 10:02 AM
    Some of the racist quotes here I can't uptick, that said it was classic Obama from the trump speech telling EVERYONE in advance what he was going to do military wise. That is disapointing. Lets assume that China, Russia, and many other capable state actors did hack Hillary's server? Lets go the route of occums razor and assume that as a truth. That does not excuse the behavior and sheer stupidity of:

    Setting up an illegal server anyway, AFTER hillary requested and was denied a phone like the POTUS.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/emails-show-nsa-rejected-hillary-clinton-req...

    Emails show NSA rejected Hillary Clinton's request for secure smartphone

    So let us start here! Keep in mind she lost numerous devices, the stupid cunt kept loosing her phones and misplacing them.

    Then Hillary hell bent on having her own private communication system circumvents the DOS and sets up her own! At the point where that decision was made there was no longer any attack against the United States of America but instead an attack against a politician leaking state level data on a non-secure media. If anyone should be held accountable it should be Hillary despite INTENT, yes Hillary.

    But it gets better folks!

    Then we have the DNC and Weiner hacks, and the DNC and the RNC are not actual offices of government, There is no fucking .gov address behind the DNC or GOP. The nice lady who runs the local GOP isn't a vetted government employee and used some poor habits in her handling of data, she was ignorant of a BCC and the security of doing so. (to her credit she learned quickly) *** side note

    And then finally there was Weiners emails. These emails were on a non-government device/computer and seemed to have been traversed by yahoo. So you have these stupid fucking people doing the following: Using Yahoo, DNC, and Gov systems utilizing the same passwords. BUT IT GETS BETTER

    Yahoo is using a MD5 hash for it's security! https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2016/12/15/yahoo-breach-ive-closed-my-a...

    So now a phishing attack at one account podesta becomes a swiss cheese attack as numerous vectors are exploited, did the Russians hack weiner and put the emails on his device? It is with password complexity, password expiration, and non-passowrd reuse that government can ensure that you don't use the same password on Yahoo that you use at .gov sites. It is by using multi-factor authentication and geo location that a .gov account can be authenticated and authorized.

    But what we have is a bunch of assholes who mishandled the peoples data or governmnet data and it was never their personal data! It was either the data of the united states in which case Hillary should be fucking charged or it was not and she is a stupid fucking victim like the other billion or so yahoo hacks.

    So now we got Obama just like Trump said, telling the world what we are going to do before we do it for optimal results.. lets tell russia in advance.. we will attack at noon...for what has been characterized as yoga emails on non-government systems by the attorney general.

    This is why I hate the elites, this is why I never needed Russia to do anything to votes against these incompetent and ridiculous assholes.

    As Obama leaves offce remember that this observation is concise and made from an educated and unbiased persepctive of handling government data.

    The echo cjhamber that Obama lives in has become as insular as that of Hillary. And damn these people for their confusion of conviction with fact. And finally.. we beat the democrats in PA the good old fashioned way.. we were grassroots and not astro-turf.

    ***** The local GOP website was being cyber-squated when I volunteered, an email of so from me on blacklisting it and there ads would not have shut them down, but it would have hit them in the pocket and caused monetary disruption, they released the expired domain and stopped squatting, the local head of the GOP, defintly not .gov but "GOP" was being blocked by email systems because she would send out GOP emails to an email list with 100 or so recipients and the spam filters thought it was spam or a virus. So I explained to her how to use BCC tools, and our communication improved. I didn't want my email shared with everyone anyway! But the DNC and GOP ain't fucking government.. at best these people are like televangelists which is like hollywood for ugly people.

    I can say this, I have an ENORMOUS respect for the local GOP, I have come to like many of them. I don't agree with them on everything but never has so few, worked so hard, to empower so many more to volunteer and win an election. And to their credit shown the right way changed, they didn't piss and moan.

    Resistance Is Hope Dilluminati , Dec 16, 2016 10:44 AM
    Good observations, sir. People like you are the reason ZH is so useful for enlightenment.

    I should add that if Hillary was claiming to lose her phone, then Hillary probably wasn't losing her phone all the time. She was probably periodically destroying it to destroy evidence. Burn phones or burners are a common technique among criminals to minimize the evidence available if/when they get caught.

    smacker , Dec 16, 2016 10:04 AM
    Looks to me like Obola and his cabal are trying to cause as much friction as possible with Russia before he leaves office.

    This garbage allegation about Putin being personally involved in hacking the US election, the recent announcement of supplying more weapons to terrorists in Syria, recent wild allegations of Russian genocide in Syria (whilst ignoring Syrian people waving and cheering when the SAA arrived in Allepo) and threats to begin a cyberwar are all designed to do this.

    Obola has become a dangerous liability.

    MrBoompi , Dec 16, 2016 10:31 AM
    Obama has acted like a CIA employee for 8 years. He lied to get into office and he's lied ever since, just like the CIA teaches its employees to do. The CIA is not bound by US or international law and they could give a shit about our Constitution, our laws, or our elections, as long as their preferred candidate gets in of course. Are we currently any better than the Nazis? Conquering other countries is the same regardless if you do it covertly or not, regardless of how many lies you say or not. These people must be stopped. Unfortunately it might take mass civil unrest to bring the changes we need. Stealing the election from Trump and handing it to a criminal like Clinton may be the spark. Let's hope there are enough people left with integrity and intelligence in DC to do the right thing.
    dltff-ya , Dec 16, 2016 10:32 AM
    There is no concept of a open courtroom to decide contentious technical issues like. This . Cozy bear, whatever bear
    'more than i can' bear. A jury of fair minded people can decide when a good adversarial courtroom encounter occurs.
    I would like to see Trey Gowdy defending Putin against whatever CIA stooge they send up. Obama has a lot of gall to complain about hacking when Hillary, Podesta, and the run DNC gang was so careless that a very amateur hacking/phishing effort would be sufficient to do this break in. Then there is the assertion that some disgruntled democratic people leaked the whole works- from the inside- being mad at Hillary over Bernie I guess.

    If the US wants as gentlemen agreement not to read each others mail, maybe we could pursue that but hacking Putin and sending NGO's to undermine him, the numerous color revolutions from George Soros in Ukraine, Georgia, ... make it seem to me that Putin is the aggrieved party here, now being threatened by Obama personally. Everybody snoops on everybody. Israel, Russia, US and the five eyes, China, ... but when it gets personal like this Putin Obama threat thing, we could cross a line, like an obscure assassination of the Austrian Archduke by some Serbian did. Putin is a serious fellow and not somebody to threaten without consequences. We may think he sees it as just posturing, and we better hope it stops right there. If the Clinton mob can't win, they may decide to bring the house down on everybody.

    your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.
    dltff-ya , Dec 16, 2016 10:41 AM
    http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/questions-electors-russian-hacking...

    Interesting points about the alleged hacking.

    dexter_morgan , Dec 16, 2016 10:44 AM
    cia

    http://hotair.com/archives/2016/12/16/senate-homeland-chair-cia-denied-m...

    mary mary , Dec 16, 2016 11:05 AM
    Obama: "I am, of course, not speaking about the real, live Vladimir Putin. I am speaking about our CIA cardboard-cutout caricature of Vladimir Putin. We ALWAYS have a number of cardboard-cutouts in stock, of various people, to blame for whatever goes wrong next.
    Handful of Dust , Dec 16, 2016 11:07 AM
    Assange on WikiLeaks: 'Our Source Is Not the Russian Government'

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/bea2e062-22ac-3d8b-85d4-d8514d5d4efc/assang...

    Yes We Can. But... , Dec 16, 2016 11:09 AM
    "....while Russian foreign ministry spox Maria Zakharova accused "Western media" of being a "shill" and a "mouthpiece of various power groups ", and added that "it's not the general public who's being manipulated," Zakharova said. " the general public nowadays can distinguish the truth . It's the mass media that is manipulating themselves .""

    Can you effin believe such a statement made by the Russian gubmint - and that it is true ?

    az_patriot , Dec 16, 2016 11:35 AM
    This whole affair screams one thing and one thing only: politics. And dirty, childish, Democrat politics at that. COULD the Russian government have hacked the DNC? Sure, anything is possible. Is it likely? NO. Government-sponsored hackers don't leave telltale signs as to who they are, they leave false flags and a trail of breadcrumbs that lead nowhere or to places they want you to think the hack came from. Anyone smart enough to hack the DNC isn't going to do anything to reveal who they are. Not even accidentally.
    dlfield , Dec 16, 2016 11:32 AM
    A) Just why the hell would U.S. "Intelligence" be briefing NBC news?

    B) Next, we will be blaming space aliens for "hacking" the election.

    The horse has spoken. ;-)

    [Dec 15, 2016] Exclusive: Top US spy agency has not embraced CIA assessment on Russia hacking – sources

    Dec 15, 2016 | uk.reuters.com

    The overseers of the U.S. intelligence community have not embraced a CIA assessment that Russian cyber attacks were aimed at helping Republican President-elect Donald Trump win the 2016 election, three American officials said on Monday.

    While the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) does not dispute the CIA's analysis of Russian hacking operations, it has not endorsed their assessment because of a lack of conclusive evidence that Moscow intended to boost Trump over Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, said the officials, who declined to be named .

    An ODNI spokesman declined to comment on the issue.

    "ODNI is not arguing that the agency (CIA) is wrong, only that they can't prove intent," said one of the three U.S. officials. "Of course they can't, absent agents in on the decision-making in Moscow."

    The Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose evidentiary standards require it to make cases that can stand up in court, declined to accept the CIA's analysis – a deductive assessment of the available intelligence – for the same reason, the three officials said


    marknesop says: December 13, 2016 at 6:17 am
    But all of them, without exception, accept that the Democrats' server was hacked by Russia, and that it was Russia who leaked the information through Wikileaks, and that Russia also hacked the Republicans but declined to release incriminating or influential material it had in its possession. There is, to my knowledge, no evidence of this, either.

    [Dec 15, 2016] MSM fight agains new media is somewhat similar to papacy fight with Reformation

    Dec 15, 2016 | marknesop.wordpress.com
    On watching the "Keiser Report " on the imperial blowback against independent media, it strikes me that the MSM are as to the Papacy as the new media are to Martin Luther:

    https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/370114-episode-max-keiser-1005/

    [Dec 14, 2016] Opinion Putin didnt win this election for Trump. Hillary Clinton did

    Notable quotes:
    "... That those scheming Russians were clever enough to hack into voting machines, but not clever enough to cover their tracks? ..."
    "... It's strangely reminiscent of the days of the Red scare, minus the Reds. ..."
    "... The displaced machinists in the industrial midwest, whose votes helped put Trump in the White House, believe that free trade deals are responsible for their economic woes and they never trusted Clinton's turn against the TPP. ..."
    "... was Clinton's campaign for you, bereft of principle and pathologically concerned with "optics" at the expense of substance. ..."
    "... They were so confident of their inevitable victory that they wrote off the old industrial states in favor of luring upscale suburbanites who normally vote Republican. They hoped they would be so revolted by Trump that they would vote for her, but they didn't. ..."
    "... It's panic over loss of control. They aren't pondering ways to make things better for the American people. Not in the Beltaway. Not the duoploy. The handwringing is strictly about control and pasification of the population. ..."
    "... The long, long list of dodgy-donors to The Clinton Foundation told large numbers of Democrat voters everything they needed to know about a potential Hillary Clinton presidency. This, and the 'knifing' of Bernie, sealed her fate. ..."
    "... America will never, and should never, forgive Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. ..."
    "... At last! Someone on this newspaper talking common sense. ..."
    "... Absurd! She was a rich white hawkish neolib who has no one but herself and the Democratic Pary to blame for the terrible loss which will seal the supreme court for years. Face facts!! She couldn't even beat Trump and was widely viewed as a fraud. ..."
    "... The person who lost the Presidential Election in USA is Hillary Clinton. She, like Blair is a war monger. I, if I had a vote, would not have voted for her. ..."
    "... If she had been elected we would have had bigger and better wars in the Middle East. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan never ended despite Obama calling the Iraq war a "strategic mistake". One that continued for another eight years. To those two we have added Syria and Lybia. ..."
    "... " ...reflecting on how baseless our self-image as the world's greatest democracy is. " The rest of the world has known that for decades. ..."
    "... I don't understand how accurate reporting by Wikileaks of politicians' emails is considered 'interference' with the US elections. To me, it seems helpful. If a US newspaper made the report, they would probably get a prize. If a foreign organization made the report, so what? People abroad are free (I hope) to comment on US matters, and people in the US are free to read it or not. ..."
    "... Perhaps they mean the Guardian's politics. Identity politics has been thoroughly rejected and instead of learning from the experience, Guardian has been electing to throw more of the same tactics, except louder ..."
    "... Americans across the political spectrum are happy to use Putin to distract them from reflecting on how baseless our self-image as the world's greatest democracy is. ..."
    "... You're absolutely right. Putin is the boogeyman for every ill, real or purported, of his own society, and when the American political system and its institutions prove to be broken, Putin gets to be the boogeyman for that, too. What a powerful man! He must be pleased. ..."
    "... This is an ultimate truth because it explains why Merkel will not be elected. These days Putin is in full control of the world and is responsible for everything. ..."
    "... Let's thank Hillary for that. There is a very good news: on the 20th January we'll cut all Saudi supply channels to the IS and kill all the bastards within 2 months. ..."
    "... In the modern world it is enough to do nothing to be a good man, eg if Bush, Blair, Obama and Clinton didn't create ISIS, the world would be a much better place. You do not even need to be smart to understand this. ..."
    "... It's crazy. Even if the Russian hacking claims are legitimate, the leaks still revealed things about the Democrats that were true. It's like telling your friend that their spouse is cheating on them, and then the spouse blaming you for ruining the marriage. ..."
    "... The Clinton campaign spent like drunken sailors, on media. This is a new role for the media giants that took care of Clinton's every need, including providing motivational research and other consultants. ..."
    "... The ongoing scenario that now spins around Putin as a central figure is a product of "after shock media". ..."
    "... To weave fictional reality in real time for a mass audience is a magnum leap from internet fake news. This drama is concocted to keep DNC from going into seclusion until the inauguration. ..."
    "... Doug Henwood is absolutely correct. This obsession with the supposed foreign interference is baseless. All the real culprits operate within our own system. ..."
    "... Trump's embrace of Russia and decision to end the neocon-neoliberal agenda of regime change skewer two of the corporate establishment's cash cows - arms sales to the numerous conflicts in the Middle East initiated by the corporate cabal, and arms sales to NATO and all the new post Cold War NATO members to continue the buildup of armaments on Russia's borders." ..."
    "... I'd love to be pleasantly surprised, and I note that already Trump's campaign has put down TWO odious political dynasties, AND the TPP -- all very healthy developments. ..."
    "... The only thing that kept the contest somehow close was the unprecedented all-media fear campaign against Trump. ..."
    "... It was always Hillary's election to lose and she lost it simply because she was not to be trusted. Her very public endorsement by gangster capitalist Jay-Z told you all you needed to know about who she represented. ..."
    "... I was dubious before, but I'm now actively concerned. This crop of Democrats and their deep state cohorts are unhinged and dangerous. They see me and my families' lives as an externality in their eventual war with Russia. As Phyrric a victory as there could possibly be. They are psychotic; not only waging countless coups and intelligence operations abroad, but now in plain sight on American soil. The mainstream media seems to invoke the spirit of Goebbels more vividly with each passing day. Their disdain and manipulation of the general populace is chilling. They see us not as people to be won-over, but as things to be manipulated, tricked and coerced. Nothing new for politicians (particularity the opposition) - but the levels here are staggering. ..."
    "... January couldn't come soon enough - and I say that as strong critic of Trump. ..."
    "... A good article to counterbalance the reams of rubbish we are hearing in the US election post-mortem. Anyone who had neural activity should have known that when you steal the candidacy, you certainly won't get the votes. Clinton effectively handed the election to Trump by not having the humility, humanity and honesty to admit defeat by Benie Sanders. ..."
    "... There's always the possibility of course, that the US establishment realised Clinton's blatant warmongering wasn't 'good for business'. ..."
    "... So maybe, they thought, we can get the Russkies 'on side', deal with China (ie. reduce it to a 'client state'/ turn it into an ashtray) - and then move on Russia and grab all those lovely resources freed up by global warming.... ..."
    "... Only her campaign volunteers knew, her message to the public was "dont vote for Trump" which translates to, I could lose to him, vote for me! ..."
    "... The Podesta emails confirmed what many people already suspected and knew of Hillary and her campaign. Those who were interested in reading them had to actually look for them, since MSM was not reporting on them. It's not as if an avid MSNBC or CNN watcher was going to be exposed. ..."
    "... It's hilarious how the major Left outlets (Washington Post) are now telling it's readers how Russia is to blame for people voting against Hillary due to the Podesta emails, when they didn't even report on the emails in the first place. ..."
    "... EVERYTHING about the system all halfway decent people detest, is summed up in the figure of Hillary Clinton. ..."
    "... Like Donald said, she had 'experience', but it was all BAD 'experience'. ..."
    "... she is a frail, withered old woman who needs to retire - def the wrong democrat choice, crazy -- Berni.S would have won if for them - he is far more sincere ..."
    "... "The displaced machinists... believe that free trade deals are responsible for their economic woes and they never trusted Clinton's turn against the TPP. But that was Clinton's campaign for you, bereft of principle and pathologically concerned with "optics" at the expense of substance." ..."
    "... This argument is as asinine as the one the author opposes. It was a collusion of events that led to this result, including the failure of both parties to adapt to an evolving economic and social climate over decades. The right wing hailing the collapse of liberalism as a result of decades of liberal mismanagement conveniently forget their own parties have held the reins for half that time, and failed just as miserably as the left.... ..."
    "... It's quite bizarre to see "progressives" openly side with the military industrial complex, which is threatened by a president elect weary of more warfare. ..."
    "... It's to be expected from career politicians like McCain who is kicking and screaming, but it's shameful to see supposed liberally-minded people help spread the Red Scare storyline. ..."
    "... Obama has behaved dreadfully, first he or his office gets one of its poodles namely MI6 to point the finger at Putin re cyberwar, which was swiftly followed by the International Olympic Committee looking at Russia for 2012 Olympic games, the elections in the US and the Democrats CIA coming out with unsubstantiated nonsense (funny how they never like, providing collaborative evidence - on this or anything that supposedly Russia has done) then there is Syria, and Obama and the Democrats were the cheerleader for regime change, because they have been out manoeuvred in that sphere. All of it in less than a week. ..."
    "... If Obama, the administration, and the CIA were smart they would have realised that a concerted effort to blame Putin / Russia would be seen for what it is - a liar and one of trying to discredit both the outcome of the US elections, the dislike of HRC, and her association with Wall St. - she raised more money for her campaign than Trump and Sanders put together (if the Democrats had chosen Sanders, then they would have stood a chance) and that their hawk would not be in a position to create WW111 - thank goodness. The Democrats deserved what they got. ..."
    "... This organ of the liberal media (no scare quotes required - it is socially liberal and economically neoliberal), along with many others, dogmatically supported Clinton against Sanders to the point of printing daily and ridiculous dishonesty, even going so far as to make out as if anyone who supports any form of wealth redistribution is a racist, sexist, whitesplaining dude-bro. ..."
    "... The Wikileaks emails proved the votes were rigged against Sanders, it why Debbie W Shulz had to resign ..."
    "... The election was close, and if one less thing had gone wrong for Hillary she would have won. However I think an important thing that lost her the election was identity politics. She patronized Afro-Americans and Hispanics, by tell them that because they are Trump-threatened minorities, they should vote for her. In the same vein, gays and women were supposed to vote for her. But what she was really telling these groups was that they should revel in their supposed victimhood, which was not a great message. ..."
    "... Completely agreed! The onus for defeat belongs to the Democrat party leadership as well. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders both understood where the momentum of the election was headed before anyone else did. The election was won and lost in the white blue collar Midwest. A place that decided that diet corporatism is decidedly worse than a populist right wing extremist. ..."
    "... No one here believed the ridiculous about-face Hillary pulled on the question of the TPP. I guarantee you Bernie would have cleaned Trump's clock in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and perhaps Ohio and Iowa. ..."
    "... "Our self-image as the world's greatest democracy...." Well, speaking for myself and plenty of other Americans, I never said anything like that about us. In fact, like a lot of people I wish we would stick to our own business, quit trying to be the world's cop, and cease meddling in other countries' affairs. ..."
    "... Assuming that it really was the Russians who done it, I guess they had a better game plan than the Saudis. ..."
    "... Her 'deplorables' comment was every bit as telling as Mitt Romney's '47%'. We really needed to know about her 'public versus private positions', even if it only confirmed what everybody already knew. I am not 100% sure the system made the worst choice in raising up Donald Trump. ..."
    "... The American voters heard a steady stream of these arguments. Some may have simply ignored them. Others took them into consideration, but concluded that they wanted drastic change enough to put them aside. White women decided that Trump's comments, while distasteful, were things they'd heard before. ..."
    "... Reliance on the sanctity of racial and gender pieties was a mistake. Not everyone treats these subjects as the holiest of holies. The people who would be most swayed by those arguments never would have voted for Trump anyways. ..."
    "... Colin Powell said Clinton destroys everything she touches with hubris. Seeing as how she destroyed the democrat "blue wall" and also had low turnout which hurt democrats down the ticket I agree. ..."
    "... All this hysteria about the USA and Russia finally working together than apart doesn't help either for it appears that the [neoliberal] lefties want a perpetual war rather than peace. ..."
    "... The CIA being outraged about a foreign state intervening in an election is quite funny. They have intervened so many times, especially in Latin America, to install puppet regimes. ..."
    "... As for hacking... does anybody believe the CIA has never hacked anybody? ..."
    Dec 13, 2016 | www.theguardian.com

    Hillary Clinton was the symbol of neoliberal globalization and contept of neoliberal for common poeple (aka deplorable). That's why she lost. this is more of the first defeat of neoliberal candidate in the USA then personal defeat of Hillary. She was just a symbol, or puppet, if you wish.

    ... ... ...

    And what exactly are the claims made by these Putin-did-it stories? That were it not for Russian chicanery, Hillary Clinton would have won the popular vote by five million and not almost three million? That displaced machinists on the banks of Lake Erie were so incensed by the Podesta emails that they voted for Trump instead of Clinton? That Putin was pulling FBI director James Comey's strings in his investigation of the Clinton emails? That those scheming Russians were clever enough to hack into voting machines, but not clever enough to cover their tracks?

    It's strangely reminiscent of the days of the Red scare, minus the Reds.

    ... ... ...

    The displaced machinists in the industrial midwest, whose votes helped put Trump in the White House, believe that free trade deals are responsible for their economic woes and they never trusted Clinton's turn against the TPP. But that was Clinton's campaign for you, bereft of principle and pathologically concerned with "optics" at the expense of substance.

    They were so confident of their inevitable victory that they wrote off the old industrial states in favor of luring upscale suburbanites who normally vote Republican. They hoped they would be so revolted by Trump that they would vote for her, but they didn't.

    ... ... ...

    Of course there are questions about our voting machines. The American balloting system is a chaotic mess, with an array of state and local authorities conducting elections under a vast variety of rules using technologies ranging from old-fashioned paper ballots to sleek touch-screen devices.

    The former take forever to count, and the latter are unauditable – we can have no idea whether the counts are accurate. The whole system is a perfect example of a quote attributed (probably falsely) to Joseph Stalin: "The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." It's not a system that inspires trust, but we barely discuss that.

    LMichelle , 14 Dec 2016 03:07

    It's panic over loss of control. They aren't pondering ways to make things better for the American people. Not in the Beltaway. Not the duoploy. The handwringing is strictly about control and pasification of the population.

    And you're shocked? I'm shocked you expected more.

    cvneuves , 14 Dec 2016 02:49
    The really amazing story about the presidential elections 2016 was actually not Clinton or Trump. It was how close the US actually got to get its first socialist, or factually rather social-democratic president. Americans are craving for more justice and equality.

    And no, Clinton does not stand for any "left values". Therefore the media favored her.

    Pu2u2skeete -> dphaynes , 14 Dec 2016 02:43
    The long, long list of dodgy-donors to The Clinton Foundation told large numbers of Democrat voters everything they needed to know about a potential Hillary Clinton presidency. This, and the 'knifing' of Bernie, sealed her fate. A reincarnated Tricky Dicky would have trounced her, too.
    poikloik098 -> Mansplain , 14 Dec 2016 03:05
    Weird in your mind only. A letter just before the election suggesting that Clinton might be indicted? And was she? Of course not. Match the letter's release with the polls at the time to see it's influence.

    Clinton's problems such as her email server were nothing compared to all the baggage that Trump carries, yet Trump's problems were blithely ignored by many because they thought Trump would make a difference.

    AveAtqueCave , 14 Dec 2016 02:19
    America will never, and should never, forgive Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
    jmac55 , 14 Dec 2016 02:18
    At last! Someone on this newspaper talking common sense.

    For the last twenty years, (way before we even knew Putin's name) the Republican Party have promoted, fomented and instigated the most ludicrous lies and calumnies about the Democratic Party and particularly Hilary Clinton, who they quite rightly recognised as a future Democratic Presidential candidate.

    They have politicised: education, defense, Federal Parks, water, race, religion and even the air we breath in their efforts to ensure victory and to this end, they bought and paid for populist uprisings against Democratic politicians, like the now abandoned Tea Party.

    The problem was that even when Republicans were elected, they obviously couldn't keep their own nonsensical promises to their now rabid audience who no longer trusted their own elected Government.

    When Trump, a disestablishment, anti-Government candidate came along, the electorate (naively) saw a possibility of the change they have been promised.

    Of course the Russians prefer Trump over Clinton, since they can see the destruction he can cause their geopolitical adversary and Putin would say as much as he can to support Trump...errr....even though it would be counter-productive with conservative voters...but it is unlikely that he bears anywhere near the blame that the Republican Party does, who foolishly allowed their own 'attack dog' to bite them on the arse.

    I'm sorry to say that the Republican Party (and the US) has to suck this one up and admit...(to mix my hackneyed metaphors) that they've blown themselves up with their own petard!

    joanne Ward , 14 Dec 2016 02:17
    I think with hindsight Bernie Sanders is going to be blamed for dividing the Democratic Party and bolstering the Republican propaganda against the Clintons. If only we had stuck together with Clinton we wouldn't be facing the Trump disaster now. Hillary Clinton is not evil and she was very highly qualified--to paraphrase Brando, we could have had progress instead of a disaster, which is what we have now.
    sand2016 -> joanne Ward , 14 Dec 2016 02:25
    Absurd! She was a rich white hawkish neolib who has no one but herself and the Democratic Pary to blame for the terrible loss which will seal the supreme court for years. Face facts!! She couldn't even beat Trump and was widely viewed as a fraud.
    FriendlyEmpiricist -> Fred1 , 14 Dec 2016 02:28
    You fool, the Libertarian party is the largest third party in the US and they mostly take votes from the Republicans. Stop blaming third parties when their existence demonstrably helps the Democrats. Or perhaps you dream of a world where conservatives still support their third party just as much as they ever did but lefties all move in perfect lockstep? If so, it's time for a reality check.
    pacificist , 14 Dec 2016 02:14
    Up jumped Hilary Benn with the theory that Jeremy Corbyn had caused the Brexit vote. His resignation and the denunciation of 172 Labour MP's based on an "indisputable fact" that nobody believes to be true today. The person who lost the Presidential Election in USA is Hillary Clinton. She, like Blair is a war monger. I, if I had a vote, would not have voted for her.

    If she had been elected we would have had bigger and better wars in the Middle East. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan never ended despite Obama calling the Iraq war a "strategic mistake". One that continued for another eight years. To those two we have added Syria and Lybia. The west, like Russia, is dabbling in other people's wars. They have been made one hundred times worse.

    What Hillary would not have dabbled in is the industrial decline in the "Rust Belt" states. She is proposing to do nothing. So they had the prospect of no rectification at home with yet more wars abroad. No wonder they stayed at home. Hillary and Nu Labour are the same: belligerancy in the Middle East coupled with tame pussy cat against failing capitalism at home. The middle east has got total destruction from the west and total nothingness but austerity (ie more failure) as the action plan for capitalism. They are on the "same page" then!

    Jympton , 14 Dec 2016 01:48
    " ...reflecting on how baseless our self-image as the world's greatest democracy is. " The rest of the world has known that for decades.
    helenus , 14 Dec 2016 01:48
    I don't understand how accurate reporting by Wikileaks of politicians' emails is considered 'interference' with the US elections. To me, it seems helpful. If a US newspaper made the report, they would probably get a prize. If a foreign organization made the report, so what? People abroad are free (I hope) to comment on US matters, and people in the US are free to read it or not. It could be argued that only reporting democratic emails is distorting the truth: I'd say its a step towards the whole truth. I welcome all disclosures that are pertinent to a good decision by US voters.
    PostTrotskyite -> helenus , 14 Dec 2016 01:53
    When did hacking become legal?
    helenus -> PostTrotskyite , 14 Dec 2016 02:57
    ask Snowden
    DMontaigne -> 14122016 , 14 Dec 2016 02:26
    The Guardian helped Trump? How many Americans actually read the Guardian?
    Mansplain -> DMontaigne , 14 Dec 2016 02:46
    Perhaps they mean the Guardian's politics. Identity politics has been thoroughly rejected and instead of learning from the experience, Guardian has been electing to throw more of the same tactics, except louder
    Pu2u2skeete , 14 Dec 2016 01:42
    Citizens of the UK are by far the most heavily surveilled in the western world. This has been the case since long before the ubiquitous introduction of CCTV cameras.
    HomoSapienSapiens , 14 Dec 2016 01:35

    Americans across the political spectrum are happy to use Putin to distract them from reflecting on how baseless our self-image as the world's greatest democracy is.

    You're absolutely right. Putin is the boogeyman for every ill, real or purported, of his own society, and when the American political system and its institutions prove to be broken, Putin gets to be the boogeyman for that, too. What a powerful man! He must be pleased.

    Only, the thing is, the American political system and its institutions - American democracy - weren't undermined overnight. It took several decades and it was done by Americans who weren't so keen on democracy. Can't fob that off on Putin, try as they might.

    If American power takes a big fat fall like Humpty Dumpty, don't look to Vladimir Putin, look in a fucking mirror. That's where you'll find the culprit.

    PreziDonald -> PostTrotskyite , 14 Dec 2016 01:28
    This is an ultimate truth because it explains why Merkel will not be elected. These days Putin is in full control of the world and is responsible for everything.
    PreziDonald , 14 Dec 2016 01:23
    Let's thank Hillary for that. There is a very good news: on the 20th January we'll cut all Saudi supply channels to the IS and kill all the bastards within 2 months.
    PreziDonald -> shampacanada , 14 Dec 2016 01:43
    In the modern world it is enough to do nothing to be a good man, eg if Bush, Blair, Obama and Clinton didn't create ISIS, the world would be a much better place. You do not even need to be smart to understand this.
    Your Donald.
    From where you'd rather be.
    With love.
    Lafeyette , 14 Dec 2016 01:13
    It's crazy. Even if the Russian hacking claims are legitimate, the leaks still revealed things about the Democrats that were true. It's like telling your friend that their spouse is cheating on them, and then the spouse blaming you for ruining the marriage.
    Althnaharra , 14 Dec 2016 01:05
    The Clinton campaign spent like drunken sailors, on media. This is a new role for the media giants that took care of Clinton's every need, including providing motivational research and other consultants.

    The ongoing scenario that now spins around Putin as a central figure is a product of "after shock media". Broadcast media bounced America back and forth from sit-com to gun violence for decades, giving fiction paramount value. To weave fictional reality in real time for a mass audience is a magnum leap from internet fake news. This drama is concocted to keep DNC from going into seclusion until the inauguration.

    judyblue , 14 Dec 2016 01:04
    Doug Henwood is absolutely correct. This obsession with the supposed foreign interference is baseless. All the real culprits operate within our own system.
    Chukcha Rybak , 14 Dec 2016 01:04
    What happened to Guardian today ? A reasonable story. Unreal feel
    AveAtqueCave , 14 Dec 2016 00:51
    Maybe, in four years, Trump's administration can oversee a secure election. Unlike the Obama folks, who seem to make a calamity out of any project bigger than making a sandwich.
    Pu2u2skeete -> AveAtqueCave , 14 Dec 2016 00:59
    Obama still has access to lethal drones, watch your back.
    TheMediaSux , 14 Dec 2016 00:49
    This hullabaloo really highlights the disdain the establishment has for the American voter. They thought they had it tied up. They thought they had pulled one over on the American people. They are not interested in what the voter actually wants.

    And this raises questions about why our servicemen and women are making sacrifices. The establishment story-line talks about our brave soldiers dying so we can have free elections. Or something like that. The establishment does not care about free and fair elections. In fact, this hullabaloo should have demonstrated to everybody that the establishment does not respect or accepts the results of elections that don't go their way.

    AveAtqueCave -> TheMediaSux , 14 Dec 2016 00:53
    Look at WikiLeaks. They died so Hillary could present her ever-so-clever "tick-tock on Libya" and make fools think she's a constructive foreign policy force.
    AveAtqueCave , 14 Dec 2016 00:48
    Trump blows, but I'm relieved incompetent Hillary Clinton and her gang of bloodthirsty bunglers aren't going to be in the white house.

    Debbie Wasserman-Schultz should have shown more respect to her party's membership.

    Pu2u2skeete -> AveAtqueCave , 14 Dec 2016 00:55
    H. Clinton would have started a war against Russia in Syria come January; and war against Russia in The Ukraine shortly after. Trump could yet end civilization as we know it: thereagain the CIA might 'JFK' him early doors before he's able to.
    DogsLivesMatter -> Pu2u2skeete , 14 Dec 2016 01:25
    Trump might start a war with Iran. He will have the backing of Saudi Arabia, Israel and Jordon. That frightens me just as much if not worse.
    Pu2u2skeete -> DogsLivesMatter , 14 Dec 2016 01:30
    Fully agree with you. Trump's victory is certain to have incalculable consequences for life on earth. I believe he will give Netenyahu the green light to use tactical nuclear weapons against Iranian nuclear and military facilities. I am no fan of Trump.
    Pu2u2skeete , 14 Dec 2016 00:43
    American 'exceptionalism;' The World's Policeman; The greatest country on earth. Descriptions believed and espoused by the USA. So Exceptional is America that it claims a God-given right to interfere with or sabotage political parties, foriegn governments (democratically-elected or not) and sovereign states anywhere it chooses. Now we have the hilarious spectacle of a historically blood-drenched CIA (Fake News Central) squawking and squealing completely fabricated nonsense about Kremlin interference in Trump's election victory. Tell that to the tens of millions slaughtered in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and the many other nations and people's around the globe who have had first hand experience of American Exceptionalism. You could not make it up..
    Fred Lunau -> Pu2u2skeete , 14 Dec 2016 01:43
    Well said. Sad but true.

    cvneuves , 14 Dec 2016 00:41
    Arguably, Clinton and the DNC themselves showed very little respect for democracy, as we know from leaks. And now they are whining because of a democratic outcome they don't like.

    We should discuss two things:

    - the content of the mails
    - and the ethical question: did the hacker, whoever it is, did democracy rather a service than a disservice? From when on is a piece of information so valuable that its origins don't matter anymore?

    Media, at least in times when msm still had some moral clout, often relied in their investigative journalism on source which by themselves were not necessarily ethically bona fide - but the public interest, the common good benefited by the information.

    Had Clinton won the election and we only found out now about the trickery that aided in her success we would have a major dilemma. We would have to have endless discussions now about her legitimacy.

    LibertineUSA , 14 Dec 2016 00:26
    I am one who firmly believes that Clinton lost this election because of Clinton's and the DNC's ineptitude and hubris.

    But that doesn't mean the Russians weren't running a psy-ops campaign of fake news stories and misinformation about Clinton and this election on Facebook.

    Which was more responsible for Clinton's loss? Most probably Clinton's ineptitude but the fake news campaigns on Facebook had some effect. It needs to be addressed...

    diddoit -> LibertineUSA , 14 Dec 2016 00:35
    But hadn't Hillary made it personal by saying Trump was Putin's puppet etc?
    She even refused to state whether she'd seek to impose a no-fly zone over Syria; this despite leading Generals telling her it would mean going to war with Russia and Syria.

    Given all that, it's hardly surprising the Russian Duma broke into spontaneous applause upon the confirmation of her defeat. She'd very much cast herself as the enemy of Russia in the campaign.

    LibertineUSA -> diddoit , 14 Dec 2016 01:12
    With the naming of Rex Tillerson, a close business, and personal, friend of Putin, to be Secy. of State I am not sure the argument can be made that she was wrong in her assessment.
    Mizzentop , 14 Dec 2016 00:21
    This article is absolutely right. Trump was not a good candidate and for him to beat Clinton should be setting alarm bells ringing in Democrat HQ. The left though does have an entrenched culture of deluding itself and convincing itself that its a victim of things beyond its control. That lack of self awareness and inability to be brutally honest with itself is a major reason why the left wins many fewer elections than the left. It is also why there are never shock wins for the Democrats or Labour because they always assume too much. The Tories and Republicans are very good at understanding their weaknesses and mitigating them to win elections.
    Aaron Aarons -> Mizzentop , 14 Dec 2016 00:41
    It's absurd to consider Clinton and the mainstream Democrats as part of "the Left". Even the best of the Democrats are generally more on the Right than on the Left, in that they are pro-capitalist and defend the national interests of U.S. imperialism. Add to that their almost unanimous support for the settler colony called "Israel" and there's very little leftism to be found among them.
    JamesHeartfield -> ID8701745 , 14 Dec 2016 00:31
    Cunning of Putin to go back in time and persuade the framers of the US constitution to institute an electoral college, so that he could put his own candidate in place all those hundreds of years later.
    No. Both candidates fought an election under the same rules. In the run up to the vote, Hillary's spokesmen often argued that even if the vote was close, they had the electoral college sewn up. She has nobody to blame but herself.
    ID5073867 , 14 Dec 2016 00:11
    There are plenty of villains who contributed to the electoral downfall of HRC, mostly, though, it's HRC who is primarily responsible, with a big assist from an arrogant & politically inept DNC. Hillary won a bare majority of women, plus the average income of Trump voters exceeded that of Hillies' supporters. Then all the groundwork for the deplorables was laid by Bill, who got rid of Glass-Steagell. Too much is being made of the machinist from Erie & the deplorables generally & if the Dems don't take a serious look at themselves we'll have Agent Orange for 8 rather than 4 deplorable years.
    freeandfair -> S , 14 Dec 2016 01:52
    For goodness sake, it is not foreign governments , it is information. With advance of social media and internet it became so much harder to control the information that gets out.
    That is where we are in a post-propaganda world. You are not only receiving your government approved daily portion of brainwashing but propaganda and brainwashing and information from various sources, all with their various interests. It is your job a s an individual to decide what to believe. You can't put the jinni back in the box.
    cvneuves , 14 Dec 2016 00:10
    It is all about a narrative to suit the agenda. Had Trump outspent Clinton 2:1 he would now be reviled as the candidate of arms industry, pharmaceuticals and big banks. Had Clinton defeated him it would be celebrated as a successful setback for the aforementioned industries; the intelligence of the voters would have been praised. But then supposedly, Clinton was more supported by disadvantaged groups, albeit they then also would be disadvantaged with regards to their education.

    It will always end up in absurdity. However, the notion that "Putin" (never with first name, or Mr, preferably pronounced "Poot'n") decided the US presidency is, interesting.

    Usually the issue simply is, crap candidate, crap result.

    diddoit , 14 Dec 2016 00:09
    Had Sanders been the candidate and had he lost to Trump, I doubt very much he'd have started all this blaming the Russians nonsense.

    Ultimately, Hilary had terrible trustworthiness ratings from nearly 25 years in frontline politics; every shortcoming ruthlessly exploited along the way by her and her husband's political opponents. Ignoring all that historic baggage(dating back to the early '90s) as irrelevant and blaming defeat on the Russians makes everyone supporting that theory look equally absurd.

    MayorHoberMallow , 14 Dec 2016 00:08
    In the 2016 Presidential election, in the 49 States other than California, Trump won the popular vote and enough electoral votes to win the election.
    In California, the most populous State in America, the popular vote was so overwhelmingly in favor of Hillary Clinton that she ended up winning the overall popular vote.
    The electoral college is working exactly as the Founding Fathers intended.
    cvneuves -> ID8701745 , 14 Dec 2016 01:08

    No he didn't. Check your facts and try again.

    He did, in fact Trump is 600,000 votes ahead of Clinton without California.

    Trump 62,916,237 - California 3,916,209 = 59,000,028
    Clinton 65,758,070 - California 7,362,490 = 58,395,580

    Amazing, the difference a fact check can make, isn't it? Thanks for alerting me to a fact check.

    Zacky Olumba , 13 Dec 2016 23:58
    In Shakespeare's book "Julius Caesar" the dictator was told not to go to the Capitol where he will be murdered. His wife warned him, the soothsayer warned him but he ignored it. Caesar's wisdom was consumed in confidence...confidence that he will be crowned king, confidence that all Romans (most stupid people then) loved him, and confidence that those who surround him are his 'friends.' He adamantly went to the Capitol and was murdered.

    Clinton ignored most rural areas and I totally agree with the writer along this line "They were so confident of their inevitable victory that they wrote off the old industrial states in favor of luring upscale suburbanites who normally vote Republican." Clinton and her team paid dearly for it just like Caesar did. Blaming Russian for the loss is like "You made me do it."

    Simon Speed , 13 Dec 2016 23:53
    In the UK, Rupert Murdoch accesses a Prime Minister as readily as any government minister and wields at least as much influence. At least he is open and honest about this. Similar oligarchs exert their power more discretely. Murdoch's an Australian born US citizen (for business reasons) with a truly global empire.

    A country's big rich have always ruled it's politics. Imperial powers have intervened in their spheres of influence . But now the big rich are international and, it seems, 1st world electorates are getting a taste of what 3rd world people have become used to.

    What strikes me is the reluctance of the US political elite (including Obama) to intervene, even when there's a suspicion of vote rigging. The right of the rich and powerful to control the electoral process (as they have long done) trumps the national-interest (US v. rival powers) side of politics.

    It's a confusing globalized world.

    LastNameOnTheShelf , 13 Dec 2016 23:41
    Hilary Clinton won the popular vote. More people voted for her. What is the deal with the electoral college? How is it possible to have such a huge discrepancy between the two. What is the point of blaming the candidate when they can lose while winning?

    And what is the point of blaming the candidate for their campaign when large numbers of Americans are prepared to believe the most random bullshit? What did you want her to do, lie more often? Because apparently, that's what it takes.

    86753oh9 -> LastNameOnTheShelf , 13 Dec 2016 23:52
    this does a good job of explaining how the electoral college system works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXnjGD7j2B0 ->
    MayorHoberMallow -> LastNameOnTheShelf , 14 Dec 2016 00:09
    From my comment above... "In the 2016 Presidential election, in the 49 States other than California, Trump won the popular vote and enough electoral votes to win the election.
    In California, the most populous State in America, the popular vote was so overwhelmingly in favor of Hillary Clinton that she ended up winning the overall popular vote.
    The electoral college is working exactly as the Founding Fathers intended."
    Keith Schoose -> LastNameOnTheShelf , 14 Dec 2016 00:20
    The election is decided by Electoral Votes. Everyone including Hillary knew that. Complaining that she won the popular vote while losing in the Electoral College would be similar to the loser of a soccer match complaining they lost 1-nil even though they outshot the victor by a 6-1 margin. Whine all you want about the popular vote, it is irrelevant.

    Hillary Clinton visited Arizona in the last week of the election, while visiting Wisconsin ZERO times in the general election campaign. The trip to Arizona was a waste of time.

    She lost because she was a horrible candidate with terrible strategy. All these people bleating about "Putin" and or the "popular vote" make me laugh.

    Afterthoughtbtw -> RobertAussie , 14 Dec 2016 00:10
    With respect, you're going to have to back up some of those claims in the second paragraph and how they could apply to Russia.

    As for the first paragraph, a few things come to mind.

    Firstly, it's a huge simplification - there are things like public interest laws to be borne in mind when talking about the press having to obey the law. I don't think there is much doubt that this was in the public interest. I mean what Clinton did with the email server was actually illegal. If someone hacked into a mob boss' computer, got evidence of his/her crimes, and leaked them to the press, would you criticise the hacker or the mob boss?

    Secondly, how on earth was this selectively released to favour one side? How do you favour one side over the other when you only have information on one side. You are literally saying that you shouldn't report on one side's wrongdoings if you can't find anything wrong about the other's! If these are genuine - which absolutely no-one to do with Clinton has denied - then that is all there is to it. Reality isn't partisan.

    Or are you talking about how it was released? You mean dumped en masse onto Wikileaks? How was that showing bias in any way? I just don't understand what you are trying to claim here.

    Finally this comment makes me suspect you don't appreciate the American political climate:

    But, given the result, the section of the press that would investigate hasn't got the money or power to do so. You can be assured the Fox network would have devoted billions to the investigation had HRC won though.

    Fox News aren't the only people with money - indeed, Clinton vastly outspent Trump in the election... by roughly half a billion(!) dollars.

    JamesHeartfield -> fairviewsue , 14 Dec 2016 01:24
    O -- The Director of the CIA says it, then it must be true? Forgive me, but isn't this an organisation created to spread disinformation around the world, overthrow foreign governments, and subvert democracy? Which elections in the world has the CIA not tried to influence? Time Magazine openly boasts that the US government and agencies had a direct role in securing the election of President Yeltsin (who sold off a significant share of the country's assets under US advice, and plunged Russia into the worst recession since the 1930s). Hillary Clinton openly supported the management of the elections for the Palestine National Authority in 2006. Bill Clinton openly agitated for the overthrow of President Aristide.
    Now that the CIA's most assiduous supporters have lost office, up pops the CIA, blaming the Russians, like we were in some bad 1950s Cold War pastiche. Get real. Take responsibility for your own failures, Democrats. Time to cleanse the stables.
    hashtagthat , 13 Dec 2016 23:21
    The CIA: the organisation that brought us WMD, a Gulf war, 100,000s of deaths and the birth of ISIS. The original fake news masters.

    Highly credible.

    Mark222 , 13 Dec 2016 23:12
    Where is even the proof of Russian propaganda? It all seems to come from an "Anonymous source", without verfication I don't see how this is any more legitimate than the rest of the post truth fake news out there that people believe just because it confirms their biases.
    LastNameOnTheShelf -> Mark222 , 13 Dec 2016 23:45
    The CIA claim to know that Russian hackers leaked the Clinton campaign emails to Assange. You can, of course, disbelieve them, but they're not a random anonymous source exactly.
    Rosie423956 -> LastNameOnTheShelf , 14 Dec 2016 00:17
    Except the sources within the CIA are anonymous. The same CIA who has wrought wars, coups, interfered with elections. That CIA Anonymous source.

    This would be funny, except...oh hell, it's still funny.

    JamesHeartfield -> LastNameOnTheShelf , 14 Dec 2016 00:56
    The CIA -- Trustworthy source --
    cvneuves -> Sappho53 , 13 Dec 2016 23:17
    Putin extremely powerful man. Make regime change in Amerika without needing invasion or rebels. Soon regime change also in many Europan countries by sending copies of emails to small room in embassy of little country in London.

    You know how powerful Putin? Last week even show finger to Chuck Norris! Chuck Norris now call Putin "sir".

    James Harris -> Sappho53 , 14 Dec 2016 01:43
    Uterus or bust went bust a good while back. Give it up
    Michronics42 , 13 Dec 2016 22:50
    Thank you, Doug Henwood for pointing out what the wholly-owned corporate "pundits" choose not to divulge to coincide with their own agendas.

    Hillary was a disastrous choice for the "Democratic" party, but the vast majority of Democratic politicians were just too feckless to support Bernie Sanders, so now we have an equally terrible choice in Donald Trump.

    That Clinton and Trump even competed for the presidency is in itself an indication of just how disconnected and undemocratic U.S. politics has become.

    Moreover, as Henwood (a frequent and unsparing critic of Clinton, Inc. over the years) has pointed out both Democrats and Republicans are supporting the Russia conspiracy theory in a cowardly attempt to distract the U.S. public from the real and far more dire crisis, which is Washington's enormous political dysfunction not Russia's complicity. (Read Henwood's essay: Stop Hillary! Vote no to a Clinton Dynasty in Harper's Magazine, November 2014 - one article a month is free for reading).

    Yes, the electoral college is a ridiculous throwback to slavery which should be abolished, but its dissolution is just one of many things I'd like to see eradicated from a governing body that has long stopped representing the interests of working class Americans; unless, of course you have the influence and money for such access.

    The non-violent and powerful Black Lives Matter, Moral Mondays in North Carolina and Standing Rock protesters (reinforced by U.S. veterans and other supporters) have demonstrated that change is possible if we're carefully focused on uprooting and replacing government corruption.

    Francisco Carvajal , 13 Dec 2016 22:49
    A silly binary-it's not either Putin or Clinton but a complex conjecture. Can't we raise our intellectual level closer to the complexity of our world?
    SubjectiveSubject , 13 Dec 2016 22:46
    The West support for regimes like Israel and Saudi Arabia makes it hard to present a credible case against Putin on any issues but, rigging the election is just absurd. These days people are more clued up and know Hillary lost because she was not trusted, carried baggage and was funded by big banks. It is rather worrying that we've gone backward and Nazi propaganda tactics are the norm again.
    skiloypet , 13 Dec 2016 22:42
    There was a 50/50 chance the Democrats would take the fall from grace; both parties are out of touch with mainstream, middle-class America, it's just coincidence Trump manifested himself when he did. Neither party had a good message or a good messenger; the dark phenomenon of Trump could have come from either party, the nation was so desperate for change. Yet the GOP really maneuvered for Jeb Bush to begin with; the Democrats, with a significantly smaller field, laid their bet on Clinton. The public's rejection of both Bush and Clinton left the door open for a GOP interloper, Trump; and Clinton was pushed on the Democrats rather than Sanders.

    Even the GOP will have buyers remorse if/when they cannot temper Trump.

    Patrick Moore , 13 Dec 2016 22:34
    As someone who wanted Hilary to win, it is difficult to disagree with any of this.

    If she couldn't beat Trump - who about three times a day said something idiotic or repugnant, then she really was the wrong candidate

    Since he won Trump has actually sounded miles more sensible. I can't help feel that if he had adopted his current tone before the election that he would have won by a landslide

    samuel glover -> Herr_Settembrini , 13 Dec 2016 22:55
    "This was the strategy not because Clinton was was incompetent; it was the strategy because all available data pointed to the fact that it was working."

    What a joke.

    She had a billion dollars in her campaign fund. The money she spent on "data" was just money flushed down the sewer. (No doubt various Clinton hangers-on got very nice "consulting" fees.) She was a Democrat who publicly bragged about her devotion to **Henry Kissinger**.

    She lost to **Donald Trump**. I think even Martin O'Malley could've beaten Trump; I'm certain Sanders could. Only Hillary Clinton had the "magic" necessary to lose to a casino and real estate huckster.

    She was always a lousy candidate, and she's an incompetent politician as well. Dems can face that, face reality, or keep going as they are, in which case there won't **be** a Democratic Party before long.

    MountainMan23 , 13 Dec 2016 22:24
    Agreed. HRC, DNC and the Clintonistas are the only ones responsible for her loss. But there's more to their post-election pushback than just shifting the blame, a lot more.

    Demonizing Russia isn't just about seeking a scapegoat. Trump's embrace of Russia and decision to end the neocon-neoliberal agenda of regime change skewer two of the corporate establishment's cash cows - arms sales to the numerous conflicts in the Middle East initiated by the corporate cabal, and arms sales to NATO and all the new post Cold War NATO members to continue the buildup of armaments on Russia's borders.

    That's a lot of anticipated arms sales and a lot of every bit as anticipated political "donations" from the corporate establishment.

    amuel glover -> MountainMan23 , 13 Dec 2016 23:00
    " Trump's embrace of Russia and decision to end the neocon-neoliberal agenda of regime change skewer two of the corporate establishment's cash cows - arms sales to the numerous conflicts in the Middle East initiated by the corporate cabal, and arms sales to NATO and all the new post Cold War NATO members to continue the buildup of armaments on Russia's borders."

    That's a mighty optimistic forecast, but it's not impossible. I think Trump is likely to be a disaster, and even if he isn't, an unleashed Republican gang is a horrible thing to imagine. Still, I'd love to be pleasantly surprised, and I note that already Trump's campaign has put down TWO odious political dynasties, AND the TPP -- all very healthy developments.

    cvneuves , 13 Dec 2016 22:23
    Hillary Clinton lost because the majority of the voters were nauseated by her by her fake perma- smile which might as well have been installed by cosmetic surgery. The well rehearsed, worn-out, hollow on-message crap she spouted had zilch credibility and as much resonance. She had nothing to say to the electorate.

    That the Clinton spent about twice as much as the Trump camp in this case did not work to her favour: every appearance on tv made her lose voters.

    The only thing that kept the contest somehow close was the unprecedented all-media fear campaign against Trump.

    I have never had any doubt that that Trump would get the job. What surprised me though, is that only one in 200 eligible voters bothered with the Green's Jill Stein: they are supposedly relatively highly committed to their causes.

    Another mistake of the Clinton campaign, btw. was to focus on scandal. My experience of 45 years of campaigning tells me "scandal" does not win any campaigns.

    cvneuves -> Walter Masterson , 13 Dec 2016 22:45

    99% of the weapons in the Trump arsenal were Trumped up Hillary "scandals"

    They did not decide it. Neither did the new "sexual victim" paraded every couple of days by the Clinton camp. Scandal and counter-scandal are part of every campaign and ignored by non-committed voters.

    What did it for Trump was, that he spoke unscripted, thus came across a somewhat more genuine, and at least acknowledged the victims of de-industrialisation, for which he could not be blamed, but Clinton could. Clinton did not have anything she could present apart from "better equipped because of experience" - with an undistinguished actual record. The name Clinton can be blamed for the plight of the "rust-belt".

    Juillette , 13 Dec 2016 22:19
    Americans have paid a heavy price because of free trade deals and they want a different direction. In the last 15 years there is a noticeable difference in opportunity and wages and most of our politicians don't care. Hillary lost this because she supported most free trade and outsourcing jobs to India and China. They DNC has a chance to reform but they choose not to. I hope Bernie starts a new party and leaves the neo liberals behind. Who knows where Trump will take us but if he adds to the swamp he will be a one term president. Right now it looks like he is repaying his Wall Street fundraisers and big oil super pacs. Our politicians deserve the embarrassment for ignoring our citizens struggles.
    PennyCarter -> Juillette , 13 Dec 2016 22:25
    I mostly see your argument and respect it. However I was not aware that trump was subject to enormous support from super-pacs or Wall Street?
    Juillette -> PennyCarter , 13 Dec 2016 22:58
    Steven Mnuchin with ties to Wall Street stepped in when no one else would and fund raised for Trump. Mnuchin is picked as secretary of treasury. Big oil supported Cruz and moved to Trump with a few superpacs that Kellyanne Conway managed. Both Wall Street and energy will be deregulated. Also tax reform for corporations. He will have to follow through on new trade deals, tax on imports and immigration or he will only help the 1%. We will see if he follows through...
    samuel glover -> PennyCarter , 13 Dec 2016 23:02
    His appointments aren't those of a guy intent on keeping Wall Street at arm's length. **Three** cabinet posts to Goldman Sachs alums?!?!? C'mon.....
    Solomon Black , 13 Dec 2016 22:18
    But didn't Obama dismiss Romney's warning that Russia was a threat to America in 2012. Democrats double standard.
    Walter Masterson -> Solomon Black , 13 Dec 2016 22:31
    Short answer: no.

    Keith Schoose -> Solomon Black , 14 Dec 2016 00:57
    Short answer: Yes.

    Mauryan , 13 Dec 2016 22:18
    CIA? The one which came up with the truth about WMDs in Iraq?

    Who can trust an intelligence agency that has become a legalized criminal organization?

    I think Aliens changed the course of the election and not Putin :-)

    Patrick Moore -> Mauryan , 13 Dec 2016 22:41
    Exactly. So Goldman Sachs as well as the CIA are supporting Hilary. What's not to love about that.

    Difficult to even think of a more toxic endorsement

    MarinaAs , 13 Dec 2016 22:14
    You sir are simply, wrong! read:
    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/12/12/1609989/-It-s-the-Russian-arctic-shelf-stupid
    kritter , 13 Dec 2016 22:14
    The only person the democrats are helping with this is Putin.

    diddoit -> kritter , 13 Dec 2016 22:25
    Indeed,

    I bet in Moscow they're quite enjoying this notion Putin can simply dismiss any govt on earth by simply letting loose a few hackers and propagandists. And probably thinking if only.

    The west looks like its collectively losing its marbles. Political systems, like tastes and fashion change naturally over time. Our two party systems struggle to cope with any change, thus the bewildered politicians within these parties lash out.

    PennyCarter -> diddoit , 13 Dec 2016 22:33
    It seems the Arab spring has finally reached America
    MOTCO , 13 Dec 2016 22:11
    The US have been obsessed with the commies for so long they can't see where the new threats are coming from.
    SteveTory , 13 Dec 2016 22:09
    On November 25, 2016, the Obama administration said the results from November 8, "accurately reflect the will of the American people." The following day, the White House released another statement saying, "the federal government did not observe any increased level of malicious cyberactivity aimed at disrupting our electoral process on Election Day."
    Herr_Settembrini -> SteveTory , 13 Dec 2016 22:38
    And? Does anybody claim that any foreign power hacked the voting machines themselves?

    The claim is that Russian directed operatives hacked the DNC, etc. in an attempt to find embarrassing material that would damage Clinton's candidacy. They succeeded.

    mismeasure -> Herr_Settembrini , 13 Dec 2016 23:49
    We know about the claims. What about the evidence?
    suddenoakdeath , 13 Dec 2016 22:04
    Doug Henwood trying to beat the Bernie Sanders drum. What I heard from Bernie Sanders Townhall in Wisconsin is that people blamed illegal immigrants for their situation. Deep down inside they have been Trump supporters for a while. That is why Trump won Wisconsin.
    Wiseaftertheevent , 13 Dec 2016 22:02
    A Labour MP is claiming that Putin also fixed the Brexit vote - which also shows how people will blame anyone but themselves for losing a vote. There is not one Clinton supporter who would have complained about the result had she won the Electoral College and lost the popular vote.

    That is not to say that the system should not be changed but Democrats and/or Clintonites should not try to change it retrospectively. That would mean chaos.

    ATLcitizen7 , 13 Dec 2016 22:02
    Totally agree with this article by Mr. Henwood. If Democrats, and Republicans for that matter, want to go on a wild goose chase to blame Russians for the election outcome, with basically no hard evidence to back their claim, rather than look at the real reasons why they lost (disaffected angry citizens and not being able to compete with Trump because they chose lousy candidates) then they deserve to continue losing their future elections. So be it.
    Mystik Al , 13 Dec 2016 22:01
    If she had not spent so much time calling Trump a Misogynist while taking money from Saudi Arabia then maybe , just maybe she would have not come across as the most deceitful and toxic candidate the US has ever seen.
    NancyVolle , 13 Dec 2016 21:58
    Hillary Clinton lost Pennsylvania, Michigan & Wisconsin solely because of NAFTA & TPP. Bill & Hillary Clinton supported NAFTA. Hillary Clinton had a history of supporting TPP & Obama was actively pushing it. When Hillary Clinton changed her position on TPP people in the old industrial heartland were not convinced that was sincere. The Russians were not responsible for Hillary, Bill & Obama's history of support for trade deals that facilitate moving jobs to low wage countries that suppress unions, allow unsafe working conditions & don't have meaningful environmental regulations.
    seho90 , 13 Dec 2016 21:56

    Julian Assange denies that the Russian government was the source of the hacked emails to and from Clinton campaign chair John Podesta that WikiLeaks published. Of course, there's no way of knowing if he's telling the truth – but regardless of their source, how much influence did they have on the election outcome?

    oh, right

    so when the Wikileaks reveals evilness of the conservatives, it's good, but when the liberals get revealed, he's not telling the truth?

    give me a break.

    Wikileaks is a neutral source, not a conservative or a liberal one.

    PennyCarter -> seho90 , 13 Dec 2016 22:04
    I agree with you. However may I add that the point is not whether Assange is of good character or whether Wikileaks is left or right. The point is has any Wikileaks releases been proven false in the last 10 years or so?
    Herr_Settembrini -> seho90 , 13 Dec 2016 22:32

    Wikileaks is a neutral source, not a conservative or a liberal one.

    Bull. Assange dripped, dripped, dripped the leaks so that it would do maximum damage to Clinton. Whether he has conservative or liberal leanings is irrelevant. What in incontrovertible, however, is that he has an anti-Clinton bias.

    What the leaks revealed is exactly the kind of internal policy debates, calibration of message, and gossipy venting that occurs in any political campaign. Only out of context did they appear damaging.

    calderonparalapaz , 13 Dec 2016 21:43
    Is Guardian running cold war propaganda?

    "Anonymous Leaks to the WashPost About the CIA's Russia Beliefs Are No Substitute for Evidence"- Glen Greenwald

    https://theintercept.com/2016/12/10/anonymous-leaks-to-the-washpost-about-the-cias-russia-beliefs-are-no-substitute-for-evidence /

    ewmbrsfca , 13 Dec 2016 21:41
    The other big elephant in the room is that nearly half of those eligible to vote did not. Instead, the hysterical US media engage the gullible populace in yet another game of mass distraction, and soon Putin will be forgotten and all will salivate over the Oscar nominations. Thus the United States of Amnesia will settle into its usual addictive habit of running after any "news" that holds the promise of distractive entertainment. Never mind the nation's democracy... "We amuse ourselves to death" (Neil Postman).
    Mike Kiepe , 13 Dec 2016 21:37
    This article is spot on. Tulsi Gabbard 2020
    PennyCarter , 13 Dec 2016 21:34
    Otto Bismarck once said: "laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made"

    To paraphrase, I guess you could also say the same about elections. Leaks revealing behind the curtains shenanigans of any election would turn most stomachs. After seeing this election I may become a vegetarian.

    Huddsblue , 13 Dec 2016 21:32
    Too right. It was always Hillary's election to lose and she lost it simply because she was not to be trusted. Her very public endorsement by gangster capitalist Jay-Z told you all you needed to know about who she represented.
    chris200 , 13 Dec 2016 21:12
    I used to work for an American oil company. Clinton was the one thing that united Democrats and Republicans over lunch time chats. She was unsuitable, and unfit for office. People voted not necessarily for Trump, but against Clinton. Don't blame Trump for this result. Blame the democrats and their poor candidates. So far I like his choice of cabinet members. Except for the banker they are men that create wealth by providing work for talented people. Not something the Guardian understands.
    merrykoala -> LDWWDL , 13 Dec 2016 21:27
    So your prime character witness for Hillary Clinton is.....Bill Clinton.

    Good luck with that.

    FYI mishandling protectively marked documents is wrongdoing, which James Comey testified that she had. Had it been ANYBODY other than a presidential candidate their feet wouldn't have touched the floor.

    Justin Chudgar , 13 Dec 2016 21:09
    What the author fails to emphasize is the degree to which Dem. party 'insiders' like DWSchulz and DBrazile and so on sabotaged their own nomination process by biasing the pre-primary and primary contests in favor of Clinton in subtle and stupidly obvious ways.

    Had this been a contest between Trump and B. Sanders, M. O'Malley, J. Biden, E. Warren, etc. there would have been no Podesta emails to care hack, no home server to investigate, etc. By tipping the scales in favor of Clinton early, parts of the Dem. party caused the current outcome.

    piouspish , 13 Dec 2016 20:58
    I was dubious before, but I'm now actively concerned. This crop of Democrats and their deep state cohorts are unhinged and dangerous. They see me and my families' lives as an externality in their eventual war with Russia. As Phyrric a victory as there could possibly be. They are psychotic; not only waging countless coups and intelligence operations abroad, but now in plain sight on American soil. The mainstream media seems to invoke the spirit of Goebbels more vividly with each passing day. Their disdain and manipulation of the general populace is chilling. They see us not as people to be won-over, but as things to be manipulated, tricked and coerced. Nothing new for politicians (particularity the opposition) - but the levels here are staggering.

    January couldn't come soon enough - and I say that as strong critic of Trump.

    erewhon888 , 13 Dec 2016 20:39
    There is an update to yesterday's Guardian article. Update: David Swanson interviewed Murray today, and obtained additional information. Specifically, Murray told Swanson that: (1) there were two American leakers ... one for the emails of the Democratic National Committee and one for the emails of top Clinton aide John Podesta; (2) Murray met one of those leakers; and (3) both leakers are American insiders with the NSA and/or the DNC, with no known connections to Russia.
    michaelmichael , 13 Dec 2016 20:38
    "Putin didn't win this election for Trump. Hillary Clinton did"

    Nailed it. If the Democrats had fielded someone who actually represented the people (and who spoke the truth) instead of a corporate shill, the outcome would have been very different.

    They had the ideal candidate in Sanders and they fucked him out of it. But have they learned anything? I seriously doubt it.

    Patrick Perroud , 13 Dec 2016 20:37
    Mrs Clinton is not blaming others. She never did. It's the CIA - backed by the 17 US intelligence agencies - that's saying Russia interfered with the election process in the USA.

    In UK as well, the MI6 said something similar a few weeks ago. Germany is also concerned about the next elections in France and Germany. If any of this was true then it would be a serious threat against democracy in Western countries.

    So who's blaming who? Deep cheaters or bad loosers? The CIA could be wrong but is probably correct this time. Trying to bury this unanimous call from western secret services under contempt is significant by itself.

    Thatoneguyyouknow -> Patrick Perroud , 13 Dec 2016 21:06
    " It's the CIA - backed by the 17 US intelligence agencies - that's saying Russia interfered with the election process in the USA. "

    Way to parrot FAKE NEWS.

    That is a COMPLETE LIE. Unless you honestly believe that agencies like the DEA and NASA's "intelligence" conclusively found "proof" that does not exist. That TALKING POINT was a lie when CLINTON'S CAMPAIGN originated it, and it is STILL a lie.

    But hey, it's only wrong when the "bad guys" on the "other team" spread fake news and engage in intellectual dishonesty, right? When it's the "good guys" it's just a case of the "ends justify the means" and perfectly acceptable, right?

    samuel glover -> Patrick Perroud , 13 Dec 2016 23:43
    "Mrs Clinton is not blaming others. She never did."

    Bullshit. Just last week she resurfaced (can't she grasp the idea of the graceful exit?) to yammer on about the menace of "fake news". Because of course we all know that before 2016, all American elections have been exercises in fair-mindedness and scrupulous devotion to truth.

    stellendar , 13 Dec 2016 20:37
    It's funny how media simply refuses to admit that Trump did it.
    Russians, Hilary, polar bears - none of them had anything to do with it - HE WON.
    Live with it.
    Hmeckardt , 13 Dec 2016 20:36
    The clickbait headline is frustrating. No serious person is accusing Russia of having caused Clinton's loss. Instead, serious people (including, thankfully, leading Republicans) are demanding that we take a thoughtful and comprehensive look at the evidence that Russia intended to influence the election. That's a necessary step for protecting our democracy and it's irresponsible to ascribe political motives to that task.
    Bauhaus -> Hmeckardt , 13 Dec 2016 20:42
    What about the $20 million given to Clinton from Saudi Arabia, did that influence the election or don't we talk about that?
    James Harris -> Bauhaus , 13 Dec 2016 20:44
    Sssshhh don't mention facts that don't support the agenda
    HeeeresJohnny , 13 Dec 2016 20:34
    There was a good article in The Intercept the other regarding the CIA's unsubstantiated (and subserviently published by the media) claims of Russian interference - how it has essentially become a willy-waving contest between the CIA and the FBI in the wake of the elections; how the CIA is an inherently untrustworthy organisation and the media allowing "senior officials" to dictate the news with empty leaks and no evidence (while shouting the loudest about fake news) is folly.

    https://theintercept.com/2016/12/10/anonymous-leaks-to-the-washpost-about-the-cias-russia-beliefs-are-no-substitute-for-evidence /

    Eric Hurley -> HeeeresJohnny , 13 Dec 2016 20:53
    The CIA is untrustworthy? what about the FBI?

    HeeeresJohnny -> Eric Hurley , 13 Dec 2016 21:05
    As far as I know, the FBI isn't currently leaking unsubstantiated "news" with the potential of provoking dangerously poor relations with Russia.
    Thatoneguyyouknow -> Eric Hurley , 13 Dec 2016 21:12
    "The CIA is untrustworthy?"

    Have you ZERO knowledge of history? WHAT in their ENTIRE EXISTENCE has given you a ONE SINGLE BIT of faith in their credibility?

    michaelmichael -> Dzomba , 13 Dec 2016 20:40
    "but using covert methods to manipulate the flow of information in the public debate to undermine a candidate is totally unacceptable"

    the US prefers to engineer military coups

    finnja , 13 Dec 2016 20:32
    Very true. It takes an abysmal candidate to lose against (quoting Jimmy Dore here:) Donny Tinyhands.
    It takes a special brand of dense to run
    - for Wall Street (against reinstatement of Glass Steagall)
    - for a direct military confrontation with nuclear power Russia (wich Clinton's pet-project of no-fly zones in Syria would have signified)
    - for trade deals (nobody bought Clinton was suddenly against that)
    and expect the DEMOCRATIC base to turn out.
    Jesus Christ, Donny ran to the left of Hillary on all three issues. Not that anyone trusts him to keep any promise, but at least he didn't outright spit in the face of the people who want less war, less neoliberalism and less Wall Street cronyism while running for election.
    No Democratic candidate worth his/her name would have lost against Trump, not even if the Axis of Evil (whoever that currently is) had hacked all their emails, photobooks and private porn-flicks, in which they starred, and had them all run nonstop 24/7 on every screen on Earth.
    2fingersup2tories , 13 Dec 2016 20:23
    I'm shocked!!! Aren't the Russians to blame for everything???
    My t.v breaking, the rain outside, brexit, Donald trump, the Iraq war, the death of Jesus, those damn Russians, nothing is safe around those monsters.
    Hilarious
    enodesign , 13 Dec 2016 20:19
    Thanks for this article .

    You are so correct .

    I am so sick and tired of hearing those whining elite democrats gone incessantly about white males , the FBI , Putin , Russia , stupid red state citizens , etc., etc ..

    I want say ' Shut the fuck up -- ..... and look in the bloody mirror ' .

    I am a classic liberal .... always have been ..... always will be ...... and I don't know what you would like to call these corrupt , elitist , contemporary democrats but you certainly can not call them real liberals .

    I call them designer democrats . They care only for their particular pet issues and they ongoing pursuit of notions of their own superiority . They routinely generalize in highly sexist and racist fashions and through the use of political correctness seek to silence all of their critics .

    I , simply , loath them .

    They sabotaged Bernie Sanders campaign . Bernie Sanders ..... the nicest , most caring man to come along in American politics in the past 50 years . Not since , FDR , John and Robert Kennedy have we seen such hope for average people .

    But oh , no ..... Bernie was an outsider ..... not part of their corrupt , elite club . He was a threat to their ongoing party . He had to go .

    They didn't give a shit about what was good for the people . They only cared about themselves and their exploitation of the Democratic Party and it's traditional status ..... and their vulgar corruption of genuine liberalism for their own purposes .

    The Democratic Party establishment will now undergo a long , long overdue cleansing . The Clintons are the first to go as they should be . Two total career political scoundrels , if ever there were any . Lies and secrecy were all that you ever got from them aside form the horrific repeal of the 'Glass-Steggall Act ' and the Stock Trade Modernization Bill which lead to the licensing of the financial elite to plunder the economy , ruin the lives of countless average Americans and turn the economy into a complete casino .

    Elitist to the core , they were .

    Imagine an elite , spoon fed , self-interested urbanite like Hillary Clinton telling some poor white male schmuck living in some small town , who for economic reasons has never had a good full time time and works 3 temporary part-time jobs to pay the bills that he is privileged .

    Bloody ridiculous --

    Talk about overt sexism . Talk about overt racism .

    It's these kinds of behaviours that doomed Hillary Clinton .

    She only has herself to blame .

    If she really had cared about average people she would have not sabotaged Bernie Sanders and she would have stepped aside back in June when every poll indicated the she could not beat Trump and that Bernie could beat him by 10 to 15 points .

    Now , we the people are stuck with a Trump presidency ..... something which you can pretty much be assured is going to be un mitigated disaster in ways that we can't even begin to imagine yet .

    Lord help us .

    Good-bye Democratic Party elites ..... don't let the fucking door hit on the way out .

    I wish I could say that it was nice knowing you but it wasn't .

    Go off to your designer lives and pontificate about what is good for people ..... a subject that you know little about and really don't give a damn .

    Go back to Davos and party with the financial global elite for they are really your people .... your kind . Certainly , average hardworking , genuinely liberal people are not .

    Liberalism exists for all people not just the self-anointed few .

    Treflesg , 13 Dec 2016 20:14
    Have you noticed how recently the 'we are not racist and you are' left have started to use the Chinese and Russians as convenient foreign bogeymen to scare the people with?

    Awkward economic figures, blame the Chinese.
    Awkward diplomatic issues or you lost a vote, blame the Russians.

    The problem with this is that our media then amplifies these attacks on China and Russia, they hear them, and they start to resent it and respond. And our future relations with two major world powers are made worse than they needed to be.

    sarkany , 13 Dec 2016 20:13
    A good article to counterbalance the reams of rubbish we are hearing in the US election post-mortem. Anyone who had neural activity should have known that when you steal the candidacy, you certainly won't get the votes. Clinton effectively handed the election to Trump by not having the humility, humanity and honesty to admit defeat by Benie Sanders.

    He was not a perfect choice, but he could have been a candidate who was everything that Trump wasn't - uncorrupted, honest, and with a clearly thought out and principled agenda.

    All Trump was facing was someone as entitled and establishment as he was,. but with less of what passes for 'the human touch' across the pond.

    There's always the possibility of course, that the US establishment realised Clinton's blatant warmongering wasn't 'good for business'.

    The Russians are no doubt aware that the US has to try and cut the Gordian knot - Washington cannot face down China and Russia at the same time; and the two countries are mutually supportive in the UN and are developing many economic projects together.

    So maybe, they thought, we can get the Russkies 'on side', deal with China (ie. reduce it to a 'client state'/ turn it into an ashtray) - and then move on Russia and grab all those lovely resources freed up by global warming....

    yohoot , 13 Dec 2016 20:12
    Seems to me like the Clinton agenda of big oil, big banks and alot of lies won the WH. Hillary's big corporate donors are on Trumps transition team. Surely they didnt want her to win, since she adopted Sanders regulatory, tax the wealthy platform, hence Clinton was duped with marketing strategy which turned voters off, she was reduced to name calling over promotong policy...what did she represent? Only her campaign volunteers knew, her message to the public was "dont vote for Trump" which translates to, I could lose to him, vote for me!
    Benjohn6379 , 13 Dec 2016 19:58
    The Podesta emails confirmed what many people already suspected and knew of Hillary and her campaign. Those who were interested in reading them had to actually look for them, since MSM was not reporting on them. It's not as if an avid MSNBC or CNN watcher was going to be exposed.

    So, if you were seeking them out, A: you probably already suspected those things and B: you weren't going to vote for Hillary to begin with.

    It's hilarious how the major Left outlets (Washington Post) are now telling it's readers how Russia is to blame for people voting against Hillary due to the Podesta emails, when they didn't even report on the emails in the first place.

    theshining , 13 Dec 2016 19:57
    FINALLY sanity intrudes. For one article and one day. But hey , progress is progress. Trump will NOT be what you think him to be. He will be far better. He will still do things you don't like, but not REALLY bad things. :-)

    There was no reason to vote for Clinton as the article says. She offered nothing except the entitlement of HER. It wasn't enough. Thank The Gods. EVERYTHING about the system all halfway decent people detest, is summed up in the figure of Hillary Clinton. And evidently (and I stand to be corrected) she didn't even have the stones not to melt down on election night and Podesta had to go out there and be a complete buffoon.

    Trump might be an unknown but Clinton and her used up party were a complete known. Like Donald said, she had 'experience', but it was all BAD 'experience'. Trump might not fix the problems but at least he's going to try. Clinton didn't even see the problems.

    Raleighchopper , 13 Dec 2016 19:48
    -> Neoliberalism turned our world into a business. And there are two big winners
    Fearmongering Donald Trump and optimistic Silicon Valley seem to epitomize opposing ideologies. But the two have far more in common than you think

    Steady now Graun, 2 sensible articles in 1 day.

    quasar9uk , 13 Dec 2016 19:48
    it did her a really big favour because she was and still is in poor health and the stress of high office would have been fatal for her probably
    quasar9uk -> kronfeld , 13 Dec 2016 22:20
    she is a frail, withered old woman who needs to retire - def the wrong democrat choice, crazy -- Berni.S would have won if for them - he is far more sincere
    Ken Kutner , 13 Dec 2016 19:48
    Here is the key paragraph: "The displaced machinists... believe that free trade deals are responsible for their economic woes and they never trusted Clinton's turn against the TPP. But that was Clinton's campaign for you, bereft of principle and pathologically concerned with "optics" at the expense of substance." Funny the author fails to notice that that describes to a T Trump's campaign, and actually his whole life. That description applies to Trump several orders of magnitude moreso than it applies to Hillary Clinton's life. If you think Trump is really interested in bringing jobs, especially good paying jobs back, you are willfully blind.
    Prydain , 13 Dec 2016 19:43
    "Putin didn't win this election for Trump. Hillary Clinton did"

    Trump won, he played the game brilliantly to the rules (including the electoral college system), Clinton lost (you can't win it for the opposition, you can just lose, and the Democrats didn't put out their best hope) and Putin was irrelevant in terms of any interference (although maybe Trump voters would rather the US develop a better relationship with Russia, but that's down to Trump in playing that card).

    SwansonDinner , 13 Dec 2016 19:39
    This argument is as asinine as the one the author opposes. It was a collusion of events that led to this result, including the failure of both parties to adapt to an evolving economic and social climate over decades. The right wing hailing the collapse of liberalism as a result of decades of liberal mismanagement conveniently forget their own parties have held the reins for half that time, and failed just as miserably as the left....
    HellisEmpty , 13 Dec 2016 19:38
    It's quite bizarre to see "progressives" openly side with the military industrial complex, which is threatened by a president elect weary of more warfare.

    It's to be expected from career politicians like McCain who is kicking and screaming, but it's shameful to see supposed liberally-minded people help spread the Red Scare storyline.

    Aquarius9 , 13 Dec 2016 19:27
    A good article Henwood.

    The Democrats are in full blown tantrum mode, throwing teddies out of their pram and spitting dummies across the room, because their warmonger and deceitful candidate HRC, didn't win, that's why there has been all this bad news nonsense about Putin and/or Russia since last week.

    Obama has behaved dreadfully, first he or his office gets one of its poodles namely MI6 to point the finger at Putin re cyberwar, which was swiftly followed by the International Olympic Committee looking at Russia for 2012 Olympic games, the elections in the US and the Democrats CIA coming out with unsubstantiated nonsense (funny how they never like, providing collaborative evidence - on this or anything that supposedly Russia has done) then there is Syria, and Obama and the Democrats were the cheerleader for regime change, because they have been out manoeuvred in that sphere. All of it in less than a week.

    If Obama, the administration, and the CIA were smart they would have realised that a concerted effort to blame Putin / Russia would be seen for what it is - a liar and one of trying to discredit both the outcome of the US elections, the dislike of HRC, and her association with Wall St. - she raised more money for her campaign than Trump and Sanders put together (if the Democrats had chosen Sanders, then they would have stood a chance) and that their hawk would not be in a position to create WW111 - thank goodness. The Democrats deserved what they got.

    ohforgoodnesssake -> PanYanPickle , 13 Dec 2016 19:35
    This organ of the liberal media (no scare quotes required - it is socially liberal and economically neoliberal), along with many others, dogmatically supported Clinton against Sanders to the point of printing daily and ridiculous dishonesty, even going so far as to make out as if anyone who supports any form of wealth redistribution is a racist, sexist, whitesplaining dude-bro.
    WitoldLutoslawski -> zootsuitbeatnick , 13 Dec 2016 19:14
    The Wikileaks emails proved the votes were rigged against Sanders, it why Debbie W Shulz had to resign
    Raleighchopper , 13 Dec 2016 18:59
    Or more precisely the Superdelegates and the Democratic National Committee did. Her Goldman/Morgan Stanley speechs were in 2013 ffs, they all knew she had form and was 'viewed as an insider' as Obama put it in The New Yorker interview.
    danubemonster , 13 Dec 2016 18:58
    The election was close, and if one less thing had gone wrong for Hillary she would have won. However I think an important thing that lost her the election was identity politics. She patronized Afro-Americans and Hispanics, by tell them that because they are Trump-threatened minorities, they should vote for her. In the same vein, gays and women were supposed to vote for her. But what she was really telling these groups was that they should revel in their supposed victimhood, which was not a great message.
    Stetson Meyers , 13 Dec 2016 18:45
    Completely agreed! The onus for defeat belongs to the Democrat party leadership as well. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders both understood where the momentum of the election was headed before anyone else did. The election was won and lost in the white blue collar Midwest. A place that decided that diet corporatism is decidedly worse than a populist right wing extremist.

    No one here believed the ridiculous about-face Hillary pulled on the question of the TPP. I guarantee you Bernie would have cleaned Trump's clock in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and perhaps Ohio and Iowa.

    ojeemabalzitch , 13 Dec 2016 18:36
    "Our self-image as the world's greatest democracy...." Well, speaking for myself and plenty of other Americans, I never said anything like that about us. In fact, like a lot of people I wish we would stick to our own business, quit trying to be the world's cop, and cease meddling in other countries' affairs.

    If we do that, then I could care less about our image or what the rest of the world thinks. Let some other country be the "leader of the Free World." Who died and left the US in charge, anyway? Not one war we have fought since WWII has been worth the price of one drop of American blood.

    Steve Gustafson , 13 Dec 2016 18:31
    Assuming that it really was the Russians who done it, I guess they had a better game plan than the Saudis. I consider the Russians to have done us a favor of sorts by exposing Hillary's secret Wall Street speeches and the machinations of the DNC. Her 'deplorables' comment was every bit as telling as Mitt Romney's '47%'. We really needed to know about her 'public versus private positions', even if it only confirmed what everybody already knew. I am not 100% sure the system made the worst choice in raising up Donald Trump.

    And even so, if it takes four years of Trump to remove the people who thought Hillary was a good candidate from power in the Democratic Party, it may work out for the best in the long run. And if it takes four years of Trump to show the people who voted for Trump that Republican ideologues can only make their problems worse, so be it. It's mostly the hubris that amuses me at this point. They thought they were the pros. They had the money. They had the ground game. All they did wrong was to preselect and preordain a candidate nobody wanted.

    Steve Gustafson -> Kevin Watson , 14 Dec 2016 04:13

    abuses women, advances the cause of racism, attacks women's rights, is xenophobic

    The American voters heard a steady stream of these arguments. Some may have simply ignored them. Others took them into consideration, but concluded that they wanted drastic change enough to put them aside. White women decided that Trump's comments, while distasteful, were things they'd heard before.

    Reliance on the sanctity of racial and gender pieties was a mistake. Not everyone treats these subjects as the holiest of holies. The people who would be most swayed by those arguments never would have voted for Trump anyways.

    Bronxite -> Kevin Watson , 14 Dec 2016 02:21
    Colin Powell did not advise Clinton to do that, and even if he did she was a fool to take his advice when her boss Obama explicitly told her not to keep a private server. Colin Powell said Clinton destroys everything she touches with hubris. Seeing as how she destroyed the democrat "blue wall" and also had low turnout which hurt democrats down the ticket I agree.
    Max von Berg , 13 Dec 2016 18:09
    Zero evidence other than "he said, she said" regarding any involvement of Russian espionage agencies in the U.S. elections but the left, incredulous once the result didn't go their way, are now clinging to anything to divert attention from the issues that HRC ignored and Trump embraced.

    All this hysteria about the USA and Russia finally working together than apart doesn't help either for it appears that the [neoliberal] lefties want a perpetual war rather than peace.

    noteasilyfooled , 13 Dec 2016 18:01
    The CIA being outraged about a foreign state intervening in an election is quite funny. They have intervened so many times, especially in Latin America, to install puppet regimes.

    As for hacking... does anybody believe the CIA has never hacked anybody?

    Anyway, had the emails not existed, there would have been nothing with which to help Trump. The Democrats have only themselves to blame. Bernie Sanders or ANY other candidate without the Clintons baggage could have done a better job f beating Trump. They wanted Hillary at all cost; they lost!

    GuardianFodder -> noteasilyfooled , 13 Dec 2016 18:55
    Christmas cracker joke for you;

    Q: Why has there never been a coup in the US?

    A: Because Washington doesn't have an American embassy....

    [Dec 14, 2016] Ron Paul The War On Fake News Is A War On Free Speech Zero Hedge

    Dec 14, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com
    Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

    A major threat to liberty is the assault on the right to discuss political issues, seek out alternative information sources, and promote dissenting ideas and causes such as non-interventionism in foreign and domestic affairs. If this ongoing assault on free speech succeeds, then all of our liberties are endangered.

    One of the most common assaults on the First Amendment is the attempt to force public policy organizations to disclose their donors. Regardless of the intent of these laws, the effect is to subject supporters of controversial causes to harassment, or worse. This harassment makes other potential donors afraid to support organizations opposing a popular war or defending the rights of an unpopular group.

    Many free speech opponents support laws and regulations forbidding activist or educational organizations from distributing factual information regarding a candidate's positions for several months before an election. The ban would apply to communications that do not endorse or oppose any candidate. These laws would result in the only sources of information on the candidate's views being the campaigns and the media.

    Recently the Federal Election Commission (FEC) rejected a proposal to add language exempting books, movies, and streaming videos from its regulations. The majority of FEC commissioners apparently believe they should have the power, for example, to ban Oliver Stone's biography of Edward Snowden, since it was released two months before the election and features clips of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump discussing Snowden.

    The latest, and potentially most dangerous, threat to the First Amendment is the war on "fake news." Those leading the war are using a few "viral" Internet hoaxes to justify increased government regulation - and even outright censorship - of Internet news sites. Some popular websites, such as Facebook, are not waiting for the government to force them to crack down on fake news.

    Those calling for bans on "fake news" are not just trying to censor easily-disproved Internet hoaxes. They are working to create a government-sanctioned "gatekeeper" (to use Hillary Clinton's infamous phrase) with the power to censor any news or opinion displeasing to the political establishment. None of those wringing their hands over fake news have expressed any concern over the fake news stories that helped lead to the Iraq War. Those fake news stories led to the destabilizing of the Middle East, the rise of ISIS, and the deaths of millions.

    The war on "fake news" has taken a chilling turn with efforts to label news and opinion sites of alternative news sources as peddlers of Russian propaganda. The main targets are critics of US interventionist foreign policy, proponents of a gold standard, critics of the US government's skyrocketing debt, and even those working to end police militarization. All have been smeared as anti-American agents of Russia.

    Just last week, Congress passed legislation creating a special committee, composed of key federal agencies, to counter foreign interference in US elections. There have also been calls for congressional investigations into Russian influence on the elections. Can anyone doubt that the goal of this is to discredit and silence those who question the mainstream media's pro-welfare/warfare state propaganda?

    The attempts to ban "fake news;" smear antiwar, anti-Federal Reserve, and other pro-liberty movements as Russian agents; and stop independent organizations from discussing a politician's record before an election are all parts of an ongoing war on the First Amendment. All Americans, no matter their political persuasion, have a stake in defeating these efforts to limit free speech. dirtscratcher Snípéir_Ag_Obair , Dec 13, 2016 11:45 AM

    For the MSM to declare war on 'fake news' they would have to shoot themselves in the head (instead of the foot). A delightful idea, now that I think about it.
    Nemontel , Dec 13, 2016 11:34 AM
    Leftists just don't like loosing power.

    Ignatius Nemontel , Dec 13, 2016 11:48 AM
    That's the faux left .

    Traditional left is equal protection under the law, against imperial war and, most importantly, pro-justice for the working and middle classes (i.e., against off-shoring mfg, etc.).

    All this nonsense PC and identity politics is designed to divide the left (the working class) on the core issues.

    Killdo Nemontel , Dec 13, 2016 12:12 PM
    from my Easter European point of view (after a decade spent in the USSA) - Democrats seem much more Stalininst and totalitarian than Republicans. $hitlery really reminds me of former prez Milosevic's ugly wife (she was also politically involved and as totalitarian as $hitlery)
    koaj , Dec 13, 2016 11:44 AM
    Anyone with a brain could see this was their underhanded attempt at State approved news. They are getting desperate
    Grandad Grumps , Dec 13, 2016 11:48 AM
    Foreign interference in elections? How about some drill down into Hillary Clinton's donors.

    Foreign influence goes Waaayyy beyond conspiracy theories of hacking.

    whatamaroon , Dec 13, 2016 12:18 PM
    If only the Ron Paulers and the Libertarians weren't for open borders I would support them.
    jfb whatamaroon , Dec 13, 2016 12:55 PM
    They are not "pro-immigration", they are against an intrusive police state that use illegal immigration as an excuse to adopt artificial measures. Do you find logic that in many states you have in parallel

    1) Welfare for refugees & illegal immigrants

    2) Other government services as well

    3) Money use to crack down on business with spot checks to see if they hire illegal immigrants

    4) Money use to increase the patrols along the border or even build a wall

    5) Naturalization of illegal immigrants after a few years of residence

    Usually when the media organize a debate it's always rigged

    On one side you will have the guy/woman who say that Westerners are selfish because they need to offer more to those who arrive and adapt themselves to the new migrants

    On the other side the guy/woman who will say that we are at war with Islam, that they have wage a war on us with this invasion and that some asses need to be kick out overthere, Assad, Ghadafi, Iran, you can name them, martial law is necessary to defend ourself by bombing them.

    Rigged debate between to bogus 'solutions'

    DuneCreature , Dec 13, 2016 12:58 PM
    The fake news accusation is possible to counter. ... Let them call you a 'Fake News' website all they want. ..

    Post and publish well researched and truthful news and then let MSM do your advertising for you. ... Call yourself "Fake News - 'Something'" and let the MSM lying fuckers send you traffic. When they say fake news said this, that or something else and people search you out to hear all your 'fake news' and discover your reports are more on the mark than all the fictional gibberish MSM is trying to feed them, MSM loses it's audience even more.

    Truth has a way of bubbling to the top. ..... Just look at the story of ZeroHedge.

    Send in the lawyers if you have to.

    Live Hard, Sue The Deep Pockets Of MSM When They Lie, Die Free

    ~ DC v4.0

    [Dec 13, 2016] Theres A Psy-Op, All Right; But It Isnt The Russians Zero Hedge

    Dec 13, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com
    Via DaisyLuther.com,

    Enough with "the Russians" already. This "Russian Disinformation" and "Russian Hacking" stuff is getting more ridiculous by the day.

    First, don't let the irony escape you that most, if not all, of the pundits breathlessly blaming the Russians for "fake news" and "election interference" are the very ones who were saying that Hillary Clinton was a shoe-in for president. They're the ones who were providing her campaign with questions in advance, and allowing her people to approve/disapprove of articles.

    Secondly, many of the entities blamed for spreading "Russian propaganda" were the ones with the audacity to tell the truth about the Clinton crime family and spread knowledge of the information released by Wikileaks. Obviously, I'm not including those Macedonian college kids in this, but keep in mind that they weren't doing it for the Russians – they were doing it to make money.

    This isn't about the Russians at all, which anyone with half a brain realizes is absolutely ridiculous.

    Here's what this really is.

    This is a war on the Trump presidency. It's an attempted coup.

    Maybe it's even another effort to outright steal the presidency from Trump. Maybe there's someone with a lot of money to throw into this "OMG THE RUSSIANS" rhetoric who really hates Russia and who really wanted Hillary Clinton to be the President. Maybe his name rhymes with "Doros." I don't know this for sure, but it's at least a more likely story than "The Russians" hacking our election and deliberately spreading propaganda.

    And it's working. Ten of the Electoral College delegates have asked to be briefed on the Russian "interference" before they cast their votes on the 19th.

    But that isn't all. This is a two-for-one deal.

    It's important to note that the MSM lost every single bit of their remaining credibility during the last election and they're desperate to get it back. It reminds me of a high school kid who gets caught doing something she shouldn't, who then makes up stories about another group of kids to get people talking about them instead of her. The MSM can't accept the fact that Hillary Clinton lost, despite their dishonest but enthusiastic efforts to steal the election for her. They'll collude with whoever they have to in order to become relevant again.

    Do you really have any doubt that they'll collude with whoever they have to in order to become relevant again?

    About "The Russians"

    The whole plotline about "the Russians" really took off when the Washington Post published an article listing a couple hundred websites as Russian "fake news" sites. (I know the owners of quite a few of these sites personally -as in, we've shared meals and wine together – and I can tell you, they're as American as apple pie." The Washington Post later backtracked on the accusations but did not retract the article.

    And today, the New York Times was at it with an article entitled, " CIA Judgment on Russia Built on Swell of Evidence ."

    Except that when you consider that evidence by definition is definitive and the NYT admits everything they have is circumstantial, then, doesn't that completely negates the headline? The article is sheer speculation, just like the WaPo article that named the "fake news" sites.

    What's more, the FBI completely disagrees with the CIA, and they've been very public about it. They don't believe that there is well, evidence . I'll quote from WaPo here .

    The competing messages, according to officials in attendance, also reflect cultural differences between the FBI and the CIA The bureau, true to its law enforcement roots, wants facts and tangible evidence to prove something beyond all reasonable doubt. The CIA is more comfortable drawing inferences from behavior.

    "The FBI briefers think in terms of criminal standards - can we prove this in court," one of the officials said. "The CIA briefers weigh the preponderance of intelligence and then make judgment calls to help policymakers make informed decisions. High confidence for them means 'we're pretty damn sure.' It doesn't mean they can prove it in court."

    Give me a break. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should never, ever believe anything the Washington Post refers to as investigative journalism. They have no idea what proof or evidence even means.

    There's a psy-op, all right, but it isn't "the Russians" perpetrating it.

    It's the CIA (keep in mind that psyops is part of their job) working hand in hand with the MSM.

    You just have to laugh at some of these headlines and quotes.

    For your entertainment, enjoy the following round-up of headlines promoting the "Blame Russia" sentiment.

  • Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House ( source )
  • House passes intelligence bill enhancing efforts against Russia ( source )
  • Where's the outrage over Russia's hack of the US election?" ( CNN )
  • Fake News, Russians, and Election Reversal ( Town Hall )
  • A Powerful Russian Weapon: The Spread of False Stories ( NY Times )
  • DID RUSSIAN AGENTS INFLUENCE THE U.S. ELECTION WITH FAKE NEWS? ( Vanity Fair)
  • Experts Say Russian Propaganda Helped Spread Fake News During Election ( NPR )
  • Media Wakes Up To Russia's 'Fake News' Only After It Is Applied Against Hillary ( Forbes )
  • And then, have an eyeroll at some very silly quotes

    From an interview on NPR:

    "But let's remember, this was a very close vote where just, you know, a few tens of thousands of votes in a few states ended up making the difference. So I don't know, if you believe that the kind of information that crashes through all of our social media accounts affects how we think and potentially how we vote, I think you would conclude that this kind of stuff does matter." ( source )

    From the NY Times:

    "RT [Russia Today] often seems obsessed with the United States, portraying life there as hellish. On the day President Obama spoke at the Democratic National Convention , for example, it emphasized scattered demonstrations rather than the speeches. It defends the Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, as an underdog maligned by the established news media." ( source )

    From a secret mystery source on CNN:

    "There was no way that any one could have walked out of there with that the evidence and conclude that the Russian government was not behind this." ( source )

    From CBS:

    Responding to intelligence officials' report that Russia tried to influence the U.S. presidential election in favor of President-elect Donald Trump, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Arizona) on Sunday said he doesn't know what to make of Mr. Trump's dismissal of the issue.

    "I don't know what to make of it because it's clear the Russians interfered," he told CBS' "Face the Nation." "Whether they intended to interfere to the degree that they were trying to elect a certain candidate, I think that's a subject of investigation. But facts are stubborn things. They did hack into this campaign." ( source )

    Politico reported:

    "Donald Trump's insult-laced dismissal of reports that the CIA believes Russia hacked the 2016 election to help him is rattling a spy community already puzzled over how to gain the ear and trust of the incoming president." ( source )

    While some of the efforts are laughable, the end result could be incredibly serious.

    And by serious, I mean devastating. It could result in civil war. It could result in World War III.

    Despite the inadvertent hilarity, this is a blatant effort to keep President-Elect Trump out of the White House and to silence the opposition.

    When all dissenting voices are silenced, you're only getting one part of the story. You're only getting the part that those in power want you to hear. If we learned nothing else from Wikileaks, we learned that there are dark secrets about the evils of money, power, and manipulation. We learned how many conspiracy theories about the Clintons were actually facts , and we learned some things we can't unlearn about the proclivities of some of the most powerful people in Washington .

    We learned that some people will do anything to remain in power.

    We're watching them do anything right now.

    Never has an election been so vehemently contested. Never has our country been so divided. If the election results are cast aside, what do you really think will happen? Do you think Trump supporters will just sigh and accept it?

    And what about Russia?

    Just a few months ago, we were on the verge of war with them . By scapegoating "The Russians," if this psy-op is successful, and Trump is kept out of office, what do you think is going to happen with tensions between the two countries?

    Enough with "the Russians" already. The real conspiracy is happening right here in America.

    [Dec 13, 2016] Not Just America: Germany and Other Countries Blame Russia for Losses By Status Quo

    Dec 13, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com
    Glenn Greenwald notes that – in the face of Trump and Brexit (which were primarily caused by economic policies which have created massive inequality ) – the Democratic National committee is trying to blame everybody and everything but their own status quo policies and candidates which rig the system for the fatcats and hurt the little guy:

    The indisputable fact is that prevailing institutions of authority in the West, for decades, have relentlessly and with complete indifference stomped on the economic welfare and social security of hundreds of millions of people. While elite circles gorged themselves on globalism, free trade, Wall Street casino gambling, and endless wars (wars that enriched the perpetrators and sent the poorest and most marginalized to bear all their burdens), they completely ignored the victims of their gluttony, except when those victims piped up a bit too much - when they caused a ruckus - and were then scornfully condemned as troglodytes who were the deserved losers in the glorious, global game of meritocracy.

    ***

    A short, incredibly insightful, and now more relevant than ever post-Brexit Facebook note by the Los Angeles Times's Vincent Bevins wrote that "both Brexit and Trump_vs_deep_state are the very, very wrong answers to legitimate questions that urban elites have refused to ask for 30 years." Bevins went on: "Since the 1980s the elites in rich countries have overplayed their hand, taking all the gains for themselves and just covering their ears when anyone else talks, and now they are watching in horror as voters revolt."

    For those who tried to remove themselves from the self-affirming, vehemently pro-Clinton elite echo chamber of 2016, the warning signs that Brexit screechingly announced were not hard to see. Two short passages from a Slate interview I gave in July summarized those grave dangers: that opinion-making elites were so clustered, so incestuous, so far removed from the people who would decide this election - so contemptuous of them - that they were not only incapable of seeing the trends toward Trump but were unwittingly accelerating those trends with their own condescending, self-glorifying behavior.

    ***

    The warning lights were flashing in neon for a long time, but they were in seedy places that elites studiously avoid. The few people who purposely went to those places and listened, such as Chris Arnade , saw and heard them loud and clear. The ongoing failure to take heed of this intense but invisible resentment and suffering guarantees that it will fester and strengthen. This was the last paragraph of my July article on the Brexit fallout:

    Instead of acknowledging and addressing the fundamental flaws within themselves, [elites] are devoting their energies to demonizing the victims of their corruption, all in order to delegitimize those grievances and thus relieve themselves of responsibility to meaningfully address them. That reaction only serves to bolster, if not vindicate, the animating perceptions that these elite institutions are hopelessly self-interested, toxic, and destructive and thus cannot be reformed but rather must be destroyed. That, in turn, only ensures there will be many more Brexits, and Trumps, in our collective future.

    ***

    Democrats have already begun flailing around trying to blame anyone and everyone they can find - everyone except themselves - for last night's crushing defeat of their party.

    You know the drearily predictable list of their scapegoats: Russia, WikiLeaks, James Comey, Jill Stein, Bernie Bros, The Media, news outlets (including, perhaps especially, The Intercept) that sinned by reporting negatively on Hillary Clinton. Anyone who thinks that what happened last night in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Michigan can be blamed on any of that is drowning in self-protective ignorance so deep that it's impossible to express in words.

    ***

    Put simply, Democrats knowingly chose to nominate a deeply unpopular, extremely vulnerable, scandal-plagued candidate, who - for very good reason - was widely perceived to be a protector and beneficiary of all the worst components of status quo elite corruption. It's astonishing that those of us who tried frantically to warn Democrats that nominating Hillary Clinton was a huge and scary gamble - that all empirical evidence showed that she could lose to anyone and Bernie Sanders would be a much stronger candidate, especially in this climate - are now the ones being blamed: by the very same people who insisted on ignoring all that data and nominating her anyway.

    But that's just basic blame shifting and self-preservation. Far more significant is what this shows about the mentality of the Democratic Party. Just think about who they nominated: someone who - when she wasn't dining with Saudi monarchs and being feted in Davos by tyrants who gave million-dollar checks - spent the last several years piggishly running around to Wall Street banks and major corporations cashing in with $250,000 fees for 45-minute secret speeches even though she had already become unimaginably rich with book advances while her husband already made tens of millions playing these same games. She did all that without the slightest apparent concern for how that would feed into all the perceptions and resentments of her and the Democratic Party as corrupt, status quo-protecting, aristocratic tools of the rich and powerful: exactly the worst possible behavior for this post-2008-economic-crisis era of globalism and destroyed industries.

    ***

    Trump vowed to destroy the system that elites love (for good reason) and the masses hate (for equally good reason), while Clinton vowed to manage it more efficiently. That, as Matt Stoller's indispensable article in The Atlantic three weeks ago documented, is the conniving choice the Democratic Party made decades ago: to abandon populism and become the party of technocratically proficient, mildly benevolent managers of elite power. Those are the cynical, self-interested seeds they planted, and now the crop has sprouted.

    Indeed, the Dems re-elected Mrs. Status Quo – Nancy Pelosi – as minority leader. And Pelosi claims :

    I don't think people want a new direction.

    Similarly, outgoing Senate minority leader Harry Reid says :

    I don't think the Democratic Party is in that big of trouble.

    I mean, if Comey kept his mouth shut, we would have picked up a couple more Senate seats and we probably would have elected Hillary.

    Of course, the whole claim that Russia hacked the U.S. election is baseless as is the whole hysterical claim that Russian propaganda swung the election.

    But it's not just America

    After Brexit and Italexit – with a potential Frexit looming on the horizon – the status quo in Europe is also trying to shift attention (look, squirrel!) from their failed policies to boogeymen.

    For example, European leaders are also claiming that Russian propaganda is interfering with European values.

    And Germany's incredibly unpopular Social Democratic party is claiming that Russia might hack its election.

    A former British cabinet member alleges that Russian hackers "probably" swayed the Brexit vote.

    And Washington Post national security reporter at Adam Entous told BBC this week that a CIA official claims that Russia hacked the Brexit vote, and the vote in Ukraine (starting around 1:09:58).

    What's next the status quo starts blaming their electoral losses on little green men?

    [Dec 13, 2016] If you boil down what Clinton and the Clintonites are saying, Putin stole the election from her, and Trump is a Russian agent of influence.

    Notable quotes:
    "... Where is Steiner?!?!?!? ..."
    "... What is ALREADY going on with Trump, Dems, Russia is fascinating – and he is NOT EVEN SWORN in yet!!! WOW! The war mongers are REALLY panicking . Anti commie – its the new politically correct viewpoint . ..."
    "... adding: "a party of buck-passing juveniles that have no vision for the future " ..."
    "... Republicans have an agenda. It's terrible but they have one. Democrats represent rule by the professional class, including bankers. That's it. Publicly, they're for rainbows, good things and bringing people together. ..."
    "... Several of my Democratic friends are simultaneously convinced that Trump is a Russian stooge and outraged that he won't listen to his daily national security briefings. ..."
    "... No. First, access was granted by .. Hillary and Podesta and their own idiocy ( her with the server, him with the pas*word) . IMO we are entitled to know what was in the emails. It certainly did not change my vote nor did it change the vote of anyone I know. ..."
    "... I think both Clinton and Trump would be terrible presidents but it has been obvious since she lost that Hillary is unable to accept this to the point of mental illness. First she tried to have her proxies do some damage and when that did not work, she counters with this. ..."
    "... The anti-Trump tapes . And the one with former Miss Universe – is she an American now? Do you call that 'foreign' intervention? "Former Miss Universe tries to steal election for HIllary!!!" ..."
    Dec 13, 2016 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

    Hillary: " Where is Steiner?!?!?!? " I don't envy whoever's gonna have to take her aside and tell her it's really over. Poor Bill

    If you boil down what Clinton and the Clintonites are saying, Putin stole the election from her, and Trump is a Russian agent of influence. The first is a casus belli , and the second is treason. The first demands a response at the very least of recalling our Ambassador from Moscow. That hasn't happened, which tells you that the people responsible for such things (Obama) don't take Clinton's casus belli seriously. The second calls for a solution "by any means necessary" (exactly as Clinton's previous claim, that Trump is a fascist, does).

    "By any means necessary" would include anything from a von Stauffenberg solution (no doubt the CIA has a wet team) all the way up to a coup. (This last is hard to imagine, since a coup demands occupying physical space with armed force. Who could Clinton call on?)

    So what the Clintonites have settled on is trying get the Electoral College to reverse the election. I can't imagine this coming to anything, since the majority of the electors - since Trump won the election - are Republicans

    Ian Welsh lays out the logic if the Clinton dog actually catches the car :

    If I were a Trump voter, and a bunch of electors, on data that is this uncertain, and which even if it is true amounts to "telling the truth about Hillary and Democrats" were to give the election to Clinton I would be furious.

    I would consider it a violation of democratic norms: an overturning of a valid election result because elites didn't like the result.

    And while I'm not saying they should, or I would (nor that I wouldn't), many will feel that if the ballot box is not respected, then violence is the only solution.

    If faithless electors give the election to Clinton, there will be a LOT of violence as a result, and there might even be a civil war.

    Ian is Canadian; then again, installing Clinton in office by retroactively changing the election rules is a "cross the Rubicon" moment. At least in Maine, I wouldn't picture a Civil War, but I would picture shattered windows in every Democrat headquarters in the state, and then we'd go on from there. Welsh concludes:

    This is where Nazi/Fascist/Hitler/Camps rhetoric leaves you. Nothing is off the table.

    Either decide you mean it, or calm down and take shit off the table that is going to get a lot of people dead if you pull it off.

    Exactly.

    "CIA admits it broke into Senate computers; senators call for spy chief's ouster" [ McClatchy (Re Silc)]. Fooled ya! From 2013. I'm so old I remember when anonymous CIA soruces weren't always revered as truth-tellers.

    fresno dan , December 12, 2016 at 2:17 pm

    What is ALREADY going on with Trump, Dems, Russia is fascinating – and he is NOT EVEN SWORN in yet!!! WOW! The war mongers are REALLY panicking . Anti commie – its the new politically correct viewpoint .

    timbers , December 12, 2016 at 3:07 pm

    Yes, there is something weird going on with these stories that the CIA appears to be spreading. MOA is saying the MSN is falsely reporting China is flying nukes it doesn't have in planes all over the place. Just a guess but bet this too comes from CIA

    China threatening us with nukes and Russia stealing our elections. The fake news B.S. quotient is off the richter scale. Makes you yearn for the good old days when all we had to worry about was WMD in Iraq.

    ProNewerDeal , December 12, 2016 at 4:18 pm

    except Putin & his dominant party in the Russian gov are not Commie, Putin is a right-wing authoritarian. I suppose Putin, Trump, & HClinton could each be labeled within the right-wing authoritarian category.

    politicalcompass certaintly categorized HClinton & Trump as right-wing authoritarian, & HClinton was closer to Trump on the graph, than she was to Sanders (left-wing libertarian)

    Carolinian , December 12, 2016 at 2:27 pm

    Hillary: "Where is Steiner?!?!?!?"

    Droll! How long before a Downfall video featuring Hillary's loss?

    fresno dan , December 12, 2016 at 3:20 pm

    Carolinian
    December 12, 2016 at 2:27 pm

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNVu7cCoVlg

    Such videos actually go back to 2015, but I thought you would enjoy the one where the H guy is talking about the actual election results .

    fresno dan , December 12, 2016 at 3:24 pm

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D026asX0oMo

    and the subtitles are much easier too read on this one .

    flora , December 12, 2016 at 2:48 pm

    re: the new McCarthyism.

    I'd expect this 'reds under the bed' fear mongering from Fox News, not from WaPo. Guess the Wapo is to the Dems what Fox News is to the GOP. Clarifying election, indeed.

    flora , December 12, 2016 at 2:49 pm

    adding: "a party of buck-passing juveniles that have no vision for the future "

    Yep. Pretty much.

    ChrisAtRU , December 12, 2016 at 3:02 pm

    #Concur – A marvelous turn of phrase

    NotTimothyGeithner , December 12, 2016 at 3:10 pm

    Really? Check out where Saints Jack and Bobby were during the red scare craze of the 50's. Freedom of speech wasn't their pet project. I know but "Dallas 1963", but there whereabouts in the 1950's aren't the product of conspiracy theory. For the fetishists, their red hunter status has to be ignored. Bobby was a full fledged inquisitor for McCarthy.

    The Dems are throwing on the golden oldies in an attempt to relive the glory of the past.

    dcblogger , December 12, 2016 at 2:59 pm

    what drives me crazy about the Russian hacking conspiracy theory is that there actually WAS a conspiracy to steal the 2016 election, as carefully documented by Greg Palast and Brad Friedman. It consisted of the crosscheck purge of the voting rolls, voter suppression and vapour voting machines. That no Democrat is talking about this tells me that the party is done for.

    Michael , December 12, 2016 at 4:42 pm

    +1

    RUKidding , December 12, 2016 at 5:23 pm

    Good points, and yes, that ticks me off as well. The D Party continues to sit on their thumbs and do bupkiss about real voting issues while issuing Red Scare Menace 3.0.

    Why bother voting Democratic? They're not going to do one blasted thing for the proles. They haven't for years and years.

    Steve C , December 12, 2016 at 5:35 pm

    Republicans have an agenda. It's terrible but they have one. Democrats represent rule by the professional class, including bankers. That's it. Publicly, they're for rainbows, good things and bringing people together.

    MyLessThanPrimeBeef , December 12, 2016 at 6:08 pm

    The tin foil hat theory is the CIA is currently stealing the election.

    Waldenpond , December 12, 2016 at 6:36 pm

    The CIA is sterotypically attempting to ouster the President elect for someone farther to the right? So, the same ol' same ol'.

    Anonymous , December 12, 2016 at 8:04 pm

    Yes, the tin foil hat theory is that this all stems from the situation in Syria The CIA's aka HRC"s Syria regime change is a failure. The CIA had high hopes, now dashed. The only chance for war with Russia is to get HRC installed. The recount failed. So, Plan B.

    fresno dan , December 12, 2016 at 3:11 pm

    http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2016/12/making-predictions-is-tough.html

    For those of us who think too much schadenfreude is ..wonderful

    NotTimothyGeithner , December 12, 2016 at 4:42 pm

    The goal is to keep local and state operators and donors from asking questions about the conduct of the Clintonistas and other elected Dems.

    There is a politico article from the wake of the 2014 disaster where elite Dems promised Hillary would save them. An incredible amount of money, time, and reputations was put behind a loser, not just a loser but a person who lost to Donald Trump. Anyone who donated any thing to the Clinton effort should be crazy about Clinton Inc's conduct, so Clinton Inc needs to blame everyone but themselves.

    Roquentin , December 12, 2016 at 4:20 pm

    Let's just say for the sake of argument that the CIA and the Democrats have massively overplayed their hand in these accusations against Russia. I suspect it wouldn't take all that much to bring it all down like a house of cards, with a major scandal ensuing in its wake. Let's say that the anonymous CIA source, assuming it was legit, has badly misrepresented what evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, is there. They're "all-in" on this now. People will have to resign or get fired within these organizations after Trump takes over because of this, wouldn't they? If their careers are on the line, who knows what they'll resort to in order to save their own skins? Maybe this play at flipping the Electoral College was the game all along.

    NotTimothyGeithner , December 12, 2016 at 5:52 pm

    The Clintons were abysmal candidates before emails were uttered. Hillary significantly under performed Gore in 2000 in New York by a significant margin despite a candidate too extreme for Peter King.

    Every doubt about Hillary's electability was based in fact and OBVIOUS to anyone who spent more than half a second taking the election seriously. Every Hillary primary voter who isn't a already spectacular crook failed as citizens by putting forth a clown such a Hillary. There are no ways around this.

    Hillary just lost to Donald Trump because "liberals" are too childish to take politics seriously, even her centrist supporters should have seen she is a clod. Of course, most centrists would stop being centrists if they possessed critical thinking skills.

    This is no less than trying to latch onto something that excuses their failures as citizens and human beings.

    Tom Allen , December 12, 2016 at 7:35 pm

    Several of my Democratic friends are simultaneously convinced that Trump is a Russian stooge and outraged that he won't listen to his daily national security briefings.

    lyman alpha blob , December 12, 2016 at 4:36 pm

    In light of the risible 'fake news' meme and NC's invocation of media related laws, here's a reminder of another law you may find useful – Sturgeon's Law .

    Sci fi writer Theodore Sturgeon was told by a critic that 90% of scifi was crap and he retorted that 90% of everything was crap. You just need to know how to find the good stuff.

    Caveat lector.

    Chromex , December 12, 2016 at 5:27 pm

    Except he was wrong about crap. 100% of crap is crap. And that's what this latest CIA fake news. influence the electors stuff is-100% crap,

    Aumua , December 12, 2016 at 6:31 pm

    Seems like this fake 'fake news' news (c) 2016 is primed to blow up right in the face of entities like The Times, as more and more people see that half of what they purvey as news is as likely to be B.S. as anything coming from an alternative, or even fringe website.

    What's more is that they are driving the point home that their news stories can't be trusted, with the very same 'fake news' story they are trying to use to emphasize how comparatively real their news is. The irony levels are off the scale. It's uncharted territory.

    Chromex , December 12, 2016 at 5:25 pm

    In order to accept this is any kind of deal ( I do not support Trump nor did I vote for him) there are so many hidden premises you have to accept it is laughable
    First let's assume that Putin himself donned a Mr Robot Hoodie and hacked the server and printed the emails and gave them to Assange who was sitting next to him.
    SO WHAT?

    Is the American public so gullible? Was that somehow unfair?

    No. First, access was granted by .. Hillary and Podesta and their own idiocy ( her with the server, him with the pas*word) . IMO we are entitled to know what was in the emails. It certainly did not change my vote nor did it change the vote of anyone I know.

    It's not like all the anti-Trump tapes etc were not strategically timed to influence the election. IS it OK if Americans do it?

    Second, all they could do with Trump was run past business stuff. He did not have a public policy record to reveal the man was not in government service.. she was. My view is that if the public was so influenced by the emails, which had some absolutely appalling details, none of which were forged, then they were entitled to be ,even if Hitler himself had done the hacking.

    It is disheartening that , less than a month after the NYT said maybe we were biased and we promise to be more careful they are again acting as propagandists and not pointing out all the absurd hidden premises that must be accepted to manufacture an issue. I am still waiting for the Times report on her "fake news" that she was under fire- obviously a story designed to influence primary voters.

    I think both Clinton and Trump would be terrible presidents but it has been obvious since she lost that Hillary is unable to accept this to the point of mental illness. First she tried to have her proxies do some damage and when that did not work, she counters with this.

    I never recall anyone saying that the Democratic party has an absolute right to control the flow of information in the world. AS much as i despise Trump and his stone age cabinet, I am starting to think he is less pathological about this than her. Perhaps if this latest gambit fails she will go the way of Lady Macbeth,

    MyLessThanPrimeBeef , December 12, 2016 at 6:57 pm

    The anti-Trump tapes . And the one with former Miss Universe – is she an American now? Do you call that 'foreign' intervention? "Former Miss Universe tries to steal election for HIllary!!!"

    [Dec 12, 2016] Why CIA is involved in DNC computers hacking probe?

    Dec 12, 2016 | angrybearblog.com
    likbez, December 11, 2016 11:46 pm

    Beverly,
    === quote ===
    Just the fact that Trump has now said he thinks the CIA's cyber forensics team is the same group that tries to determine the nuclear capacity of other countries is itself scary–and revealing. He doesn't recognize and obvious distinctions even about incredibly important things, doesn't understand the concept of expertise, and can't distinguish between important and unimportant things.
    === end of quote ===
    Two points:

    1. After Iraq WMD false claim CIA as agency had lost a large part of its credibility, because it is clear that it had succumbed to political pressure and became just a pocket tool in the dirty neocon political games. At this time the pressure was from neocons in Bush administration. Don't you think that it is possible that this is the case now too ?

    2. It's not the job of CIA to determine who and how hacked DNC computers or any other computers in the USA. CIA mandate is limited to foreign intelligence and intelligence aggregation and analysis. It is job of FBI and NSA, especially the latter, as only NSA has technical means to trace from where really the attack had come, if it was an attack.

    So any CIA involvement here is slightly suspect and might point to some internal conflicts within Obama administration. It is unclear why Obama had chosen CIA Also as CIA and State Department are closely linked as CIA operatives usually use diplomatic cover that request looks a little bit disingenuous as Hillary used to work for State Department. In this case one of the explanation might be that it can be attributed to the desire to create a smoke screen and shield Clintons from pressure by rank-and-file Hillary supporter (and donors) to explain the devastating defeat in electoral college votes against rather weak, really amateur opponent.

    [Dec 12, 2016] Multiple CIA sources are now denouncing the Washington Post for knowingly reporting misleading national security intelligence

    Notable quotes:
    "... Multiple CIA sources are now denouncing the Washington Post for knowingly reporting misleading national security intelligence. Intelligence insiders said no one in the Agency or in the FBI, who is running at least one parallel inquiry, has ruled out a possible internal leak within the Democratic National Committee from actor(s) inside the United States who funneled private DNC emails to WikiLeaks. ..."
    Dec 12, 2016 | www.moonofalabama.org

    ALberto | Dec 12, 2016 4:37:31 PM | 9

    Apparently CIA has finally figured out that their asses are toast. CIA has fed a constant stream of half truths and outright rabrications to US MSM and are now turning on WaPo. CIA also has killer drones and military powers they have no right to exercise. Apparently the rats are turning on each other. Let the trials and subsequent executions begin.

    LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC

    However, the FBI reported they did not find evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the Russian Government did such a thing. The POST reported that a secret CIA report had been presented to lawmakers on Capitol Hill allegedly saying there was information linking Russia to the election hackings in favor of President-elect Trump.

    Now, the CIA is saying the POST got it wrong in fact, they allegedly lied. At this point I think the whole thing is a mess, and I don't see how the American people can decipher the "real" news from the "fake" news.

    Multiple CIA sources are now denouncing the Washington Post for knowingly reporting misleading national security intelligence. Intelligence insiders said no one in the Agency or in the FBI, who is running at least one parallel inquiry, has ruled out a possible internal leak within the Democratic National Committee from actor(s) inside the United States who funneled private DNC emails to WikiLeaks.

    http://investmentwatchblog.com/the-cia-says-they-did-not-tell-the-washington-post-that-russia-hacked-election-in-favor-of-trump/

    [Dec 12, 2016] US Insiders Not Russia Leaked Clinton Emails

    Dec 12, 2016 | www.moonofalabama.org
    Posted by: jfl | Dec 12, 2016 2:22:05 AM | 75

    Greenwald documents the fake news produced and disseminated by 'actual, real journalists' at MSNBC, the Atlantic, and Newsweek ...

    A Clinton Fan Manufactured Fake News That MSNBC Personalities Spread to Discredit WikiLeaks Docs

    ... to counteract 'Russian propaganda', no doubt. bs.

    William Binney says US Insiders – Not Russia – Leaked Clinton Emails , and Craig Murray says he knows who leaked them ...

    We're in the midst of an attempted coup by the neo-cons and the cia. On or about 21 January we'll see what happens.

    Krollchem | Dec 12, 2016 9:21:27 AM | 91
    jfl@ 35

    For more information on the WaPo, CIA, Ukraine neo-nazi's and PropOrNot see:

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/09/the-anonymous-blacklist-promoted-by-the-washington-post-has-apparent-ties-to-ukrainian-fascism-and-cia-spying/

    Worth noting that Ukrainian associations have been deeply embedded in most large US cities since the early 1950s. Not unlike the AIPAC propaganda wing that pulls the strings in the US government.

    dahoit | Dec 12, 2016 10:54:07 AM | 94
    @22;We are not at war with Russia, so that article has no bearing on Trump.

    The only people at war with them are the ziomonsters and the CIA, and the divide and conquer MSM.

    Why would the CIA f*ck with an incoming POTUS? Because they are scared shiteless he will expose their 9-11 treason?

    ... ... ...


    [Dec 12, 2016] Paul Joseph Watson Dismantles Fabricated Russian Narrative Zero Hedge

    Dec 12, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com
    nmewn knukles , Dec 12, 2016 7:11 PM
    And having a KNOWN perjurer (James Clapper) presiding over this farce of an "investigation" is just the icing on the cake.

    "Senator Wyden then asked Clapper, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" He responded "No, sir." Wyden asked "It does not?" and Clapper said "Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly."

    Then it was revealed by Edward Snowden that, why yes, in fact the NSA does collect data on HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE HERE IN AMERICA (probably all) and not "unwittlingly"...on fucking purpose...snaring both Obama and Clapper in their fabricated stories otherwise known as lies.

    Clapper perjured himself before Congress, a felony.

    Period.

    End of story.

    [Dec 12, 2016] Joseph R. McCarthy - Cold War - HISTORY.com

    Dec 12, 2016 | www.history.com
    The next month, a Senate subcommittee launched an investigation and found no proof of any subversive activity. Moreover, many of McCarthy's Democratic and Republican colleagues, including President Dwight Eisenhower, disapproved of his tactics ("I will not get into the gutter with this guy," the president told his aides). Still, the senator continued his so-called Red-baiting campaign. In 1953, at the beginning of his second term as senator, McCarthy was put in charge of the Committee on Government Operations, which allowed him to launch even more expansive investigations of the alleged communist infiltration of the federal government. In hearing after hearing, he aggressively interrogated witnesses in what many came to perceive as a blatant violation of their civil rights. Despite a lack of any proof of subversion, more than 2,000 government employees lost their jobs as a result of McCarthy's investigations. "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" In April 1954, Senator McCarthy turned his attention to "exposing" the supposed communist infiltration of the armed services. Many people had been willing to overlook their discomfort with McCarthyism during the senator's campaign against government employees and others they saw as "elites"; now, however, their support began to wane. Almost at once, the aura of invulnerability that had surrounded McCarthy for nearly five years began to disappear. First, the Army undermined the senator's credibility by showing evidence that he had tried to win preferential treatment for his aides when they were drafted. Then came the fatal blow: the decision to broadcast the "Army-McCarthy" hearings on national television. The American people watched as McCarthy intimidated witnesses and offered evasive responses when questioned. When he attacked a young Army lawyer, the Army's chief counsel thundered, "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" The Army-McCarthy hearings struck many observers as a shameful moment in American politics. The Fall of Joseph McCarthy By the time the hearings were over, McCarthy had lost most of his allies. The Senate voted to condemn him for his "inexcusable," "reprehensible," "vulgar and insulting" conduct "unbecoming a senator." He kept his job but lost his power, and died in 1957 at the age of 48.

    [Dec 12, 2016] Clinton Campaign, Top Democrats Call For Intel Briefing, Commission Ahead Of Electoral College Vote

    Notable quotes:
    "... The authenticity of the content of the hacked/leaked emails were never in doubt. Several DNC lackeys, including the chair of the democratic national committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, were fired on the grounds of bias, fraud and even conspiracy to commit criminal acts. ..."
    "... Their desperation makes them very dangerous, especially while still ostensibly in charge of many elements of gov't and, of course, the entrenched MSM. ..."
    "... So can we now accept that the Russians hacked Hillarys server? Seems before the election, the Demorats kept trying to deny it happened. ..."
    "... What about the DHS trying to Hack the Georgia Election Computer System? ..."
    "... Not just gossip, an un-named official (not an official statement by the department head) stating with "confidence" (not evidence), off the record but reported in every major fish-wrap, that Russian hackers were interfered in our elections, AND inferring that they knew the motives/intentions behind this conjured crime. ..."
    "... If there were ANY evidence, the Dems would have paraded it out in front of us loudly and proudly the second they found it. Instead, they prefer making jacka$$es out of themselves (and our country) with innuendo-based trial balloons, as everyone in the world capable of critical thinking laughs at them (us). ..."
    "... So we are still "shooting the messenger"? Nobody wants to discuss the content of the Podesta emails, even though they have not been discredited in any way. ..."
    Dec 12, 2016 | Zero Hedge
    monad, Dec 12, 2016 8:46 AM

    Russians did not affect my votes against HRC. HRC did: Whitewater. Mena. Foster. Waco. OKC. Ruby Ridge. Her continuing career and liberty is proof of a Conspiracy.

    oncemore , Dec 12, 2016 8:13 AM

    What hacking?

    Gucifer said, that it was open. The sysadmin said, that it was unmodified Windows business suite server.

    Who needs more to get in, as a standard MS product? I am convinced every intelligence agency on this earth (yes, Zimbabwian agency as well), has a copy of all emails there.

    Andre , Dec 11, 2016 10:10 PM
    Doesn't anybody remember O was going to put our cybr-defenses on full alert to defend the election?

    http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/us-bolsters-cyber-defense-for-election-f...

    (also posted to the nosebleed section of the main article).

    Ya know, if cyber defenses were increased, this should never have gotten this far.

    mary mary , Dec 11, 2016 8:45 PM
    Anthony Weiner is Russian? When will they indict Crooked Hillary?
    YHC-FTSE -> Handful of Dust , Dec 11, 2016 8:34 PM
    It looks like never doesn't it?

    The authenticity of the content of the hacked/leaked emails were never in doubt. Several DNC lackeys, including the chair of the democratic national committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, were fired on the grounds of bias, fraud and even conspiracy to commit criminal acts.

    Hillary Clinton herself can be indicted on lying under oath to Congress, conspiracy to commit criminal acts (Paying agitators to assault the supporters of her opponents), election fraud (See Veritas), contravening the Federal Records Act, Improper handling of classified documents, and I won't even go into Pizzagate, Saudi funding and the Clinton Foundation, or I'll be here typing all night.

    Where it gets interesting (actually vomit-inducing disgusting), just as Julian Assange alluded, is inside the Podesta emails that colludes with Huma Abedin's dirty laundry on her/Weiner's laptop. The missing (deleted) emails, the references to paedophile activities and snippets of pay-for-play inside the Clinton Foundation. These are not just embarrassing or technicalities that can be woven into excuses, but information that could bring hanging back as the ultimate form of justice for the perpetrators.

    So, these cretins are doing what they glanced at in The Art of War: That the best defense is offence. They are going all out full retard to save their lives using every asset they have in the msm, intelligence, politics and oligarchy.

    Look how fast they moved with H.R.6393 to criminalize alternative news. To discredit the leaked information, to discredit the source, to attack anyone who publishes or mentions them. They will not stop because they cannot stop. This isn't a subsidy for the failing msm, that's a bonus, this is a fight for their existence because they have committed crimes that not a single decent person in the world can abide. It is so horrific, I still have trouble with believing it, but the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming.

    Where this will lead is obvious -- a distraction first from the content of the leaks, false accusations and attacks on Russia and anyone who talks about it, leading to the biggest false accusation of all: Trump as a (willing or unwilling) foreign agent which amounts to treason and therefore unfit to be president. Bring the hammer down on the stock market at the same time and we have a conflagration erupting from the already boiling cauldron of American society. Too much conjecture? Maybe.

    francis_the_won... YHC-FTSE , Dec 11, 2016 10:51 PM
    "Too much conjecture? Maybe."

    No, you articulated what I was alluding to a few posts above (I posted before reading yours). Their desperation makes them very dangerous, especially while still ostensibly in charge of many elements of gov't and, of course, the entrenched MSM.

    They'll create the crisis they vow to not let go to waste. Any excuse to seize ultimate power.

    foxmuldar , Dec 11, 2016 5:03 PM
    So can we now accept that the Russians hacked Hillarys server? Seems before the election, the Demorats kept trying to deny it happened.

    What about the DHS trying to Hack the Georgia Election Computer System? http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/9/georgia-election-official...

    mary mary foxmuldar , Dec 11, 2016 8:41 PM
    No, I can't accept that the Russian's hacked Hillary's server. Not until I see some evidence. Just repeating the same gossip a million times is not providing evidence.
    francis_the_won... mary mary , Dec 11, 2016 10:46 PM
    Not just gossip, an un-named official (not an official statement by the department head) stating with "confidence" (not evidence), off the record but reported in every major fish-wrap, that Russian hackers were interfered in our elections, AND inferring that they knew the motives/intentions behind this conjured crime.

    If there were ANY evidence, the Dems would have paraded it out in front of us loudly and proudly the second they found it. Instead, they prefer making jacka$$es out of themselves (and our country) with innuendo-based trial balloons, as everyone in the world capable of critical thinking laughs at them (us).

    This tactic is so brutally transparent that I really fear what they are really up to......or maybe they are this stupid?

    philipat Keyser , Dec 12, 2016 7:41 AM
    So we are still "shooting the messenger"? Nobody wants to discuss the content of the Podesta emails, even though they have not been discredited in any way. Classic divert and deflect tactics which a Libtard MSM enjoys being a part of.

    [Dec 12, 2016] Now German Politicians Worried About Striking Increase In Russian Propaganda And Fake News

    Notable quotes:
    "... CIA-controlled BND tells its journalists to follow with the program. ..."
    Dec 12, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com

    They probably forgot about Snowden revelation way too soon...

    Either Russian intelligence officials have suddenly become extremely efficient at disrupting national elections in the world's largest democracies or the establishment leaders of those democracies have intentionally launched a coordinated, baseless witch hunt as a way to distract voters from their failed policies. We have our suspicions on which is more likely closer to the truth...

    Either way, per Reuters , Germany's domestic intelligence agency is reporting a "striking increase" in Russian propaganda and disinformation campaigns aimed at destabilizing German society, and targeted cyber attacks against political parties.

    "We see aggressive and increased cyber spying and cyber operations that could potentially endanger German government officials, members of parliament and employees of democratic parties," Hans-Georg Maassen, head of the BfV spy agency, said in statement.

    Maassen, who raised similar concerns about Russian efforts to interfere in German elections last month, cited what he called increasing evidence about such efforts and said further cyber attacks were expected.

    The agency said it had seen a wide variety of Russian propaganda tools and "enormous use of financial resources" to carry out "disinformation" campaigns aimed at the Russian-speaking community in Germany, political movements, parties and other decision makers.

    The goal was to spread uncertainty, strengthen extremist groups and parties, complicate the work of the federal government and "weaken or destabilise the Federal Republic of Germany".

    Like accusations made by Hillary and Obama in the U.S., German politicians, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, have asserted that Russian intelligence agents and media outlets have attempted to spread "fake news" in an effort to "fan popular angst over issues like the migrant crisis." Of course, it can't simply be that voters disagree with Merkel's "open border" policies which have resulted in a massive influx of migrants that have been linked to increasing crime, terrorist attacks and sexual assaults on German citizens...that would just be silly and racist and xenophobic.

    German officials have accused Moscow of trying to manipulate German media to fan popular angst over issues like the migrant crisis , weaken voter trust and breed dissent within the European Union so that it drops sanctions against Moscow.

    But intelligence officials have stepped up their warnings in recent weeks, alarmed about the number of attacks.

    Last month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she could not rule out Russia interfering in Germany's 2017 election through Internet attacks and misinformation campaigns.

    Estonian Foreign Minister Sven Mikser on Thursday said he expected Russia to continue a campaign of "psychological warfare" and spreading false information after the cyber attacks launched during the U.S. election.

    "It's a pretty safe bet that they will try to do it again," he told Reuters in Hamburg at a meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. "They will try to surprise us. That's something that we should be very careful to look at and try to protect ourselves from."

    While we have absolutely no doubt in Merkel and Obama's assertions that Russia has been able to successfully sabotage national elections, it is curious that, in the U.S., Russian efforts were only successful in certain states where voters had been disproportionately hurt by past Clinton policies (e.g. WI, MI, PA, OH) but not in other swing states like Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado.

    Mediocritas, Dec 12, 2016 3:05 AM ,
    Pot calling the kettle black...again.

    CuttingEdge Mediocritas, Dec 12, 2016 3:17 AM ,

    Is this seriously the best these globalist craven cunts have got as a strategy?

    It really worked out well for them pre-election, didn't it?

    Question is, can they sustain this for eight fucking years without having anything to show for it (and no audience with an IQ over 75) at the end?

    Soros will need to dig deep to keep this shitshow on life-support.

    Captain Chlamydia CuttingEdge, Dec 12, 2016 3:31 AM ,
    Exactly. The whole Putin did it narrative in the MSM is government propaganda. Nato bullshit Deep State military industrial complex trying very hard to get the Sheeple to believe in their leaders.....
    HedgeJunkie Captain Chlamydia, Dec 12, 2016 3:45 AM ,
    Our War Criminal Government is why I'm embarrassed to call myself 'American'.

    I'm not too far from Mexico, I already have two cousins the emmigrated there. I like Mexians and Mexico.

    But I can't throw awasy what I already have.

    I expect a Yuge increase on the cost of renewing our passports,

    Sandmann HedgeJunkie, Dec 12, 2016 3:57 AM ,
    Mitt Romney's family fled to Mexico - you should read the story
    jaap Sandmann, Dec 12, 2016 4:18 AM ,
    Wollt ihr den totalen Krieg?
    Troy Ounce jaap, Dec 12, 2016 4:38 AM ,

    The biggest defeat for globalists would be that Europe will start looking east, towards Russia, instead of West. Follow the money for these German politicians: bet the "Open Society Foundation" from George Soros will be mentioned regularly.

    CuttingEdge Troy Ounce, Dec 12, 2016 5:15 AM ,
    Introducing Fake News, as faithfully supplied by that bastion of journalistic integrity (not ) - Der Spiegel :

    More pesky Russian fake news, Frau Merkel? Fearmongering propaganda, Mutti?

    ... ... ...

    HowdyDoody -> Troy Ounce, Dec 12, 2016 5:35 AM ,
    CIA-controlled BND tells its journalists to follow with the program.
    CuttingEdge -> Nobodys Home, Dec 12, 2016 3:18 AM ,
    Same puppetmasters.
    Nobodys Home -> CuttingEdge, Dec 12, 2016 3:22 AM ,
    Shudder! I just got a visual of ugly old Sore Os behind a puppet stage with innocent little kids watching the show.
    Kina, Dec 12, 2016 3:16 AM ,
    The world would be a better place if Russia actualy did all the things they have been accused of instead of the CIA and Germany making all this shit up.

    One thing is for certain the NWO was working on Russia at the time of the election, which Clinton was meant to be a guaranteed winner - expcept the Soros-Neocon-Clinton-DNC cabal totally fucked up their rigging, not realising how popular Trump actually was.

    NOW they are in total fucking panic trying to think of ways to get Trump out.

    These neocon fucktard New World Order proponents were trying to corner Russia, remove Putin and make Russia kow tow to the NWO and accept their new overlords. EXCEPT it was and is a total fucking stupid idea because the result would have been nuclear war - Russia would never ever bend to the USA and the NWO - they were totally dreaming if they believed that. And the result would have been a military alliance between China and Russia - with Europe and the USA and Russia in ashes.

  • The world dodge a nuclear bullet when Trump won. So now, having failed to overturn the election through Stein recounts and rigging (the judges wouldn't play along) they have to go the whole demonise Russia thing, as was their original plan. And they want to push it fast before the EU breaks up, as the sheeple wake the fuck up to these neocon Oligarch overlords.
  • My bet is a major False Flag attack somewhere outrageous blamed on Russia.

    These fucking neocons like Soros, Israel, Germany, Clintons and all their backers and cabal either are totally stupid or just don't give a fuck, knowing that nuclear war is a real possibility - AND that the USA CANNOT defend itself against nuclear attack , despite all the wankery about their defense systems.

    So these people know there is a chance of laying waste to the USA - and they don't care, it is worth it for their NWO.

  • Gavrikon -> Kina, Dec 12, 2016 3:30 AM ,
    Considering that the Russians are Hollywood's favorite general purpose villains (as opposed to the practitioners of the religion of peace, or Mexican criminals), this is hardly unexpected, dontcha think?
    dogismycopilot, Dec 12, 2016 3:16 AM ,
    The Russians ate my homework.

    Grumbleduke, Dec 12, 2016 3:19 AM ,
    last week I read that the german government was aware of the NSA spying at least since 2001. No outrage here. Outrage only occurs if you don't have any evidence, and it's the russians. Do you know how most of german elections are held? Paper ballots, ID-cards and lists of citizens who are elligible to vote. There's definitely some hacking possible... Hate your politicians, often!
    Joe A -> Grumbleduke, Dec 12, 2016 3:45 AM ,
    Not only did they know that the NSA spied on the German government -including Merkel's mobile- the German BND along with the NSA spied on the rest of Europe: policitians, EU officials and European businesses.
    Sandmann -> Grumbleduke, Dec 12, 2016 3:56 AM ,
    BND operates as an arm of NSA which funds their operation in Bad Aibling
    TruthBeforeAll -> Grumbleduke, Dec 12, 2016 5:54 AM ,
    "Outrage only occurs if you don't have any evidence..." Way less risk that way.
    DuneCreature -> rmopf2010, Dec 12, 2016 6:06 AM ,
    Well, you could be right about Snowden. .....

    While I will agree that if you knew where to look, in a basic fashion, everything he brought to light was already known or knowable, at least.

    The thing Snowden did was brought all the pieces together, stole the graphics (great visualizing tools), program names and working details and evidence that these things are all possible and on-line. ..... He brought the story together and made it very public. .........

    Not something that Boos Hamilton, the CIA or the NSA would have wanted. ..

    ... ... ...

    Ghordius, Dec 12, 2016 3:51 AM ,
    well, whatever you might think about Russian influence in the US...

    ... Russian influence on and in Germany (and all other european countries) is a quite different affair. one little factoid: the so called "Russlands-Deutsche"( * ), i.e. "Russian-Germans" number somewhere between two and three million , in Germany. we are talking here about at least one million that speaks Russian better then German, and reads/watches Russian News

    here, on this continent, we are btw somewhat used to external influences, be them Russian or US ones

    I forecasted to "Haus" some years ago that eventually the German political "status-quo" would start to point out the Russian influence on "Alternative für Deutschland". That moment is nearly there

    again: US Americans might be somewhat confused about foreign influences on their political matters

    here , it has been a reality during the whole of the Cold War and after, from both the US and Russia

    just some examples:

    the reports over the last years about the German parliament being spied upon and hacked by both the CIA and the Russian intelligence services are completely plausible. Merkel was holding up her phone... and alleged that the CIA was spying on her. again, very plausible

    the EU org in Brussels was hacked/spied upon by the British intelligence services, too. again, very plausible. indeed, now that the Brexit talks begin in a confrontational manner... there are even more reasons for the British GCHQ to spy on Brussels

    -------

    (*) wiki article about them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Germans_in_Russia,_Ukraine_and_...

    Sandmann -> Ghordius, Dec 12, 2016 3:55 AM ,
    They are caled "Spaetaussiedler" Ghordius. There are about the same number of Turks in Germany. It is true the prison population of Germany is largely Serbs, Turks, Spaetaussiedler and New Arrivals.

    I hear Russian but after having millions of Russian soldiers in Germany since 1945 and huge Russian influence back into the 18th Century that is not unusual. You can get Tax Forms in Russian but not English.

    Berlin always was the capital of the East never of the West which Adenauer cleverly placed on the Rhine rather than the Spree. Berlin has always had to consider Russia because ONLY in the years 1919-1939 and 1990-2016 has Germany NOT shared a border with Russia in the past 250 years.

    It is German Aggression that twice brought Russian troops to Berlin

    Ghordius -> Sandmann, Dec 12, 2016 4:07 AM ,
    Sandmann, as often, you try to "soften the blow" of my message with some tidbits that are often completely irrelevant

    they don't call themselves "Spätaussiedler". They call themselves Russlands-Deutsche, i.e. Russian-Germans

    their prison population is irrelevant, here. their right to vote in the German election is

    they read Russian News, they watch RT in Russian, they hold up signs like "Putin save us", and they are quite confused, to boot, and pawns in this "game"

    some Germans, when they arrived, made jokes that some of those Russian-Germans hardly qualified to "Germanness", up to saying things like "all families that in the 19th Century had once a German Shephard as pet". but this is too, irrelevant

    fact is that their numbers are substantial. fact is that they are influenced by their media consumption from Russia. fact is that they were used to see Putin and Merkel as good friends... until they weren't anymore, and since then they are bombarded with news how Merkel is the source of all evils, in Europe

    fact is also that the political establishments in Germany were, up to now, not that fond to tell them anything that would make them too confused because... they are voters, too. and in a political setup like Germany's, you don't tell hard truths to voters, and you don't insult them as dupes

    nevertheless, fact is that Russian (and US, note) influence on Germany's politics is substantial, including that on the Russlands-Deutsche in Germany

    samjam7 -> Ghordius, Dec 12, 2016 3:58 AM ,
    I don't think anyone is denying the fact that Germany has become a playball of foreign powers ever since it lost WW1, yes the first, not the second one was already desicive in that.

    Now, no matter how many German-Russians there are in Germany they are still citizens of your country, else they would not have been allowed to come back. The question for Germany needs to be looking ahead into the future, become aware that it is dependent or even controlled by other greater powers, a status it lost, one century ago. Its citizens should start to raise the question which side is better for us, should we work more closely with continental Russia, with all its ressources and land? Or should we work closer with martim ZATO? What has that relationship really done for us, what have we truly benefitted from it?

    Once there is a serious discussion going on about it, Germans will surely never support an atlantcist such as Merkel. For the time being, I'm glad there are German-Russians at least one branch of German society that is keenly aware of the dire situation your country is in.

    Ghordius -> samjam7, Dec 12, 2016 4:15 AM ,
    " no matter how many German-Russians there are in Germany they are still citizens of your country, else they would not have been allowed to come back "

    do you live in some alternate reality planet? check yourself on this your assumption

    we are talking about Russian citizens that were granted German citizenship when arriving in Germany because of their German ancestry

    the "Return of the Russian-Germans" to Germany has gone on since before and after WWI, and the only thing that stopped it for a while was the Iron Curtain

    nevertheless, it was a German policy to grant them citizenship on arrival

    and no, your "Merkel the Atlanticist" is a tad... extreme. it's not about Russia or "ZATO", here

    samjam7 -> Ghordius, Dec 12, 2016 4:53 AM ,
    Right, else they would not have been granted citizenship, I don't see why we should disagree on that subject.

    Regarding Merkel is not an Atlanticist, I would like a bit more of an argument just calling it extreme but not providing information as to why is not making your argument very strong. I have plenty of reasons to believe she is: "Allowing nuclear weaopns to be stationed in Germany against the will of the Bundestag, not being the slightest bit affected by the NSA spying scandal, supporting sanctions to Russia that hurt German business much more than British or American...the list goes on and on."

    Ghordius -> samjam7, Dec 12, 2016 5:11 AM ,
    samjam7, do you ever check on what you believe ? let's take only this: " (Merkel) allowing nuclear weapons to be stationed in Germany against the will of the Bundestag "

    just googled it. already in the second hit I get this:

    " The Bundestag decided in March 2010 by a large majority, that the federal government should 'press for the withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from Germany.' Even the coalition agreement between the CDU and FDP, the German government in 2009 had promised the withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Büchel. "

    that's the German Bundestag pressing/instructing the German executive to "do something" in that direction, yes

    that's not the German Bundestag doing a law , which is the very thing it could do, being a lawgiver

    saying "the will of the Bundestag" in this is just that: propaganda. and you fell for it

    the true will of the Bundestag is expressed in law. the rest is "please, try to...", so that your "Merkel is going against the will of..." is just... stretching the truth

    in the same way, there is a substantial difference between welcoming citizens of other countries because of their ancestry and granting them citizenship versus: "they already had that German citizenship"

    samjam7 -> Ghordius, Dec 12, 2016 5:29 AM ,
    Where in the above statement did I talk of law? You Germans always need everything 'schwarz auf weiss' or its wrong....

    I spoke of will and to be honest even your quote that you thankfully looked up, proofs without any doubt that the parliament had a will, namely not to station more nuclear weapons in Büchel. Now that the Bundestag doesn't fight with Merkel over it 'i.e. pass a law' is related to the political system of Germany and that its major parties are co-opted and prefer to nod off Merkel's politics than resist it. Also it is highly questionable whether the German Parliament has the authority to decide on these matters, as it delves into the grey area of who actually decides what kind of troops are stationed in Germany, Merkel or the US/UK?

    To call that Propaganda though is unwarranted and rather weak, or how more clearly can a Parliament demonstrate its will?

    [Dec 12, 2016] Former UK Ambassador Blasts CIAs Blatant Lies, Shows A Little Simple Logic Destroys Their Claims

    Notable quotes:
    "... William Casey (CIA Director), "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."? ..."
    "... if an organization has lost trust of national security affairs it should be DISBANDED ..."
    "... ...so why did Debbie Wassername-Schultz resign if the hacks were untrue about her non-neutrality toward Bernie Marx in favor of Hillary Crony? Is this not a usurpation of the peoples will and an affront to "democracy" everywhere? ..."
    "... How is it that a "charity" is only a "charity" as long as the people running this "charity" remain in power? Everyone suddenly becomes "less charitable" because she lost? Why is that? Can't they say cronyism and be done with it? ..."
    "... The entire story is based on a leak from Senate Staff on SSCI alleging what they were told in a briefing by CIMC. What SSCI was told is that there is no evidence of who was the hacker. Because Russia is one of many possibilities, somebody on SSCI who leaked to WaPo concluded for himself that the hacker was Russia. That is not what they were told. The vitriol should be directed toward WaPo and their Senate SSCI source. ..."
    "... As the Obama Administration falls apart, expect the various players to begin to look out for themselves. ..."
    "... Obama is hanging everyone out to dry in the futile attempt to save his own 'legacy'. ..."
    "... Truman signed its charter. The original intent was to assemble and study Information, period. Truman later remarked he would never have done so had he known it would go amok. Instead, it became a weapon of the Deep State. It is now a direct threat to the American Republic. ..."
    "... Ah, yes. The CIA The folks who claimed that Sony was hacked by North Korea, when a private security firm was able to directly finger the disgruntled ex-employees responsible. ..."
    "... The CIA is run by neocons, who are upset that their stooge Hillary lost the election and Trump, the elected President-to-be, is making a direct pivot towards accomodation with their arch-enemy Vladimir Putin. ..."
    "... Meanwhile, the receivers of the DNC leaks know who they got the information from, and swear publicly that that also was an inside leak. But if it were an inside leak, then it couldn't call the results of the election into question. Only interference by a Foreign Power can do that. ..."
    "... Same for the Nameless One. Does she want to admit that her own bureaucracy prefers that she not sit on the throne, or does she like the idea of blaming a sinister foreign entity for her loss? ..."
    "... If the Russians did it, is Obama twisting the knife in the Clinton's back? The email leaks were a false flag attack against the Clintons perpetrated by Obama to remove them from the power matrix, and install himself as head of the Democrat party, free from their influence, and free to move that party in the direction he wants as it's defacto leader. ..."
    "... John Swinton, Chief editorial writer of the New York Times from 1860 to 1870: "There is no such thing as a free press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who would dare to write his honest opinions. The business of the journalist is to destroy truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell himself, his country, and his race, for his daily bread. We are tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping jacks; they pull the strings, we dance; our talents, our possibilities, and our lives are the property of these men. We are intellectual prostitutes." ..."
    "... Clinton's is a common defense of the CIA: namely, the American people should stop criticizing the CIA because they don't know what it really does. This, of course, is the heart of the problem in the first place. An agency that is above criticism is also above moral behavior and reform. Its secrecy and lack of accountability allows its corruption to grow unchecked. ..."
    "... The CIA's response to this growing knowledge and criticism follows a typical historical pattern.(Indeed, there are remarkable parallels to the Medieval Church's fight against the Scientific Revolution.) The first journalists and writers to reveal the CIA's criminal behavior were harassed and censored if they were American writers, and tortured and murdered if they were foreigners. ..."
    "... Another common apologetic is that "the world is filled with unsavory characters, and we must deal with them if we are to protect American interests at all." There are two things wrong with this. First, it ignores the fact that the CIA has regularly spurned alliances with defenders of democracy, free speech and human rights, preferring the company of military dictators and tyrants. ..."
    "... Second, this argument begs several questions. The first is: " Which American interests?" The CIA has courted right-wing dictators because they allow wealthy Americans to exploit the country's cheap labor and resources. But poor and middle-class Americans pay the price whenever they fight the wars that stem from CIA actions, from Vietnam to the Gulf War to Panama. ..."
    "... The other begged question is: "Why should American interests come at the expense of other peoples' human rights?" The CIA should be abolished, its leadership dismissed and its relevant members tried for crimes against humanity. ..."
    "... Craig Murray: "[...] the mad CIA allegations against Russia and now claiming – incredibly – that the CIA believe the FBI is deliberately blocking the information on Russian collusion. " I wasn't aware of this CIA allegation against the FBI, it's quite astonishing. ..."
    "... Craig Murray: "[...] this rubbish has been the lead today in the Washington Post in the US and the Guardian here, and was the lead item on the BBC main news. " No one should be surprised that The Guardian is up to its neck in publishing ... garbage ..."
    Dec 12, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com

    A little simple logic demolishes the CIA's claims. The CIA claim they "know the individuals" involved. Yet under Obama the USA has been absolutely ruthless in its persecution of whistleblowers, and its pursuit of foreign hackers through extradition. We are supposed to believe that in the most vital instance imaginable, an attempt by a foreign power to destabilise a US election, even though the CIA knows who the individuals are, nobody is going to be arrested or extradited, or (if in Russia) made subject to yet more banking and other restrictions against Russian individuals? Plainly it stinks.

    The anonymous source claims of "We know who it was, it was the Russians" are beneath contempt.

    Urban Redneck -> Chris Dakota, Dec 11, 2016 6:07 PM
    The CIA has lots of evidence (both collected and manufactured) which is then misconstrued through politiczed analysis and dissemination to serve their own and their primary customer's personal interests.

    Back during the Reagan administration, someone casually told me "We spend more on disinformaion than we do on information" - I doubt things have changed that much since then.

    manofthenorth -> Urban Redneck, Dec 11, 2016 6:15 PM
    Also during the Reagan years;

    William Casey (CIA Director), "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."?

    Overdrawn -> Laddie, Dec 11, 2016 8:15 PM
    It wasn't a hack, it was a leak. It says so in the article.

    on 19th October CNN said the 2016 Election couldn't be hacked.

    https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cnn+2016+presidential+election+cannot+be+hacke...

    Badsamm -> bigdumbnugly, Dec 11, 2016 7:30 PM
    Correct me if Im wrong; but i thought the law prohibits the CIA from operations and investigations on home soil. That is the job for the FBI. Why is the CIA commenting on computer systems that were hacked in the US of A? There are at least a dozen other agencies (just as worthless) that this would fall under their jurisdiction.
    _mike123_ -> bigdumbnugly, Dec 12, 2016 12:02 AM

    If the Russians had anything to do with the hacked emails, which are only accusations, they did the American people a great service by exposing the evil of the DNC, HRottenC and their MSM minions, none of whom could care less about their ethics violations. They are only upset because they were caught. Their supporters have been had by their own kind and their leaders are now redirecting their exposure onto the Russians and Trump to keep their sheep misdirected from the real problems, HRC and Obama.

    post turtle saver -> bigdumbnugly, Dec 12, 2016 12:31 AM
    we all know what happened to the boy who cried "wolf" when none were there... by the time there actually _were_ wolves, no one believed him...

    the CIA has lost the plot and cried "wolf" too many times for anyone to believe them anymore... if an organization has lost trust of national security affairs it should be DISBANDED

    nmewn -> Billy the Poet, Dec 11, 2016 7:24 PM
    Well it is a wide open "bear trap"...lol...(to use a metaphor) sitting there out in the open un-camouflaged for everyone with two brain cells left in their heads to see...and at some point someone is going to ask...

    ...so why did Debbie Wassername-Schultz resign if the hacks were untrue about her non-neutrality toward Bernie Marx in favor of Hillary Crony? Is this not a usurpation of the peoples will and an affront to "democracy" everywhere?

    How is it that a "charity" is only a "charity" as long as the people running this "charity" remain in power? Everyone suddenly becomes "less charitable" because she lost? Why is that? Can't they say cronyism and be done with it?

    Yezzz, let the progressive tears flow, they taste wonderful ;-)

    chindit13, Dec 11, 2016 6:54 PM
    The Brit Ambassador has the wrong target, because he was caught by Fake News.

    The entire story is based on a leak from Senate Staff on SSCI alleging what they were told in a briefing by CIMC. What SSCI was told is that there is no evidence of who was the hacker. Because Russia is one of many possibilities, somebody on SSCI who leaked to WaPo concluded for himself that the hacker was Russia. That is not what they were told. The vitriol should be directed toward WaPo and their Senate SSCI source.

    As the Obama Administration falls apart, expect the various players to begin to look out for themselves. Do not be surprised if in the next few days, Brennan or someone else at the agency sets the record straight and throws some 'shade' on WaPo and Obama.

    Obama is hanging everyone out to dry in the futile attempt to save his own 'legacy'. Whoever might have been a loyal soldier and who fell on his sword if requested to do so is not going to do it anymore. Obama is a child who cannot accept that he has been an abject failure, so he is getting desperate to create some false historical record.

    imprehensibli , Dec 11, 2016 7:15 PM
    Canadian Journalist Eva Bartlett DESTROYS MSM FAKE NEWS ON SYRIA (please watch - important): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebE3GJfGhfA
    Stemmer -> imprehensibli, Dec 11, 2016 10:09 PM
    I remember Zerohedge reporting on a meeting last year with US Senator McCain and Arab terrorists that included photos . These terrorists were on the US most wanted list. Too bad that Canadian reporter did not mention that.
    SgtShaftoe, Dec 11, 2016 7:23 PM
    I'd say this entire campaign is far too clunky and clumsy to be executed by the CIA The CIA has done some incredibly evil shit in the past so I wouldn't put something like this past them, however they are far more professional generally than this from my limited exposure and what I've researched about activities of the agency.
    lakecity55, Dec 11, 2016 8:30 PM
    The "CIA" has outlived its usefulness. It needs to be broken up and disbanded. Truman signed its charter. The original intent was to assemble and study Information, period. Truman later remarked he would never have done so had he known it would go amok. Instead, it became a weapon of the Deep State. It is now a direct threat to the American Republic.
    kuwa mzuri, Dec 11, 2016 8:36 PM
    Our spy and security apparatus didn't defeat the Soviet Union's "evil empire" so much as it emulated it, using Orwell and Huxley as roadmaps, rather than warnings.
    Fathead Slim -> kuwa mzuri, Dec 11, 2016 11:12 PM
    True, the fall of the Soviet Union came as a complete surprise to US Intelligence agencies.
    fearnot, Dec 11, 2016 10:06 PM
    Maybe it wasn't the Russians. Who else could it possibly be? Not the CIA! Not in good ol USA. Maybe it was Aliens! After all the UK Mail thought as much with Kennedy. Or maybe Bush and his clan are the Aliens. All I can say is Trump better never let the CIA instead of Secret Service guard him and his motorcade!

    The CIA Kennedy assassination theory is a prominent John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory. The CIA's potential involvement was frequently mentioned during the 1960s and 1970s when the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was involved in plots to assassinate foreign leaders, particularly Fidel Castro.[1][2] According to author James Douglass, Kennedy was assassinated because he was turning away from the Cold War and seeking a negotiated peace with the Soviet Union.[3][4] Accusations and confessions of and by alleged conspirators, as well as official government reports citing the CIA as uncooperative in investigations, have at times renewed interest in these conspiracy theories.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_Kennedy_assassination_conspiracy_theory

    joego1, Dec 11, 2016 10:24 PM
    The DNC leaks came from Seth Rich who was Arkansided; https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/4v3bpg/dnc_leaker_silenced_...

    Other leaks came from patriot U.S. intell; https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=steve+pieczenik+leaks+cam+f...

    Case closed; Fire the CIA

    Faeriedust, Dec 11, 2016 10:34 PM
    Ah, yes. The CIA The folks who claimed that Sony was hacked by North Korea, when a private security firm was able to directly finger the disgruntled ex-employees responsible.

    Let's break this down some more. The CIA is run by neocons, who are upset that their stooge Hillary lost the election and Trump, the elected President-to-be, is making a direct pivot towards accomodation with their arch-enemy Vladimir Putin.

    Meanwhile, the FBI is stacked with political employees and their career hirees installed under GW Bush, and leans strongly against the Democrats, to the point of deliberately leaking damaging evidence against the Democratic candidate the week before the election . . . granted that there wouldn't have been any information to leak, if Hillary had followed the laws and policies of her federal position.

    Meanwhile, the receivers of the DNC leaks know who they got the information from, and swear publicly that that also was an inside leak. But if it were an inside leak, then it couldn't call the results of the election into question. Only interference by a Foreign Power can do that.

    But to the extent that the Russians DID lobby against Hillary, they did so completely openly. If you read an article in Russia Today in favor of Trump or against Hillary, you can hardly claim to be deceived.

    The Russians are allowed to have an opinion; we can't stop that. What they aren't allowed to do is to vote, or to contribute money to the candidates' campaigns (here we will lightly skip over the millions donated to Hillary's campaign by Israeli dual citizens, the Saudis, the Australians, Nigeria, VietNam, India, Haiti . . .).

    tarabel, Dec 11, 2016 10:37 PM
    What did you expect them to say? "Uh, yes, Mr. President, it was us, actually." Of course they are going to point the finger elsewhere. Especially to someplace that cannot be pressured. You would too, if placed in the same position. Same for the Nameless One. Does she want to admit that her own bureaucracy prefers that she not sit on the throne, or does she like the idea of blaming a sinister foreign entity for her loss?

    And even if Russia did it, it's not like they made anything up. Come on, people. Realpolitik.

    gregga777, Dec 11, 2016 10:49 PM
    The CIA (Central Insanity Agency) IS the United States government. It controls all of the other so-called independent intelligence agencies. Would the CIA lie to overturn the 2016 Presidential elections? Well, the CIA are the very same people who: <
    • for decades have had hundreds of nationally and internationally prominent so-called journalists on the CIA payroll and controlled the stories reported by Western Mainstream Conporate News Media;
    • assassinated President John F. Kennedy because they were furious about the failure of their insane Bay of Pigs fiasco, the peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, etc., etc., etc.;
    • faked the Gulf of Tonkin intelligence to get the United States Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving the bloodthirsty Generals and Admirals and President Lyndon B. Johnson the false flag incident to drastically escalate the Vietnam War–closely located to the Golden Triangle's highly coveted rich heroin supplies–and all of the attendant decades of lying about that war;
    • destabilized Afghanistan to encourage invasion by the Soviet Union;
    • created, supported and armed the Sunni Mujahideen, which morphed into Al Qaeda following the Gulf War, to fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan;
    • encouraged President Jimmy Carter to admit the Shah of Iran to create the pretext for decades of enmity between Iran and the United States and destroy Jimmy Carter's Presidency;
    • encouraged Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait to give President George H. W. Bush the pretext to declare war on Iraq;
    • were behind the 9/11/2001 false flag attacks on the World Trade Center towers, and their destruction with controlled explosives demolitions charges, and the Pentagon and then lied that it was all an Al Qaeda plot;
    • lied about Al Qaeda's role in 9/11/2001 to justify the invasion of Afghanistan with its highly coveted, rich poppy fields for heroin production;
    • lied about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify President George W. Bush's war of aggression against Iraq;
    • created, finances, arms and supports ISIS;
    • plans and carries out false flag operations to influence public opinion;
    • lie about whatever whenever it suits their agenda;
    • controls the 'narratives' in the Feral gangster government's organs of state propaganda (mainstream & social media and entertainment oligopoly);

    And far, far more. But, I got tired of typing and I don't want to bore the readers. The point being that they are ALL professional liars and the love of truth and the American Republic is not in them.

    Yes, of course the CIA would lie to overturn the 2016 Presidential elections.

    Crassius, Dec 11, 2016 11:02 PM
    If the Russians did it, is Obama twisting the knife in the Clinton's back? The email leaks were a false flag attack against the Clintons perpetrated by Obama to remove them from the power matrix, and install himself as head of the Democrat party, free from their influence, and free to move that party in the direction he wants as it's defacto leader.

    Blaming the leaks on the Russians gains obfuscation of Obama's chief foreign policy failure as President.... drawing a red line, then failing to act when it was crossed, which signaled to the world that he was an impudent little bitch that could be ignored in a world that understands only one thiing..... strength.

    holdbuysell, Dec 11, 2016 11:02 PM

    John Swinton, Chief editorial writer of the New York Times from 1860 to 1870: "There is no such thing as a free press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who would dare to write his honest opinions. The business of the journalist is to destroy truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell himself, his country, and his race, for his daily bread. We are tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping jacks; they pull the strings, we dance; our talents, our possibilities, and our lives are the property of these men. We are intellectual prostitutes."

    obelix, Dec 12, 2016 3:52 AM
    Clinton's is a common defense of the CIA: namely, the American people should stop criticizing the CIA because they don't know what it really does. This, of course, is the heart of the problem in the first place. An agency that is above criticism is also above moral behavior and reform. Its secrecy and lack of accountability allows its corruption to grow unchecked.

    Furthermore, Clinton's statement is simply untrue. The history of the agency is growing painfully clear, especially with the declassification of historical CIA documents. We may not know the details of specific operations, but we do know, quite well, the general behavior of the CIA These facts began emerging nearly two decades ago at an ever-quickening pace. Today we have a remarkably accurate and consistent picture, repeated in country after country, and verified from countless different directions.

    The CIA's response to this growing knowledge and criticism follows a typical historical pattern.(Indeed, there are remarkable parallels to the Medieval Church's fight against the Scientific Revolution.) The first journalists and writers to reveal the CIA's criminal behavior were harassed and censored if they were American writers, and tortured and murdered if they were foreigners.

    However, over the last two decades the tide of evidence has become overwhelming, and the CIA has found that it does not have enough fingers to plug every hole in the dike. This is especially true in the age of the Internet, where information flows freely among millions of people. Since censorship is impossible, the Agency must now defend itself with apologetics. Clinton's "Americans will never know" defense is a prime example.

    obelix, Dec 12, 2016 3:54 AM
    Another common apologetic is that "the world is filled with unsavory characters, and we must deal with them if we are to protect American interests at all." There are two things wrong with this. First, it ignores the fact that the CIA has regularly spurned alliances with defenders of democracy, free speech and human rights, preferring the company of military dictators and tyrants.

    The CIA had moral options available to them, but did not take them.

    Second, this argument begs several questions. The first is: " Which American interests?" The CIA has courted right-wing dictators because they allow wealthy Americans to exploit the country's cheap labor and resources. But poor and middle-class Americans pay the price whenever they fight the wars that stem from CIA actions, from Vietnam to the Gulf War to Panama.

    The other begged question is: "Why should American interests come at the expense of other peoples' human rights?" The CIA should be abolished, its leadership dismissed and its relevant members tried for crimes against humanity.

    Our intelligence community should be rebuilt from the ground up, with the goal of collecting and analyzing information. As for covert action, there are two moral options.

    The first one is to eliminate covert action completely. But this gives jitters to people worried about the Adolf Hitlers of the world. So a second option is that we can place covert action under extensive and true democratic oversight. For example, a bipartisan Congressional Committee of 40 members could review and veto all aspects of CIA operations upon a majority or super-majority vote.

    Which of these two options is best may be the subject of debate, but one thing is clear: like dictatorship, like monarchy, unaccountable covert operations should die like the dinosaurs they are.

    smacker, Dec 12, 2016 4:27 AM
    Craig Murray: "[...] the mad CIA allegations against Russia and now claiming – incredibly – that the CIA believe the FBI is deliberately blocking the information on Russian collusion. " I wasn't aware of this CIA allegation against the FBI, it's quite astonishing.

    The FBI and CIA are both utterly corrupt, as is every other faction of the Obola Administration including the Marxist slimeball himself at the very top, but what we see here are factions throwing allegations against each other.

    smacker, Dec 12, 2016 4:39 AM
    Craig Murray: "[...] this rubbish has been the lead today in the Washington Post in the US and the Guardian here, and was the lead item on the BBC main news. " No one should be surprised that The Guardian is up to its neck in publishing ... garbage written by Jonathen Freedland. After all it's been "the progressive Left's" house newspaper for years and is known as " The Grauniad " by dissenters.

    What is truly bad is that the BBC are coming out of the closet and once again revealing their own Left-wing Establishment bias by running fake news stories on its TV news channel.

    The Fing News, Dec 12, 2016 4:50 AM
    This is the same CIA that talked about WMD's in Iraq! They will continue being the good Clinton stooges they are. More lies from CIA!

    [Dec 12, 2016] Trump Claims of Russian interference in 2016 race ridiculous, Dems making excuses

    Notable quotes:
    "... President-elect Donald Trump, in an exclusive interview with " Fox News Sunday ," decried as "ridiculous" the CIA's reported assessment that Russia intervened in the election to boost his candidacy – describing the claim as another "excuse" pushed by Democrats to explain his upset victory. ..."
    Dec 12, 2016 | www.foxnews.com
    President-elect Donald Trump, in an exclusive interview with " Fox News Sunday ," decried as "ridiculous" the CIA's reported assessment that Russia intervened in the election to boost his candidacy – describing the claim as another "excuse" pushed by Democrats to explain his upset victory.

    "It's just another excuse. I don't believe it," Trump said. " Every week it's another excuse. We had a massive landslide victory, as you know, in the Electoral College."

    Trump spoke with Fox News' Chris Wallace in the president-elect's first Sunday show interview since winning the election.

    [Dec 12, 2016] If You Are For Peace You Are A Russian Agent by Paul Craig Roberts

    Notable quotes:
    "... If the CIA is actually stupid enough to believe this, the US is without a competent intelligence agency. Of course, the CIA didn't say and doesn't believe any such thing. The fake news stories in the presstitute media are all sourced to unnamed officials. Former British ambassador Craig Murray described the reports accurately: "bullshit." ..."
    "... Fake news is the presstitute's product. Throughout the presidential primaries and presidential campaign it was completely clear that the mainstream print and TV media were producing endless fake news designed to damage Trump and to boost Hillary. We all saw it. We all lived through it. What is this pretense that Russia is the source of fake news? ..."
    "... We have had nothing but fake news from the presstitutes since the Klingon regime. Fake news was used against Yugoslavia and Serbia in order to cloak the Clinton's war crimes. ..."
    "... Ironic, isn't it, that it is those who purport to be liberal and progressive who are responsible for the revival of McCarthyism in America. Moreover, the liberal progressives are institutionalizing McCarthyism in the US government. There is clearly a concerted effort being made to define truth as fake news and to define lies as truth. ..."
    www.unz.com

    Speaking of fake news, the latest issue of the National Enquirer at the supermarket checkout is giving the mainstream presstitute media a run for the money: "Castro's Deathbed Confession: I Killed JFK. How I framed Oswald."

    That's almost as good as the fake news going around the presstitute media, such as the TV stations, the Washington Post, New York Times, and Guardian-yes, even the former leftwing British newspaper has joined the ranks of the press prostitutes-that the CIA has concluded that "Russian operatives covertly interfered in the election campaign in an attempt to ensure the Republican candidate's victory."

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/10/cia-concludes-russia-interfered-to-help-trump-win-election-report

    If the CIA is actually stupid enough to believe this, the US is without a competent intelligence agency. Of course, the CIA didn't say and doesn't believe any such thing. The fake news stories in the presstitute media are all sourced to unnamed officials. Former British ambassador Craig Murray described the reports accurately: "bullshit."

    So who is making the stories up, another anonymous group tied to Hillary such as PropOrNot, the secret, hidden organization that released a list of 200 websites that are Russian agents?

    Fake news is the presstitute's product. Throughout the presidential primaries and presidential campaign it was completely clear that the mainstream print and TV media were producing endless fake news designed to damage Trump and to boost Hillary. We all saw it. We all lived through it. What is this pretense that Russia is the source of fake news?

    We have had nothing but fake news from the presstitutes since the Klingon regime. Fake news was used against Yugoslavia and Serbia in order to cloak the Clinton's war crimes.

    Fake news was used against Osama bin Laden, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia in order to cloak the Bush regime's war crimes.

    Fake news was used against Libya and Syria in order to cloak the Obama regime's war crimes.

    Without fake news these three blood-drenched presidencies would have been hauled before the War Crimes Commission, tried, and convicted.

    Can anyone produce any truthful statement from the presstitute media about anything of importance? MH-17? Crimea? Ukraine?

    Ironic, isn't it, that it is those who purport to be liberal and progressive who are responsible for the revival of McCarthyism in America. Moreover, the liberal progressives are institutionalizing McCarthyism in the US government. There is clearly a concerted effort being made to define truth as fake news and to define lies as truth.

    (Reprinted from PaulCraigRoberts.org by permission of author or representative)

    [Dec 12, 2016] McCarthyism Is Breaking Out All Over by Paul Craig Roberts

    Notable quotes:
    "... As Pam Martens reports, another imbecile has now composed a list of 200 suspect professors who also dissent from the official bullshit fed to the American people. ..."
    "... In an effort to regain control over Americans' minds, they are attempting to define dissenters and truth-tellers as "Russian agents." Why "Russian agents"? Because they hope that their fake news portrait of Russia as America's deadly enemy has taken hold and will result in the public turning away from those of us labeled "Russian agents." ..."
    Dec 02, 2016 | www.paulcraigroberts.org

    As Pam Martens reports, another imbecile has now composed a list of 200 suspect professors who also dissent from the official bullshit fed to the American people.

    http://wallstreetonparade.com/2016/12/u-s-journalists-and-professors-appearing-on-rt-america-get-blacklisted/

    The official government purveyors of fake news in the US and their presstitute agents are concerned that they are losing control over the explanations given to the American people.

    In an effort to regain control over Americans' minds, they are attempting to define dissenters and truth-tellers as "Russian agents." Why "Russian agents"? Because they hope that their fake news portrait of Russia as America's deadly enemy has taken hold and will result in the public turning away from those of us labeled "Russian agents."

    I don't think it is working.

    [Dec 12, 2016] Fake News Versus No News

    Notable quotes:
    "... At the present moment, it is practically obligatory to slam Russia and Putin at every opportunity even though Moscow is too militarily weak and poor to fancy itself a global adversary of the U.S. ..."
    "... Candidate Donald Trump appeared to recognize that fact before he began listening to Michael Flynn, who has a rather different view. Hopefully the old Trump will prevail. ..."
    "... Blaming Russia, which has good reasons to be suspicious of Washington's intentions, is particularly convenient for those many diverse inside the Beltway interests that require a significant enemy to keep the cash flowing out of the pockets of taxpayers and into the bank accounts of the useless grifters who inhabit K-Street and Capitol Hill. ..."
    Dec 06, 2016 | www.unz.com

    ... ... ...

    ...Does the name Judith Miller ring any bells? And the squeaks of rage coming from the U.S. Congress over being lied to is also something to behold as the federal government has been acting in collusion with the media to dish up falsehoods designed to start wars since the time of the Spanish-American conflict in 1898, if not before.

    The fake news saga is intended to discredit Donald Trump, whom the media hates mostly because they failed to understand either him or the Americans who voted for him in the recent election. You have to blame somebody when you are wrong so you invent "fake news" as the game changer that explains your failure to comprehend simple truths. To accomplish that, the clearly observable evidence that the media was piling on Donald Trump at every opportunity has somehow been deliberately morphed into a narrative that it is Trump who was attacking the media, suggesting that it was all self-defense on the part of the Rachel Maddows of this world, but anyone who viewed even a small portion of the farrago surely will have noted that it was the Republican candidate who was continuously coming under attack from both the right and left of the political-media spectrum.

    There are also some secondary narratives being promoted, including a pervasive argument that Hillary Clinton was somehow the victim of the news reporting due specifically to fake stories emanating largely from Moscow in an attempt to not only influence the election but also to subvert America's democratic institutions. I have observed that if such a truly ridiculous objective were President Vladimir Putin's desired goal he might as well relax. Our own Democratic and Republican duopoly has already been doing a fine job at subverting democracy by assiduously separating the American people from the elite Establishment that theoretically represents and serves them.

    Another side of the mainstream media lament that has been relatively unexplored is what the media chooses not to report. At the present moment, it is practically obligatory to slam Russia and Putin at every opportunity even though Moscow is too militarily weak and poor to fancy itself a global adversary of the U.S.

    Instead of seeking a new Cold War, Washington should instead focus on working with Russia to make sure that disagreements over policies in relatively unimportant parts of the world do not escalate into nuclear exchanges. Russian actions on its own doorstep in Eastern Europe do not in fact threaten the United States or any actual vital interest. Nor does Moscow threaten the U.S. through its intervention on behalf of the Syrian government in the Middle East. That Russia is described incessantly as a threat in those areas is largely a contrivance arranged by the media, the Democratic and Republican National Committees and by the White House.

    Candidate Donald Trump appeared to recognize that fact before he began listening to Michael Flynn, who has a rather different view. Hopefully the old Trump will prevail.

    Blaming Russia, which has good reasons to be suspicious of Washington's intentions, is particularly convenient for those many diverse inside the Beltway interests that require a significant enemy to keep the cash flowing out of the pockets of taxpayers and into the bank accounts of the useless grifters who inhabit K-Street and Capitol Hill.

    Neoconservatives are frequently described as ideologues, but the truth is that they are more interested in gaining increased access to money and power than they are in promulgating their own brand of global regime change.

    ... ... ...

    Greasy William

    Russophobia/Putinophobia is as big as it is because it is a rare issue where the mainstream right, the left and the political class all agree, albeit for different reasons. The mainstream right is anti Russia because of the Cold War and Russia's support for Iran, Venezuela and Cuba. The left hates Russia because of Pussy Riot, humiliating Obama and Merkel in the Ukraine, Snowden, supporting anti immigrant politicians like Le Pen and Wilders, jailing/killing pro Western Russian politicians, the gay stuff and especially for Trump. The political class hates Russia simply because it is a rival to US power in Europe and the Middle East. Put all three together, and you get a political consensus for Russophobia.

    At the end of the day, however, Russophobia or even Putinophobia is a minority position in the US; or else Trump wouldn't have been elected. And a huge chunk of the people who voted for Hillary are blacks and hispanics, who don't give a rat's ass about Russia and probably couldn't even find it on a map.

    Before Pussy Riot/Ukraine/Snowden/Gays/Trump there was even a lot of sympathy in the US media for victims of Chechen terrorism, especially after the Beslan school thing. As late as the 2012 election, Obama was mocking Mitt Romney's Russophobia.

    [Dec 11, 2016] Unraveling the Russian Hack Conspiracy Propaganda

    " BARACK OBAMA, WITH THE COOPERATION OF SOME IN THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY, ARE TRYING TO DISCREDIT TRUMP BEFORE THE ELECTION"
    Notable quotes:
    "... The whole "blame Russia" movement to account for Hillary's unexpected failure to win the Presidency got a new shot in the arm with today's announcement that Obama ordered: ..."
    "... The stupidity of this is profound. If this review leads to the "discovery" that Russia is carrying out espionage activities in the United States then we have passed the threshold of learning that there is gambling in a casino. ..."
    "... The real irony in all of this is that Wikileaks, thanks to the hack of the DNC and John Podesta emails, exposed the reality of Democrats working surreptitiously to tamper with and manipulate the election. Here are the highlights from that leak: ..."
    "... Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin, but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria. ..."
    "... Blaming Russia for Hillary's flame out is absurd. The Russians did not create and lie about Hillary's server. They did not force her to back the multilateral trade agreements, such as NAFTA and TPP. They didn't set up the Clinton Foundation as a cash cow for the Clinton family. They did not force her to advocate imposing a No Fly Zone in Syria and having been a cheerleader for past wars, including Iraq and Libya. Vladimir Putin did not slip her a mickey and cause her to pass out at the 9-11 memorial, which fueled concerns about her health. And they did not infect her lungs and cause her to have extended coughing jags. They did not cause her to call Americans deplorables. They did not make her say that the coal industry should be shutdown. With that kind of record, coupled with her shrieking, screechy voice, why are folks surprised that she did not win? ..."
    "... So now Democrats and several Republicans are in a lather over the Russians stealing the election for Trump. The list of conspiracy theorists pushing this nonsense include John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Angus King of Maine, Brent Budowsky and Adam Schiff. I defy anyone, to explain to me how Russian meddling gave Trump the win. ..."
    "... The realities are this. First, as noted in the Budowsky email, the Clinton campaign came up with the idea of accusing Trump of being a stooge of Russia. They thought they'd get political bang out of that. They didn't. ..."
    "... Second, the hack of the DNC emails confirmed that the suspicions of many that the DNC and Hillary were collaborating to screw over Bernie and rig the election. That was not fake news. Cold, unwelcomed truth. That's when this drum beat about the big, bad Russians started meddling in our election started. Why? To distract attention away from the ugly reality that the DNC and Hillary were cheating. ..."
    "... The subsequent Wikileaks avalanche of Podesta emails reinforced as fact the existing suspicion that the media was in the bag for Hillary. ..."
    "... I would recommend you assemble a short reading list of everything surrounding President Kennedy's full acceptance of responsibility after the Bay of Pigs, beginning with the substance and tone of his unequivocal taking of responsibility and ending with his huge rise in the polls, to nearly 90% favorable ratings, after he did this. ..."
    "... And then I would suggest she plan the equivalent and take full, absolute and unequivocal responsibility for making a mistake with the private emails and give an honest, direct, explanation of the reasons I believe she used those private emails. . . . ..."
    "... Give Budowsky credit for one thing, if Hillary had followed his advice she might have won the election. But she was too busy exploiting the rules of a rigged game and trying to smear Trump as a Russian agent while failing to exercise genuine, sincere personal responsibility. ..."
    "... Barack Obama appears to be actively working to discredit the Trump election and has enlisted the intelligence community in the effort. How else to explain this disconnect? Yesterday, as noted above, Obama directed the intelligence community to: ..."
    "... I heard from a knowledgeable friend in September that Hillary's campaign was pressing the Obama White House to lean on the intel community and put something out blaming her woes on the Russians. That led to the October statement. And now we have the CIA via a SECRET report (that is leaked to the public) insisting that Trump's victory came because of the Russians. ..."
    "... This is a damn lie. The CIA is now allowing itself to be used once again for blatant political purposes. The politicization became a real problem under Bush. Let's not forget that these are the same cats who insisted it was a slam dunk that were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The same group who missed the rise of ISIS. ..."
    "... Also worth reminding ourselves that the head of the ironically titled "Intelligence Community" is a proven liar. Jim Clapper lied to the Senate about the NSA spying on Americans three years ago (December 2013) : ..."
    "... "Congressional oversight depends on truthful testimony – witnesses cannot be allowed to lie to Congress," wrote representatives James Sensenbrenner, Darrell Issa, Trent Franks, Raul Labrador, Ted Poe, Trey Gowdy and Blake Farenthold, citing "Director Clapper's willful lie under oath." ..."
    "... There is a consistent pattern in the Obama Administration of lying to the American people, especially when it comes to National Security matters. The NSA is not an isolated case. We also have Benghazi, Syria and Libya as other examples of not telling the truth and misrepresenting facts. ..."
    "... In my lifetime, going on 60 years, I have never seen such a display of incompetence as is being manifested by Barack Obama and mental midgets that surround him. ..."
    "... What they can say for sure is that the DNC and Podesta emails were hacked. Those hacked emails were passed to WIKILEAKS. Those emails were then released to the public. What the intel community will be hard pressed to prove is that the Russian Government conceived of and directed such a campaign. This is the true information operation to meddle in the U.S. election, but that isn't Russia. That's Obama. ..."
    Dec 09, 2016 | www.noquarterusa.net

    UPDATE–PLEASE SEE BELOW. BOTTOMLINE, BARACK OBAMA, WITH THE COOPERATION OF SOME IN THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY, ARE TRYING TO DISCREDIT TRUMP BEFORE THE ELECTION.

    Let me stipulate up front that both the United States and Russia engage in covert and clandestine information operations. It is called espionage. It is but one aspect of the broader intelligence activity also known as spying. Time for all you snowflakes in America to grow up and get a grip and deal with with reality. If the respective intelligence organizations in either country are not doing this they are guilty of malpractice and should be dismantled.

    There are two basic types of espionage activity–Covert refers to an operation that is undetected while in progress, but the outcome may be easily observed. Killing Bin Laden is a prime example of a "covert" operation. A Clandestine Operation is something that is supposed to be undetected while in progress and after completion. For example, if the U.S. or Russia had a mole at the top of the National Security bureaucracy of their respective adversary, communicating with that mole and the mole's very existence would be clandestine.

    So, the alleged Russian meddling in our election–was it covert or clandestine?

    The whole "blame Russia" movement to account for Hillary's unexpected failure to win the Presidency got a new shot in the arm with today's announcement that Obama ordered:

    a full review into hacking by the Russians designed to influence the 2016 election, White House Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Adviser Lisa Monaco said Friday.

    The stupidity of this is profound. If this review leads to the "discovery" that Russia is carrying out espionage activities in the United States then we have passed the threshold of learning that there is gambling in a casino.

    The real irony in all of this is that Wikileaks, thanks to the hack of the DNC and John Podesta emails, exposed the reality of Democrats working surreptitiously to tamper with and manipulate the election. Here are the highlights from that leak:

    DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz Calls Sanders Campaign Manager Jeff Weaver an "A–" and a "Liar"

    In May the Nevada Democratic State Convention became rowdy and got out of hand in a fight over delegate allocation. When Weaver went on CNN and denied any claims violence had happened, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, once she was notified of the exchange, wrote "Damn liar. Particularly scummy that he never acknowledges the violent and threatening behavior that occurred."

    Highlighting Sanders' Faith

    One email shows that a DNC official contemplated highlighting Sanders' alleged atheism - even though he has said he is not an atheist - during the primaries as a possibility to undermine support among voters.

    "It may make no difference but for KY and WA can we get someone to ask his belief," Brad Marshall, CFO of the DNC, wrote in an email on May 5, 2016. "He had skated on having a Jewish heritage. I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist."

    Building a Narrative Against Sanders

    "Wondering if there's a good Bernie narrative for a story which is that Bernie never ever had his act together, that his campaign was a mess," DNC National Secretary Mark Paustenbach wrote in an email to National Communications Director Luis Miranda on May 21. After detailing ways in which the Sanders camp was disorganized, Paustenbach concludes, "It's not a DNC conspiracy it's because they never had their act together."

    The London Observer noted that :

    The release provides further evidence the DNC broke its own charter violations by favoring Clinton as the Democratic presidential nominee, long before any votes were cast.

    It was the Clinton spokesman, Robbie Mook, who launched the claim on July 24, 2016 that these leaks were done by the Russians in order to help Trump:

    The source of the leak has not been revealed, though Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, Robby Mook, said on ABC News' "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" on Sunday that he believes the Russians were instrumental in it.

    "Experts are telling us that Russian state actors broke into the DNC, took all these emails and now are leaking them out through these websites," Mook said Sunday. "It's troubling that some experts are now telling us that this was done by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump."

    The Clinton campaign started planning to smear Trump as a Putin stooge as early as December 2015. The Podesta emails showed clearly that the Clinton campaign decided early on to clobber Trump for his "bromance" with Putin. It was Brent Buwdosky almost one year ago (December 21, 2015) who proposed going after Trump with the Russian card in an email to Podesta:

    Putin did not agree to anything about removing Assad and continues to bomb the people we support. We pushed the same position in 2012 (Geneva 1, which HRC knows all about) and Geneva 2 in 2014. Odds that Putin agrees to remove Assad are only slightly better than the odds the College of Cardinals chooses me to someday succeed Pope Francis. Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin, but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria.

    Going after Trump as a Russian stooge was in the Clinton playbook long before Trump won a primary. One the wedge issues for Clinton with respect to Trump was Syria. Trump took a strong stand (which many thought would hurt him with Republicans) in declaring we should not be trying to get rid of Assad and that America should cooperate with the Russians in fighting the Islamists. Clinton, by contrast, called for imposing a No Fly Zone that would have risked a direct confrontation with Russia.

    Blaming Russia for Hillary's flame out is absurd. The Russians did not create and lie about Hillary's server. They did not force her to back the multilateral trade agreements, such as NAFTA and TPP. They didn't set up the Clinton Foundation as a cash cow for the Clinton family. They did not force her to advocate imposing a No Fly Zone in Syria and having been a cheerleader for past wars, including Iraq and Libya. Vladimir Putin did not slip her a mickey and cause her to pass out at the 9-11 memorial, which fueled concerns about her health. And they did not infect her lungs and cause her to have extended coughing jags. They did not cause her to call Americans deplorables. They did not make her say that the coal industry should be shutdown. With that kind of record, coupled with her shrieking, screechy voice, why are folks surprised that she did not win?

    So now Democrats and several Republicans are in a lather over the Russians stealing the election for Trump. The list of conspiracy theorists pushing this nonsense include John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Angus King of Maine, Brent Budowsky and Adam Schiff. I defy anyone, to explain to me how Russian meddling gave Trump the win.

    The realities are this. First, as noted in the Budowsky email, the Clinton campaign came up with the idea of accusing Trump of being a stooge of Russia. They thought they'd get political bang out of that. They didn't.

    Second, the hack of the DNC emails confirmed that the suspicions of many that the DNC and Hillary were collaborating to screw over Bernie and rig the election. That was not fake news. Cold, unwelcomed truth. That's when this drum beat about the big, bad Russians started meddling in our election started. Why? To distract attention away from the ugly reality that the DNC and Hillary were cheating.

    The subsequent Wikileaks avalanche of Podesta emails reinforced as fact the existing suspicion that the media was in the bag for Hillary. But no amount of media help and foreign money could transform Hillary into a likeable candidate. She was dreadful on the campaign trail and terrible at talking to the average American. Even her boy, Brent Budowsky, reluctantly acknowledged this in an email to John Podesta on Wednesday, August 26, 2015 :

    While I have been warning for some time about the dangers facing the Clinton campaign, aggressively in privately, tactfully in columns, during this latest stage I have been publicly defending her with no-holds barred, and here is my advice based on the reaction I have been receiving and the dangers I see coming to fruition.

    I would recommend you assemble a short reading list of everything surrounding President Kennedy's full acceptance of responsibility after the Bay of Pigs, beginning with the substance and tone of his unequivocal taking of responsibility and ending with his huge rise in the polls, to nearly 90% favorable ratings, after he did this.

    And then I would suggest she plan the equivalent and take full, absolute and unequivocal responsibility for making a mistake with the private emails and give an honest, direct, explanation of the reasons I believe she used those private emails. . . .

    She could say she was right anticipating this, but wrong in overreacting by trying to shield her private emails, and she takes full responsibility for this, and apologizes to her supporters and everyone else, and now she has turned over all information, it will ultimately be seen that there no egregious wrongs committed.

    She needs to stop talking like a lawyer parsing legalistic words and a potential defendant expecting a future indictment, which is how she often looks and sounds to many voters today. Instead, she should take full responsibility for a mistake with no equivocation, and segue into the role of a populist prosecutor against a corrupted politics that Americans already detest ..and make a direct attack against the Donald Trump politics of daily insults and defamations and intolerance against whichever individuals and groups he tries to bully on a given day, and while defending some Republican candidates against his attacks, she should deplore their being intimidated by his insults and offering pastel versions of the intolerance he peddles.

    In other words, she should stop acting like a front-runner who cautiously tries to exploit the rules of a rigged game to her advantage, and start acting like a fighting underdog who will fight on behalf of Americans who want a higher standard of living for themselves, a higher standard of politics for the nation, and a higher level of economic opportunity and social justice for everyone.

    Like JFK after the Bay of Pigs, the more responsibility she takes now the more she will succeed going forward.

    Give Budowsky credit for one thing, if Hillary had followed his advice she might have won the election. But she was too busy exploiting the rules of a rigged game and trying to smear Trump as a Russian agent while failing to exercise genuine, sincere personal responsibility.

    UPDATE –This is an extremely dangerous time now. Barack Obama appears to be actively working to discredit the Trump election and has enlisted the intelligence community in the effort. How else to explain this disconnect? Yesterday, as noted above, Obama directed the intelligence community to:

    "conduct a full review of what happened during the 2016 election process. It is to capture lessons learned from that and to report to a range of stakeholders," she said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters. "This is consistent with the work that we did over the summer to engage Congress on the threats that we were seeing."

    Then comes news last night that :

    The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.

    Why do you order a review if the CIA has already made a factual determination? In fact, we were told in October that the whole damn intelligence community determined the Russians did it. USA Today reported this in October :

    The fact-checking website Politifact says Hillary Clinton is correct when she says 17 federal intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia is behind the hacking.

    "We have 17, 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyber attacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin. And they are designed to influence our election. I find that deeply disturbing," Clinton said during Wednesday's presidential debate in Las Vegas .

    Trump pushed back, saying that Clinton and the United States had "no idea whether it is Russia, China or anybody else."

    But Clinton is correct. On Oct. 7, the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement on behalf of the U.S. Intelligence Community. The USIC is made up of 16 agencies , in addition to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

    I heard from a knowledgeable friend in September that Hillary's campaign was pressing the Obama White House to lean on the intel community and put something out blaming her woes on the Russians. That led to the October statement. And now we have the CIA via a SECRET report (that is leaked to the public) insisting that Trump's victory came because of the Russians.

    This is a damn lie. The CIA is now allowing itself to be used once again for blatant political purposes. The politicization became a real problem under Bush. Let's not forget that these are the same cats who insisted it was a slam dunk that were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The same group who missed the rise of ISIS.

    Barack Obama told CNN' Van Jones the following the other night :

    "The ability of ISIL to not just mass inside of Syria, but then to initiate major land offensives that took Mosul, for example, that was not on my intelligence radar screen," Obama told Zakaria, using the administration's term for the Islamic State terror group.

    Also worth reminding ourselves that the head of the ironically titled "Intelligence Community" is a proven liar. Jim Clapper lied to the Senate about the NSA spying on Americans three years ago (December 2013) :

    In a letter issued the day after a White House surveillance review placed new political pressure on the National Security Agency, the seven members of the House judiciary committee said that James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, ought to face consequences for untruthfully telling the Senate that the NSA was "not wittingly" collecting data on Americans.

    "Congressional oversight depends on truthful testimony – witnesses cannot be allowed to lie to Congress," wrote representatives James Sensenbrenner, Darrell Issa, Trent Franks, Raul Labrador, Ted Poe, Trey Gowdy and Blake Farenthold, citing "Director Clapper's willful lie under oath."

    There is a consistent pattern in the Obama Administration of lying to the American people, especially when it comes to National Security matters. The NSA is not an isolated case. We also have Benghazi, Syria and Libya as other examples of not telling the truth and misrepresenting facts.

    In my lifetime, going on 60 years, I have never seen such a display of incompetence as is being manifested by Barack Obama and mental midgets that surround him.

    What they can say for sure is that the DNC and Podesta emails were hacked. Those hacked emails were passed to WIKILEAKS. Those emails were then released to the public. What the intel community will be hard pressed to prove is that the Russian Government conceived of and directed such a campaign. This is the true information operation to meddle in the U.S. election, but that isn't Russia. That's Obama.

    Larry C. Johnson is a former analyst at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, who moved subsequently in 1989 to the U.S. Department of State, where he served four years as the deputy director for transportation security, antiterrorism assistance training, and special operations in the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism. He left government service in October 1993 and set up a consulting business. He currently is the co-owner and CEO of BERG Associates, LLC (Business Exposure Reduction Group) and is an expert in the fields of terrorism, aviation security, and crisis and risk management, and money laundering investigations. Johnson is the founder and main author of No Quarter, a weblog that addresses issues of terrorism and intelligence and politics. NoQuarterUSA was nominated as Best Political Blog of 2008.

    [Dec 11, 2016] The CIA's Absence of Conviction by Craig Murray

    Notable quotes:
    "... There is no Russian involvement in the leaks of emails showing Clinton's corruption. Yet this rubbish has been the lead today in the Washington Post in the US and the Guardian here, and was the lead item on the BBC main news. I suspect it is leading the American broadcasts also. ..."
    craigmurray.org.uk

    I have watched incredulous as the CIA's blatant lie has grown and grown as a media story – blatant because the CIA has made no attempt whatsoever to substantiate it.

    There is no Russian involvement in the leaks of emails showing Clinton's corruption. Yet this rubbish has been the lead today in the Washington Post in the US and the Guardian here, and was the lead item on the BBC main news. I suspect it is leading the American broadcasts also.

    [Dec 11, 2016] Russia Rigged Election, Killed JFK And Hid Saddams WMDs, Confirms CIA

    waterfordwhispersnews.com
    craazyboy December 10, 2016 at 10:10 am

    hahaha. Tho I think they made a spelling error- s/b Osamaovitch Boris Ladenofsky.

    Baby Gerald December 10, 2016 at 10:15 am

    Thanks for this– a much-needed Onion-esque satirical dig at the Globe/Post/NYT trifecta of garbage. To base a headline on information gleaned from anonymous sources and unnamed officials in secret meetings with unpublished agendas seems the most dangerous type of fake news there is. The death of irony was greatly exaggerated, if you ask me.

    Aumua December 10, 2016 at 2:43 pm

    Next up: Russia influenced the Superbowl. You thought the Cubs' actually winning was a little strange? Well, have we got a shocker for you..

    [Dec 11, 2016] Are Saudis behind CIA "report" on Russian influence on elections?

    Dec 11, 2016 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
    Stormcrow , December 11, 2016 at 7:38 am

    What's behind the Russian Hack Propaganda? Two articles worth a read. I apologize if they've been posted before.

    What Are The Hearsay Leaks About "Russian Election Hacking" Attempting To Achieve?
    http://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/12/what-are-the-hearsay-leaks-about-russian-election-hacking-attempting-to-achieve.html

    BEHIND CIA"S "REPORT" ON ELECTION: THE SAUDIS
    https://www.emptywheel.net/2016/12/09/unpacking-new-cia-leak-dont-ignore-aluminum-tube-footnote/

    UserFriendly , December 11, 2016 at 7:47 am

    Well, At least Tillerson believes in Climate change and is in favor of a carbon tax
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2016/06/30/exxon-yes-exxon-backs-a-carbon-tax/#1fbb193e4aea

    Jim Haygood , December 11, 2016 at 9:00 am

    Are we seeing a pattern here? Tillerson - a Putin counterpart and recipient of Russia's Order of Friendship - to Moscow; Gov Branstad - farmin' buddy of Premier Xi since the 1980s - to Beijing. And so forth.

    Inside-the-Beltway folk are upset at the overturning of the established order, in which diplomatic posts go to the biggest bundlers, regardless of country knowledge. Lacking titles of nobility here in the Homeland, we need an outlet for the well-connected to purchase a prestigious sinecure and a black diplomatic passport. Otherwise a frightening Revolt of the Affluent could roil our streets.

    Still angling for the Court of St James myself - got any witticisms I could share with the Queen?

    Katniss Everdeen , December 11, 2016 at 10:15 am

    Like it or not, Tillerson as secretary of "state" makes a fair amount of sense.

    His appointment would acknowledge, pretty overtly, that american foreign "policy" is, always and everywhere, about energy.

    We ignore human rights abuses in saudi arabia and overthrow Gadhafi when he proposes demanding payment for oil in a gold-backed currency. Iraq. Assad must "go" because of a pipeline. A biden boy gets a seat on the board of a Ukranian energy company after a u. s. backed coup. The clinton foundation in Nigeria.

    And that's just the last decade or so of wars and "threats to american interests." Maybe it's time we just got honest about it.

    Carolinian , December 11, 2016 at 10:30 am

    Honesty would be a refreshing change.

    Jomo , December 11, 2016 at 11:02 am

    Don't say it's about "energy" 'cause it's about "oil."

    [Dec 11, 2016] Something fishy about President Obama decision to investigate Russian influence of the recent Presidential elections

    Notable quotes:
    "... My perspective from across the ocean has always been that the McCarthy philosophy was the least admirable episode in recent US history. ..."
    "... It's almost as if the West, or at least Western Elite circles who have strived to saturate the airways with Russia-the-bogey-man material since the year dot, can they, on the back of this one-sided propaganda machine, wheel-out blame directed towards Russia for .... well almost anything they desire. ..."
    "... If only Barack Hussain Obama had not taken it upon his self to interfere in our referendum with his clear 'Back of the queue' threat, it may have been possible to not think he is a hypocrite. ..."
    "... I suspect this is one last roll of the dice by the 'democrats' to keep Trump out of office. ..."
    "... Obama is foolishly upping the ante, not on Putin, but on Trump. Trump's instinct will be to put a 10x hurt on Obama for this. Don't punk Trump. ..."
    "... They are desperate to discredit the winner. It is as ineffective as any of his failed policies ..."
    "... In other words, Obama admits he hasn't kept America secure versus 21st-century threats. ..."
    "... Obama has said the intelligence agencies had the proof that Russia interfered with the election. With all their proof why order a review? Can't wait until Obama leaves office. ..."
    "... what, is the USA the new Latin America, and Russia the new CIA ? forever meddling surreptitiously to undermine and overthrow other sovereign nation states democratic processes ? that's just so unfair ..."
    "... It is a funny joke, but on the essence I would advise to read investigative report "The New Red Scare" in Harpers. The evidence of Russian government having anything to do with any hacks is literally non-existing. ..."
    "... The US, heckler of the world for decades, stirring trouble wherever the dart falls, and yet Russian hackers and North Korean hookers are to blame for 99.9% of the worlds problems. Reality is, if the US didn't move past its own borders for 10 years the world would be already a much, much better place. ..."
    "... The Guardian probably shouldn't go along in helping build the new McCarthyist, Cold War narrative, especially when it's just a bunch of US politicians and media figures repeating politically expedient, but factually unsupported claims. The Western media is trying to be Hearst Newspapers in the Spanish-American war. ..."
    "... This is explicitly bad because it allows the suppression of dissent, of creating blacklists, the military industrial complex to further consolidate power, and to blame all sorts of domestic failures on shadowing foreign influence. ..."
    "... But when Judith Miller, the NYT, George Bush and Hillary Clinton used fake news to kill hundreds of thousands, Obama told us to get over it, to "look forward and not backward." ..."
    "... The United States has attempted to push its democratic ideologies on countries all over the world, using means much more direct than hacking. Yet they cannot take a fraction of what they dish out. If Russia is indeed intervening to aid nationalists around the world, then Russia is a friend and should be welcomed with open arms. Trump should do the same, and used the powers of the United States to undermine [neoliberal] leftists around the globe. ..."
    Dec 11, 2016 | , discussion.theguardian.com
    Mauryan , 9 Dec 2016 18:29
    Interesting - Obama never ordered an independent probe into 9/11 or invasion of Iraq or on the Wall Street Collapse. Somehow Russian hacking seems to be more draconian than all the above.

    And Russians somehow got into the brains of the disgruntled white population, and controlled Trump's brain so that he would be voted to power. Then they still control Trump's brain so much that he is wanting to let NATO countries pay for their security, make Japan, South Korea and everyone else where US maintains its bases to pay for themselves.

    And then suddenly there is a news of a thousand Russian athletes doing well in 2012 London Olympics due to enhanced drugs. Until now, no one knew about this or heard about it.

    It is not that I am supporting Russia all of a sudden. It is just that I am not supporting the attempt to create enemies out of thin air and make them monstrous as needed, while covering even more sinister schemes that need public attention.

    Obama is part of the same system too that runs everything from behind the curtains. He still is a good man. But he has only some much room to function within and survive.

    Karahashianders -> Mauryan , 9 Dec 2016 18:48
    A good man is not capable of bombing 7 countries in 8 years' time. People are too naive to believe that someone could look as nice and sound as nice as Obama and push to advance the agenda of some of the most evil and power-hungry megalomaniacs on the planet.
    Woodenarrow123 , 9 Dec 2016 18:28
    It was Wikileaks that did it.

    I don't know if the Russians provided Wikileaks with the actual emails or not but Wikileaks like so many news organisations before them released info obtained illegally that they thought the public had a right to know.

    Now Assange has effectively been imprisoned in an Embassy in London for around 5 years on bogus charges and his reputation was damaged by the same charges - Obviously Obama does not want to give any credit to Assange and he knows he has played a part in this outrageous persecution.

    This would also a could time to remind fellow commentators here about the Nuland - Pyatt conversation that was recorded by Russia and released. This conversation showed the the involvement of two high ranking US Politicians in the armed coup in Ukraine where an elected albeit corrupt leader was forced to flee the country.

    200gnomes -> Woodenarrow123 , 9 Dec 2016 18:39
    wikileaks did it because the MSM refuses to do it.
    joeblow9999 , 9 Dec 2016 18:28
    NOTHING in the DNC or Hilly campaign emails has been refuted by anyone. The corrupt DNC and Hilly got caught.

    This is literally like a pedophile complaining to the police because someone stole their illegal porn. Absolutely shameful.

    neighbor65003 , 9 Dec 2016 18:23
    US intelligence? is this the same intelligent agency that gave us Iraq WMD report? They have no credibility
    DaveCP , 9 Dec 2016 18:22
    After reading the first two pages of comments here, it is tempting to believe the bear contributes to these forums on quite an organised scale.

    I fail to see what possible fear anyone could have from whatever evidence exists being seen by, at least, those with a vested interest.

    diddoit -> DaveCP , 9 Dec 2016 18:27

    The period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from 1950 to 1956 and characterized by heightened political repression against supposed communists, as well as a campaign spreading fear of their influence on American institutions and of espionage by Soviet agents.

    The third Red Scare? *clutches teddy bear*

    Only one slight problem ...there aren't any reds in charge in Russia anymore.

    diddoit -> DaveCP , 9 Dec 2016 18:38
    My point being, there is no great ideological clash anymore. Assange volunteered the fact the email data didn't come from the Russians. And whether Trump is better than Hillary is open to debate.
    DaveCP -> diddoit , 9 Dec 2016 18:42
    My perspective from across the ocean has always been that the McCarthy philosophy was the least admirable episode in recent US history. I doubt many people want to return to that but surely, demonstrable evidence in either direction is the only antidote to accusations and conspiracy theories, and is needed now more than ever in this supposed 'post truth' era. Reply Share
    thinkandleap1234 , 9 Dec 2016 18:22
    I assume that Obama is being told to do this, and probably by the same people who backed the Clinton individual for POTUS. The American people must be exceedingly dumb if they fall for this rubbish.
    jamese07uk , 9 Dec 2016 18:18
    It's almost as if the West, or at least Western Elite circles who have strived to saturate the airways with Russia-the-bogey-man material since the year dot, can they, on the back of this one-sided propaganda machine, wheel-out blame directed towards Russia for .... well almost anything they desire.

    Problem is, are the public still eating out of their hands!?

    Brext and the Trump victory is suggesting - not all of us by a long way.

    Boris66 , 9 Dec 2016 18:15
    If only Barack Hussain Obama had not taken it upon his self to interfere in our referendum with his clear 'Back of the queue' threat, it may have been possible to not think he is a hypocrite.
    john D , 9 Dec 2016 18:14
    I was more worried about Soros and democracy NGOs then i was of russian hackers this election.
    wtfbollos , 9 Dec 2016 18:13
    what a joke, america has been 'interfering' (i.e. bombing and destroying) how many countries since 1945?? incredible hypocrisy and sickening double-standards.
    IronBorn , 9 Dec 2016 18:13
    War propoganda. Will the White Helmets be saving Russian civilians too? I suspect this is one last roll of the dice by the 'democrats' to keep Trump out of office.
    sejong , 9 Dec 2016 18:09
    Obama is foolishly upping the ante, not on Putin, but on Trump. Trump's instinct will be to put a 10x hurt on Obama for this. Don't punk Trump.
    timolin , 9 Dec 2016 18:06
    They are desperate to discredit the winner. It is as ineffective as any of his failed policies. He is completely useless.
    AveAtqueCave , 9 Dec 2016 18:04
    In other words, Obama admits he hasn't kept America secure versus 21st-century threats.
    WoodenNickel , 9 Dec 2016 18:04
    Obama has said the intelligence agencies had the proof that Russia interfered with the election. With all their proof why order a review? Can't wait until Obama leaves office.
    Clotsworth , 9 Dec 2016 17:59
    what, is the USA the new Latin America, and Russia the new CIA ? forever meddling surreptitiously to undermine and overthrow other sovereign nation states democratic processes ? that's just so unfair
    smellycat , 9 Dec 2016 17:57
    Oh dear. Russia causes regime change in America. What a laugh. What goes around comes around.
    Max South -> smellycat , 9 Dec 2016 21:10
    It is a funny joke, but on the essence I would advise to read investigative report "The New Red Scare" in Harpers. The evidence of Russian government having anything to do with any hacks is literally non-existing.
    FMinus , 9 Dec 2016 17:57
    The US, heckler of the world for decades, stirring trouble wherever the dart falls, and yet Russian hackers and North Korean hookers are to blame for 99.9% of the worlds problems. Reality is, if the US didn't move past its own borders for 10 years the world would be already a much, much better place.
    IanB52 , 9 Dec 2016 17:57
    The Guardian probably shouldn't go along in helping build the new McCarthyist, Cold War narrative, especially when it's just a bunch of US politicians and media figures repeating politically expedient, but factually unsupported claims. The Western media is trying to be Hearst Newspapers in the Spanish-American war.

    This is explicitly bad because it allows the suppression of dissent, of creating blacklists, the military industrial complex to further consolidate power, and to blame all sorts of domestic failures on shadowing foreign influence. This is exactly what countries like Iran and North Korea do. Bravo guys, for keep this story going for almost half a year with no substantial proof whatsoever.

    AveAtqueCave , 9 Dec 2016 17:55
    But when Judith Miller, the NYT, George Bush and Hillary Clinton used fake news to kill hundreds of thousands, Obama told us to get over it, to "look forward and not backward." What a waste of 8 years.
    Ginen , 9 Dec 2016 17:54
    Obama's last exercise in futility.
    hadeze242 -> Ginen , 9 Dec 2016 18:04
    he suddenly discovered, 2-3 wks ago, that he was enthusiastic about space technology and exploration. He (that is his ghost writers) published a 1 p. article about his love of space. Fact is, first thing great-mind Obama did 8yrs ago is gut NASA's budget. He never mentioned space once in 8 yrs. Suddenly, he is a fan. Creepy ... how does he deal with his hypocritical self every morning?
    ShoppingKingLouie , , 9 Dec 2016 17:53
    Political theatre. He will be out of office before anyone will even be asked to take office.

    Its hilarious that The Guardian tries to frame US Intelligence as a single cohesive unit. Its a splintered multi-headed hydra that will never act on this. Once again Obama brings righteous powerful leadership to the act of being ineffective.

    Benjohn6379 , 9 Dec 2016 17:51
    "Cold War 2: Tear Down This Firewall"

    Starring:
    Shirtless Putin
    Legacy Obama
    Hillary "I'm Not Trump" Clinton
    Donald "OG Troll" Trump
    Super Elite Genius Ninja Russian Hackers
    The Poor Defenseless Victim DNC
    John "Let's All Just Laugh at The Risotto Recipe and Not Pay Attention to any of my Other Emails" Podesta
    80's synth "rock" and really bright neon clothing

    And featuring: Lou Diamond Phillips as.....Guccifer 2.0

    worryingmother -> Benjohn6379 , 9 Dec 2016 18:14
    Like Rocky Horror, but more psycho. Where has Lou Diamond Phillips been, anyway.
    calderonparalapaz , , 9 Dec 2016 17:45
    News Media Reports of governments hacking foreign govts and private Companies:

    CNN
    http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/16/technology/nsa-hacking-tools-snowden /

    Bloomberg News
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-05-23/how-the-u-dot-s-dot-government-hacks-the-world

    Washington Post
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/powerful-nsa-hacking-tools-have-been-revealed-online/2016/08/16/bce4f974-63c7-11e6-96c0-37533479f3f5_story.html?utm_term=.2ea1198b2a8b

    The Intercept: The NSA would know about Russian Hacking
    https://theintercept.com/2016/07/26/russian-intelligence-hack-dnc-nsa-know-snowden-says /

    UK Gauardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-brazil-oil-petrobras

    RT News
    https://www.rt.com/usa/us-hacking-exploits-millions-104 /

    UK Mirror: hacking German Govt
    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/angela-merkels-phone-hacked-american-2485433

    Ryan Wei , 9 Dec 2016 17:45
    The United States has attempted to push its democratic ideologies on countries all over the world, using means much more direct than hacking. Yet they cannot take a fraction of what they dish out. If Russia is indeed intervening to aid nationalists around the world, then Russia is a friend and should be welcomed with open arms. Trump should do the same, and used the powers of the United States to undermine [neoliberal] leftists around the globe.
    John malkovich -> CrankyMac , 9 Dec 2016 19:49
    No its by the letter actually. Libya, Yemen backed by US, Pakistan, Tunisia had some financial and military backing. Obama is the drone king. And Ukraine well have you heard of Victoria nuland before? Regime change in Ukraine cost the taxpayer 5 billion dollars

    [Dec 11, 2016] Russia has always been the convenient whipping boy for the United States

    Notable quotes:
    "... Outrageous how the Russians interfered with the Koch brothers and Soros's electoral process... ..."
    "... No one, not the government agencies, not those ominous private security firms, no one presented even a shred of evidence for any involvement of the Russian government. Not even some lackluster ambiguous data, it was all anecdotal stuff, 'confidence' and fluffy rhetoric. ..."
    "... The McCarthy-esque paranoia spread by the Clinton campaign to deflect from the content of those emails took foothold it seems. ..."
    "... If the evidence were to hand, actually existed, it would have been all over the front pages of the WaPo, NYT and other major news outlets, not just in the US but everywhere else too. Investigating this 'evidence' is, to borrow William Gibson's simile, "Like planning to assassinate a figure out of myth and legend". The usual 'national security considerations' which have been and will continue to be adduced, as reasons for not publishing the evidence is pure triple-distilled BS and pretty much everyone knows that it's BS. ..."
    Dec 11, 2016 | discussion.theguardian.com
    kropotkinsf , 9 Dec 2016 18:44
    Russia has always been the convenient whipping boy for the United States. We manufactured the cold war because we needed an enemy to prop up our war economy. We built the Soviet Union into this monolithic bogey man, spoiling to crush the west, enemies of "freedom," in order to keep the west scared and pliant and in our pocket. After so-called communism collapsed, we found new enemies in the middle east but they lacked the staying power. So now it's back to Russia. Maybe the Russians did hack into the DNC. If so, they merely exposed the damning material. They didn't write it.
    discreto , 9 Dec 2016 18:44
    Oh boy the knives are out against Russia, first I read about the 2012 Olympics which even if it is true I would hold the British Olympic Committee responsible for the failure to find out about the doping at the time of the Games and not 4 years later. I have just read US, Obama is now pointing the finger at Russia for the outcome of the US Elections oh dear they are really scraping the barrell to look for someone to blame instead of finding out why their own people decided to vote for Trump. This is all typical American hyperbole and nonsense and a concerted effort on America's efforts to orchestrate the next War.
    America is so way behind with any modern services, they apparently do not have their bank cards with pin or contactless as yet.
    DogsLivesMatter -> discreto , 9 Dec 2016 18:49
    Have you seen this documentary?
    https://www.rt.com/shows/documentary/369619-drugs-sport-doping-scandal /
    ShoppingKingLouie -> discreto , 9 Dec 2016 18:50
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/08/vladimir-putin-hillary-clinton-russia
    Puro , 9 Dec 2016 18:43
    Unlucky failed mainstream media lost all confidence of its readership and are now broke. What will they do next? ask for money saying that they're helping others whilst keeping most of it?
    bishoppeter4 , 9 Dec 2016 18:41
    The Russians are coming -- = The sky is falling -- It's the 1950s again.
    ShoppingKingLouie , 9 Dec 2016 18:40
    Yet The Guardian spews anti Trump hatred and propaganda everyday to a US audience and no one is investigating the UK for meddling.

    Seems fishy.

    MasonInNY -> ShoppingKingLouie , 9 Dec 2016 18:46
    Why would the UK wish to meddle in a US election? Or France, Germany, Finland, or Italy? Russia, though... :)
    ShoppingKingLouie -> MasonInNY , 9 Dec 2016 18:48
    Why did the NSA spy on those very same countries?
    Logicon , 9 Dec 2016 18:39
    Outrageous how the Russians interfered with the Koch brothers and Soros's electoral process...
    dongerdo , 9 Dec 2016 18:38
    No one, not the government agencies, not those ominous private security firms, no one presented even a shred of evidence for any involvement of the Russian government. Not even some lackluster ambiguous data, it was all anecdotal stuff, 'confidence' and fluffy rhetoric.

    But if it makes them happy....

    The McCarthy-esque paranoia spread by the Clinton campaign to deflect from the content of those emails took foothold it seems.

    mike muse , 9 Dec 2016 18:36
    If the evidence were to hand, actually existed, it would have been all over the front pages of the WaPo, NYT and other major news outlets, not just in the US but everywhere else too. Investigating this 'evidence' is, to borrow William Gibson's simile, "Like planning to assassinate a figure out of myth and legend". The usual 'national security considerations' which have been and will continue to be adduced, as reasons for not publishing the evidence is pure triple-distilled BS and pretty much everyone knows that it's BS.
    Jim Chaypull -> mike muse , 9 Dec 2016 19:32
    Yeah sure, just like how it was 'all over the front pages' about what really happened on 9/11, who was really involved etc.

    And don't give me any of that conspiracy theory, tin-foil hat bs either...unless you are able to be honest about this conspiracy: 19 or 20 strip-club lovin, don't-need-no-takeoff/landing-lessons jihadists used box-cutters to overpower jet air planes and with the-luck-of-the-century HIT NOT ONE....BUT TWO skyscrapers at the EXACT SPOT where the 47 concrete -steel inner columns were weak enough to cause 'pancaking' of the undamaged 60-90 UNDAMAGED FLOORS. Collapsing (and pulverizing concrete into dust) the building into itself.

    And then weirdly enough a small cabal of PNAC signees who in writing had expressed that pax-americana was going to be 'difficult unless a pearl harbor like event happens' had almost as much Luck-of-the-century as the jihadists when......WA LA....into their lap.....a new pearl harbor.

    suzie009 , 9 Dec 2016 18:36
    Is it possible that if Bernie Sanders had been up against Trump he may have won??

    That's the real question that needs addressing - together with why wasn't he chosen!

    JuliusSqueezer -> suzie009 , 9 Dec 2016 18:41
    He definitely would have won.
    jmac55 , 9 Dec 2016 18:35
    Nonsense!

    Trying to blame one of the most flawed and undemocratic election process's in the Western hemisphere on the Russians is laughable to the point of hysteria.

    The dumb-ed down bigoted electorate is a direct result of decades of a two party political system, backed up by a compliant media, that fosters mindless patriotism and ignorance rather than enlightenment and intelligent discussion on the problems facing the country.

    Never have I seen a better example of your own dog biting you on the arse!

    But Clinton lost the election because the Republicans realised she was certain to be the Democratic Presidential candidate fifteen years ago and they began their smear campaign against her right there and then, and a lot of it stuck.

    When you add to that tens of thousands on the left like me who voted for her...but would not campaign for her because we didn't agree with her disastrous blunder in helping to overthrow Qaddafi in Libya ( a country that is now a feudal backwater) and her stated goals of regime change in Syria and all the while she had a domestic policy was cosying up to the bankers and Wall Street elites, whilst ignoring blue collar Americans without jobs and prospects for their future...the almost inevitable result is Trump as President of the United States.

    'Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud, hatch out!'

    The US will get what it deserves...and it deserves Trump I'm afraid.

    [Dec 11, 2016] That supposed Russian interference

    Notable quotes:
    "... Greenwald's take down is another hammer meets nail piece. The CIA are systemic liars. In fact, that's their job to move around in the shadows and deceive. They literally lie about everything. They lied about Iran/Contra, torture programs, their propensity for drug smuggling and dealing, infesting the media with agents, imaginary WMDs that launch war and massacre, mass surveillance of citizens, just to name a few. ..."
    "... This is the agency who are in secret and anonymity, with no verifiable evidence, whispering rumors in the WaPoo and NYTimes' ears that the Russians made Hillary lose. What moron would take the CIA at its word anymore? Much less a major newspaper? Did I miss something, is it 1950 again? Methinks I've picked up the scent of fake news ..."
    "... Apparently, all the morons who are still screaming about Trump, as if he alone will be in charge of the government and not his GOP handlers. Please keep in mind that the ardent Clinton supporters quite clearly reveal cult behavior, and anything that allows them to continue embracing their belief in their righteousness will be embraced without question or qualm. ..."
    "... Washington Post ..."
    "... The upside of these overtly political battles among intelligence agencies is that we are eroding away the idea that these are non-partisan institutions without overt political agendas. ..."
    "... What Stengel and various mainstream media outlets appear to be arguing for is the creation of a "Ministry of Truth" managed by mainstream U.S. media outlets and enforced by Google, Facebook and other technology platforms. ..."
    "... In other words, once these supposedly responsible outlets decide what the "truth" is, then questioning that narrative will earn you "virtual" expulsion from the marketplace of ideas, possibly eliminated via algorithms of major search engines or marked with a special app to warn readers not to believe what you say, a sort of yellow Star of David for the Internet age. ..."
    "... The NC lawsuit against WaPo, like the lawsuit of Hedges et al. against provisions of the NDAA, marks a watershed moment for defending free speech in our country! I hope that my oft-expressed belief -- that we will soon need to revive samizdat ..."
    "... According to a recent posting on Wolf Street, according to records, the Treasury has borrowed 4 trillion more between 2004-15, than can actually be accounted for in spending. This is because it is the borrowing and thus public obligations, which really matter to the powers that be. The generals just get their toys and wars as icing on the cake. It doesn't matter if they win, because there would be less war to spend it on. Eventually they will use "public/private partnerships" to take their piles of public obligations and trade for the rest of the Commons. ..."
    "... Money needs to be understand as a public utility, like roads. We no more own it than we own the section of road we are using. It is like blood, not fat. ..."
    "... The CIA whinging about a right wing president being installed by a foreign power might just be the greatest self-awareness fail ever! ..."
    "... LOL at that! You'd think they were afraid trump might turn out to be the next Hugo Chavez! They must really, really love their program to help al Qaeda in Syria. ..."
    "... The CIA lies as a matter of course, and now they're being propped up as the paragons of honesty, simply out of political expediency. Crazy days. ..."
    "... Modern Democrats simply aren't a political party but fanatics of a professional sports club. If it wasn't the Russians, it would be referees or Bill Belichick at fault. I'm surprised they aren't mentioning "Comrade Nader" at all times. ..."
    "... In fact, Trump's coalition looks remarkably similar to the one that Scott Walker put together in 2014. ..."
    "... Obama in Spartanburg, SC in 2007: And understand this: If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I'm in the White House, I'll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America. Because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner. ..."
    "... And the Dems wonder why the working class feel betrayed. ..."
    Dec 11, 2016 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
    2016 Post Mortem

    Trump Transition

    The Evidence to Prove the Russian Hack emptywheel. The headline is a bit off, since the post's subject is really the evidence required to prove the Russian hack. Some of which does exist. That said, this is an excellent summary of the state of play. I take issue with one point:

    Crowdstrike reported that GRU also hacked the DNC. As it explains, GRU does this by sending someone something that looks like an email password update, but which instead is a fake site designed to get someone to hand over their password. The reason this claim is strong is because people at the DNC say this happened to them.

    First, CrowdStrike is a private security firm, so there's a high likelihood they're talking their book, Beltway IT being what it is. Second, a result (DNC got phished) isn't "strong" proof of a claim (GRU did the phishing). We live in a world where 12-year-olds know how to do email phishing, and a world where professional phishing operations can camouflage themselves as whoever they like. So color me skeptical absent some unpacking on this point. A second post from emptywheel, Unpacking the New CIA Leak: Don't Ignore the Aluminum Tube Footnote , is also well worth a read.

    Chief Bromden December 11, 2016 at 7:51 am

    Greenwald's take down is another hammer meets nail piece. The CIA are systemic liars. In fact, that's their job to move around in the shadows and deceive. They literally lie about everything. They lied about Iran/Contra, torture programs, their propensity for drug smuggling and dealing, infesting the media with agents, imaginary WMDs that launch war and massacre, mass surveillance of citizens, just to name a few.

    They murder, torture, train hired mercenary proxies (who they are often pretending to oppose), stage coups of democratically elected govt.'s, interfere with elections, topple regimes, install ruthless puppet dictators, and generally enslave other nations to western corporate pirates. They are a rogue band of pirates themselves.

    This is the agency who are in secret and anonymity, with no verifiable evidence, whispering rumors in the WaPoo and NYTimes' ears that the Russians made Hillary lose. What moron would take the CIA at its word anymore? Much less a major newspaper? Did I miss something, is it 1950 again? Methinks I've picked up the scent of fake news

    Conclusion: It isn't the Russians that are interfering with U.S. kangaroo elections, it's the professionals over at the CIA

    Brett December 11, 2016 at 11:29 am

    +1000

    Elizabeth Burton December 11, 2016 at 12:50 pm

    Apparently, all the morons who are still screaming about Trump, as if he alone will be in charge of the government and not his GOP handlers. Please keep in mind that the ardent Clinton supporters quite clearly reveal cult behavior, and anything that allows them to continue embracing their belief in their righteousness will be embraced without question or qualm.

    voteforno6 December 11, 2016 at 8:10 am

    Re: That supposed Russian interference

    I've tried to point out on other blogs just how shaky that story in the Washington Post is, and the response I get is something along the lines of, well, other outlets are also reporting it, so it must be true. It does me no good to point out that this is the same tactic used by the Bush administration in the run-up to the Iraq war. People will believe what they want to believe.

    johnnygl December 11, 2016 at 8:35 am

    It may help to point to the history of CIA influence at WaPoo. Counterpunch had a short piece reminding everyone of Operation Mockingbird (going from memory on that name) where CIA had reporters on staff at the paper directly taking orders and simultaneously on CIA payroll.

    If questioned about CIA's motivation for hating trump, my best guess is that it is because trump is undermining their project to overthrow assad in syria using nusra rebels. And also because trump wants to be nice to russia.

    I think there's some people in the cia that think they played a major role in winning the cold war through their support for mujahadeen rebels in afghanistan. I suspect they think they can beat putin in syria the same way. This is absolutely nutty.

    JohnnyGL December 11, 2016 at 11:51 am

    The upside of these overtly political battles among intelligence agencies is that we are eroding away the idea that these are non-partisan institutions without overt political agendas.

    There's a large number of people that will see through the facade. Right now, Trump supporters are getting a lesson in how much resistance there can be within the establishment. I'm no Trump supporter, but I think seeing what these institutions are capable of is a useful exercise for all involved.

    begob December 11, 2016 at 9:07 am

    There's a running battle at the wikipedia article on Fake News Website, where propornot is now considered debunked.

    Ulysses December 11, 2016 at 11:30 am

    Apologies if this analysis by Robert Parry has already been shared here:

    "What Stengel and various mainstream media outlets appear to be arguing for is the creation of a "Ministry of Truth" managed by mainstream U.S. media outlets and enforced by Google, Facebook and other technology platforms.

    In other words, once these supposedly responsible outlets decide what the "truth" is, then questioning that narrative will earn you "virtual" expulsion from the marketplace of ideas, possibly eliminated via algorithms of major search engines or marked with a special app to warn readers not to believe what you say, a sort of yellow Star of David for the Internet age.

    And then there's the possibility of more direct (and old-fashioned) government enforcement by launching FBI investigations into media outlets that won't toe the official line. (All of these "solutions" have been advocated in recent weeks.)

    On the other hand, if you do toe the official line that comes from Stengel's public diplomacy shop, you stand to get rewarded with government financial support. Stengel disclosed in his interview with Ignatius that his office funds "investigative" journalism projects.

    "How should citizens who want a fact-based world combat this assault on truth?" Ignatius asks, adding: "Stengel has approved State Department programs that teach investigative reporting and empower truth-tellers."

    The NC lawsuit against WaPo, like the lawsuit of Hedges et al. against provisions of the NDAA, marks a watershed moment for defending free speech in our country! I hope that my oft-expressed belief -- that we will soon need to revive samizdat techniques to preserve truth– may turn ou to be overly pessimistic.

    Ulysses December 11, 2016 at 11:36 am

    Sorry, I forgot the link!

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-orwellian-war-on-skepticism-battling-fake-news/5559949

    MyLessThanPrimeBeef December 11, 2016 at 11:57 am

    It's like that quote: When the Clinton tide goes out, you discover who's been swimming naked.

    Jim Haygood December 11, 2016 at 9:11 am

    America's military empire is an enormous convection cycle, as money falls in while arms sales and global disorder radiate out.

    Mr Milk Mustache (John Bolton) as assistant Sec State will help perpetuate and accelerate the grand convective cycle.

    John Merryman December 11, 2016 at 9:47 am

    Jim,

    Keep in mind the basis of this capitalist economy is Federal debt. They have to spend it on something. The government doesn't even budget, which is to list priorities and spend according to need/ability. They put together these enormous bills, add enough to get the votes, which don't come cheap and then the prez can only pass or veto.

    If they wanted to actually budget, taking the old line item veto as a template, they could break these bills into all their various items, have each legislator assign a percentage value to each one, put them back together in order of preference and the prez would draw the line. "The buck stops here."

    That would keep powers separate, with congress prioritizing and the prez individually responsible for deficit spending. It would also totally crash our current "Capitalist" system.

    According to a recent posting on Wolf Street, according to records, the Treasury has borrowed 4 trillion more between 2004-15, than can actually be accounted for in spending. This is because it is the borrowing and thus public obligations, which really matter to the powers that be. The generals just get their toys and wars as icing on the cake. It doesn't matter if they win, because there would be less war to spend it on. Eventually they will use "public/private partnerships" to take their piles of public obligations and trade for the rest of the Commons.

    Money needs to be understand as a public utility, like roads. We no more own it than we own the section of road we are using. It is like blood, not fat.

    The Trumpening December 11, 2016 at 8:15 am

    The CIA whinging about a right wing president being installed by a foreign power might just be the greatest self-awareness fail ever!

    johnnygl December 11, 2016 at 10:12 am

    LOL at that! You'd think they were afraid trump might turn out to be the next Hugo Chavez! They must really, really love their program to help al Qaeda in Syria.

    Uahsenaa December 11, 2016 at 10:24 am

    There are so many eye-rolling ironies in all this I think my eyeballs might just pop out of their sockets. And the liberals going out of their way to tout the virtues of the CIA the very same organization that never shied from assassinating or overthrowing a leftwing president/prime minister it galls. The CIA lies as a matter of course, and now they're being propped up as the paragons of honesty, simply out of political expediency. Crazy days.

    NotTimothyGeithner December 11, 2016 at 11:21 am

    Modern Democrats simply aren't a political party but fanatics of a professional sports club. If it wasn't the Russians, it would be referees or Bill Belichick at fault. I'm surprised they aren't mentioning "Comrade Nader" at all times.

    My guess is donors are annoyed after the 2014 debacle and are having a hard time rationalizing a loss to a reality TV show host with a cameo in Home Alone 2.

    allan December 11, 2016 at 8:25 am

    From the Amy Walter post mortem on the race in WI:

    In fact, Trump's coalition looks remarkably similar to the one that Scott Walker put together in 2014.

    It's really a shame that Obama didn't put on those walking shoes lift a finger to help the public service unions fight Walker.

    Uahsenaa December 11, 2016 at 10:27 am

    Obama in Spartanburg, SC in 2007:

    And understand this: If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I'm in the White House, I'll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America. Because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner.

    And the Dems wonder why the working class feel betrayed.

    Maybe he just couldn't find a pair of comfy shoes

    polecat December 11, 2016 at 11:37 am

    Hol(e)y Shoes .

    they glide on water funky bilge water --

    Tertium Squid December 11, 2016 at 9:07 am

    Here's what the "russki hacks" narrative reminds me of.

    ambrit December 11, 2016 at 9:43 am

    I'd extend that to include the entire DNC "Apologia pro Sancta Hillaria."

    UserFriendly December 11, 2016 at 9:33 am

    That ProPublica piece ( Suspected of Corruption at Home, Powerful Foreigners Find Refuge in the U.S. Pro Publica) is brutal. Not only do we have to be the shittest corrupt country in the world but we have to be a safe haven for ever other corrupt politician in the world as long as they have $$. Can someone just make it all end? Please. There needs to be a maximum wealth where anything you earn past it just gets automatically redistributed to the poor.

    aliteralmind December 11, 2016 at 9:43 am

    Truth in journalism just got a little bit more difficult:

    http://www.johnlaurits.com/2016/12/10/disinformation-bill-propaganda/

    tgs December 11, 2016 at 10:32 am

    Thanks for the link – really important and scary things are going in congress concerning 'fake news' and Russian propaganda and HR 6393 is particularly bad. The EU is also taking steps to counter 'fake news' as well. Obama claimed that some form of curation is required – and it is happening quickly. People are suggesting that propornot has been debunked. That does not matter anymore. The Obama regime and the MSM don't care – that have gotten the message out.

    And the people behind this are really deranged – check out Adam Schiff calling Tucker Carlson a Kremlin stooge for even suggesting that there is no certainty that Russia leaked the emails to Wikileaks.

    After all, the media went all in for Hillary and spent huge amounts of time explaining why Trump is unfit. But they lost.

    And now our efforts on behalf of al Queada are failing in Syria and more hysteria ensues. See for example:

    Allies Warn Trump Against Cooperating With Russia Over Syria .

    Some commentators believe that there is a well-organized large scale effort to normalize the suppression of free speech.

    temporal December 11, 2016 at 11:50 am

    The email saga lost a provable set of sources a long time ago. Before the files were given to Wikileaks it was already too late to determine which people did it. So-called forensic evidence of these computers only tell us that investigators either found evidence of a past compromise or that people want us to believe they did. Since the compromise was determined after the fact, the people with access could have done anything to the computers, including leave a false trail.

    The core problem is that since security for all of these machines, including the DNC's email server and most likely many of those from Team R, was nearly non-existent nearly nothing useful can be determined. The time to learn something about a remote attacker, when it's possible at all, is while the machine is being attacked – assuming it has never been compromised before. If the attacker's machine has also been compromised then you know pretty much nothing unless you can get access to it.

    As far as physical access protection goes. If the machine has been left on and unattended or is not completely encrypted then the only thing that might help is a 24 hour surveillance camera pointed at the machine.

    Forensic evidence in compromised computers is significantly less reliable than DNA and hair samples. It's much too easy for investigators to frame another party by twiddling some bits. Anyone that thinks that even well intentioned physical crime investigators have never gotten convictions with bad or manipulated evidence has been watching and believing way too many crime oriented mysteries. "Blindspot" is not a documentary.

    As for projecting behaviors on a country by calling it a "state action", Russia or otherwise, implying that there is no difference between independent and government sponsored actions, that is just silly.

    [Dec 11, 2016] This hysteria over Russia is getting downright dangerous as it looks like forces which are pushing that story stop at nothing to delegitimize the election results.

    Apt observation from Gareth: "I believe the CIA is attempting to delegitimize Trump's election so as to force him into a defensive position in which he will temper his dual goals of normalizing relations with Russia and destroying the CIA's proxy armies of jihadists. We will see if Trump has the guts to make some heads roll in the CIA He will remember that the last President who even threatened to take on the CIA received a massive dose of flying lead poisoning. "
    Essentially after WaPo scandal it is prudent to view all US MSM as yellow press.
    Notable quotes:
    "... The Post and the like are terrified over their loss of credibility just as the internet has destroyed their advertising. Interesting that their response to competition isn't to outdo the competition but to smother the competition with a lie. Their own fake news. ..."
    "... As a moral American and supporter of free speech, I am going to make a list of online or print WaPo advertisers. Then I will communicate to them that I will never buy another thing from them as long as they advertise in the Washington Post. ..."
    "... Open their ads in Firefox ad blocker. Then add them to the script and spam blacklist. ..."
    "... The story serves many purposes. One is firing a shot across TrumpCo's bow: 'Submit to us or we'll delegitimate your election.' ..."
    "... Another is excusing the Democratic Party establishment for losing the election, and thus diverting the wrath of the rank and file. ..."
    "... About all we can do at the moment is remember to remember the names of the people who purveyed and supported the story, just as we should remember to remember the names of those who purveyed WMD stories. ..."
    "... Job #1 always is suppressing the Sanders faction. Not beating Trump or the Republicans. They want control of their little pond. ..."
    "... Personally, after what we did in Ukraine (essentially funding a revolution) I refuse to get the vapors because Russia apparently "helped" elect Trump by exposing (not forcing her to be a liar or cheat) Hillary. ..."
    "... All of this crap about Russia, or the electoral college system is a distraction from the real issues at hand about our political system, which is a two party one oligarchy (ALEC) anti-democratic system. The rot runs from national presidential elections to the comptroller of the smaller city governments. ..."
    "... If any candidate was capable of speaking to the working and middle class, then either Russia nor the the 0.01% who compose the oligarchy could control who wins in popular elections. What is really needed is to eliminate either the two party system, or democratize their methods of selecting candidates. ..."
    "... Think Hillary played an unfair hand to Sanders? That was nothing compared to the shenanigans that get played at local level, state level, and Congress level to filter out populist candidates and replace them with machine / oligarchy pets. ..."
    "... the idea that Saudi (or other Middle Eastern states) also intervened (with money), is not more credible? ..."
    "... Yes, the NYT piece on Russian hacking is complete evidence free tripe. Not once do they say what evidence they base these accusations on, beyond the Cyrillic keyboard. The code for Cyrillic keyboard is, "fuzzy bear" et al. as the original reporting on the DNC hack and the company that ran security made clear that this was the one and only piece of concrete evidence the attacks by "fuzzy bear" et al. were perpetrated by the Russians. ..."
    "... So based on a Cyrillic keyboard and the below quote, unnamed "American intelligence agencies know it was the Russians, really? ..."
    "... Based on this it appears the NYTs definition of fake reporting is anything that isn't fed directly to it by unnamed experts or the USG and uncritically reported. ..."
    "... I think these unnamed agencies are not going to have a very good working relationship with the orange overlord if they keep this up. They might not even be getting that new war they wanted for Christmas. ..."
    "... It's as though the NYT and WaPo had these vast pools of accumulated credibility and they could go out on a limb here Oh wait - their credibility has been destroyed countless times over the past decade or so. One would think they'd realise: If you're in a ditch, the first thing to do is stop digging. ..."
    "... The world is flat . Note: This is not me awarding a Thomas L. Friedman prize. In this case, I am simply sharing the article because I think it is hilarious. ..."
    "... Nowhere, in any of this, is it mentioned that Clinton's illegal private email server (that got hacked) played any factor whatsoever. It just stinks so bad, I wonder how they can not smell what they are sitting in.. ..."
    "... Summarizing a very plausible theory, NeoCon Coup Attempt: As Syria's Assad (with Russian help) is close to crushing HRC's jihadi Queda & Nusra rebels in Aleppo, the NeoCons are freaking out on both sides of the Atlantic. ..."
    "... What to do? Jill's recount is floundering. So, last resort: Concoct Russia hacking myth to either delay Dec 19 EC vote or create more faithless electors. Result: A NeoCon like HRC or a NeoCon sympathizer is installed. ..."
    "... Two biggest war hawks, McCain and Graham, are leading the Senate charges against Russia. All of this within days of Obama sending 200 MORE US troops to Syria and lifting the ban on more arms to the Syrian rebels, including anti-aircraft MANPADS. ..."
    "... The recount farce makes me angry, and has made me resolve to never give Stein my vote again. ..."
    "... That implies the NeoCon establishment views DJT and cabinet as a threat in any way, which is an extremely dubious premise. Occam's razor: Clinton and the media establishment that gifted the country DJT will do anything they can to cast the blame elsewhere. ..."
    "... I'm not sure if that is a simpler explanation. I offer this: It's simpler to see that they are engaging in a struggle for now and the future – that means the neocons vs Trump. ..."
    "... "The story reveals that a CIA assessment detailing this conclusion had been presented to President Obama and top congressional leaders last week." You read that? It's "detailed". None of us peasants will ever know what those "details" are, but its the f#ckin CIA, dude. ..."
    "... The problem is we are expected to just trust the NYT and CIA without evidence??? Anybody remember WMD in Iraq?? The complete loss of credibility by the NYT and CIA over the last decade means I have to see credible evidence before I believe anything they say. ..."
    "... Seems coordinated to me -- Globe/Times/WaPo. Double down for WaPoo who are now reporting from area 51 where they found Bigfoot sitting on a stockpile of Sadam's WMDs. Reading this article is surreal. The CIA, a terrorist outfit which our own former reporter (Bernstein) showed to be infesting our own newsroom, whispered in our ear that the Cold War 2.0 is going to escalate with or without the establishment coronation queen. ..."
    "... "Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House" The link on WaPoo's site actually says a different headline so I am just sharing the headline itself. Not another secret assessment . no more passing notes in class, students. ..."
    "... Robert Reich has posted the news that the Russians helped to secure the election for Trump on his FB page, to it seems much acclaim – perhaps I was foolish for having expected better from him. ..."
    "... WaPo seems allied with the CIA-FIRE sector Clintonian group, while T may be more inclusive of the classic MICC-Pentagon sector which was asserting itself in Syria. ..."
    "... Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, who is a close associate of Assange, called the CIA claims "bullshit", adding: "They are absolutely making it up." "I know who leaked them," Murray said. "I've met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it's an insider. It's a leak, not a hack; the two are different things. ..."
    "... Although I'm convinced that the Republicans are, on average, noticeably worse than the Democrats, I agree with you. It is useful that there is no doubt about where Trump and the Congressional Republicans stand, which is on the side of the billionaires and the giant corporations. We've had 8 years of Obama's obeisance to the oligarchs, and millions of Americans still don't understand that this was happening. ..."
    "... rhetoric that is beginning conspicuously to resemble the celebration by capitalist elites during the interwar years of German and Italian fascism (and even Stalinist communism) for their apparently superior economic governance. [12] ..."
    "... I always knew Trump would be a disaster. However, Trump is a survivable disaster–with Hillary that would have been the end. ..."
    "... If Trump has many Goldman guys, is it a case of 'keeping your enemies close?' ..."
    "... First of all, the Democrats would use Clinton to suppress the left and to insist that Clinton was more electable. That would lead to a validation of the idea that the left has nowhere to go and set a precedent for decades with a 3 point formula: ..."
    "... Suppress the left ..."
    "... Accept money from Wall Street and move to the right with each election ..."
    "... Use identity politics as a distraction. ..."
    "... There were other dangers. Clinton wanted war with Russia. That could easily escalate into a nuclear conflict. With Trump, the risk is reduced, although given his ego, I will concede that anything is possible. We would also be seeing some very damaging neoliberal policies. ..."
    "... The reality is that the US was screwed the moment Sanders was out of the picture. With Trump, at least it is more naked and more obvious. The real challenge is that the left has a 2 front war, first with the corporate Democrats, then the GOP. On the GOP side, Trump's supporters are going to wake up at some point to an Obama like betrayal, which is exactly what I expect will happen. ..."
    "... There are elements of the Trump fan base already calling him out for the people he has appointed, which is a very encouraging sign. Trump's economic performance is what will make or break him. He has sold himself on his business acumen. Needless to say, I expect it will break him because he won't even try to do anything for his base. ..."
    "... I like a lot of your analysis. "We would also be seeing some very damaging neoliberal policies." We could still yet under Trump, given the cabinet nominees. ..."
    "... By dangerous and delegitimizing I assume you mean the results of the election will be reversed sometime in the next six weeks while the current establishment still has martial authority. ..."
    "... Both sides now fear the other side will lock them up or, at the very least, remove them from power permanently. Why do I think this is not over? ..."
    "... I am certainly not ready to rule out Moore's gut feeling. Capitalist Party + MSM + Clinton + Nuland + CIA has shown to be an equation that ends in color revolution ..or at least an attempted color revolution ..."
    "... At the same time that the media hysteria over "fake news" has reached a fever pitch, yesterday the Senate passed the "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" , colloquially known as the Portman-Murphy Counter-Propaganda Bill, as part of the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Conference Report. ..."
    "... " establishing an interagency center housed at the State Department to coordinate and synchronize counter-propaganda efforts throughout the U.S. government." Our very own Ministry of Truth! ..."
    "... Under Ukrainian law journalists that disagree with Kiev's policies are collaborators. They are subject to any mechanism Kiev can devise to stop them. In the case of RT Ruptly or the Guardian this means developing a strategy to ruin their reputations. The Interpreter was developed to that end. Kiev has gone so far as to petition the UK government to censure the Guardian for its coverage of events in Ukraine hoping to bully the publication into line. US broadcasters (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) have put RT on the same list as ISIS. ..."
    "... This plan to censor opposing viewpoints in the US was intended to be executed during a Clinton presidency, and would've been almost impossible to stop under those circumstances. There is now a window of opportunity to fight back and ruin these clowns once and for all. ..."
    "... These rallies are Trump's means of maintaining contact with his base, and making sure that he knows what they want. And a means of showing that he is trying to get it for them. If Hillary had bothered to do anything of the sort she would have been elected. Sanders did it and it was much appreciated. Trump's ego is huge but the rallies are much more than an ego-trip. ..."
    "... Re: WP's response to Truthdig's retraction request. It seems as if they are doubling down on the "not our responsibility to verify the validity theme". My first reaction is that the WP is now the equivalent of the National Enquirer. What's next, a headline " I gave birth to Trump's Love Child". ..."
    "... Panem et circenses. ..."
    Dec 11, 2016 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
    Gareth December 10, 2016 at 12:47 pm

    I believe the CIA is attempting to delegitimize Trump's election so as to force him into a defensive position in which he will temper his dual goals of normalizing relations with Russia and destroying the CIA's proxy armies of jihadists. We will see if Trump has the guts to make some heads roll in the CIA He will remember that the last President who even threatened to take on the CIA received a massive dose of flying lead poisoning.

    voteforno6 December 10, 2016 at 7:21 am

    This hysteria over Russia is getting downright dangerous. The people pushing that story will seemingly stop at nothing to delegitimize the election results.

    Steve C December 10, 2016 at 8:04 am

    The Post's Marc Fisher was on the PBS Newshour last night. He talked about Alex Jones. They probably didn't expect the pushback from Yves, Truthdig, etc. The Establishment often underestimates dissenters.

    Real fake news, like Jones, benefits from the fake news charge. Their readers hate the MSM. I wonder if the same ethic can develop on the left.

    The Post and the like are terrified over their loss of credibility just as the internet has destroyed their advertising. Interesting that their response to competition isn't to outdo the competition but to smother the competition with a lie. Their own fake news.

    Isolato December 10, 2016 at 12:48 pm

    I heard Stephen Colbert lump Alex Jones together w/Wikileaks as if they were the same "fake news". I have also repeatedly heard Samantha Bee refer to Julian Assange as a rapist. Sigh. Both of those comments are "fake news". The allegations against JA are tissue thin and Wikileaks has NEVER been challenged about the truth of their releases. Please correct me if I am wrong.

    Rhondda December 10, 2016 at 4:31 pm

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/03/07/how-the-swedes-set-up-julian-assange/

    It's snarky, but then so is your comment. The 'charges' against Assange have a nasty political stink on them.

    Dave December 10, 2016 at 1:46 pm

    "just as the internet has destroyed their advertising." Shouldn't that be "destroyed their ability to sell advertising?"

    As a moral American and supporter of free speech, I am going to make a list of online or print WaPo advertisers. Then I will communicate to them that I will never buy another thing from them as long as they advertise in the Washington Post.

    Open their ads in Firefox ad blocker. Then add them to the script and spam blacklist.

    The Wapo's trying to steal Craigslist business with online job listings. Looks like an opportunity to have some fun for creatives.

    https://jobs.washingtonpost.com/

    different clue December 10, 2016 at 3:27 pm

    Boss WaPo OwnerMan Bezos is very rich. He bought WaPo as a propaganda outlet. He is prepared to lose a lot of money keeping it "open for propaganda." Naming and shaming and boycotting every advertiser WaPo has could certainly embarass WaPo and perhaps diminish its credibility-patina for Bezoganda purposes. It is certainly worth trying.

    The WaPo brand also owns a lot of other moneymaking entities like Kaplan testing and test-prepping I believe. It would be a lot harder to boycott those because millions of people find them to be important. But perhaps a boycott against them until WaPo sells them off to non Bezos ownership would be worth trying.

    Perhaps a savage boycott against Amazon until Bezos fires everyone at WaPo involved in this McCarthy-list and related articles . . . and humiliates them into unhireability anywhere else ever again?

    Brindle December 10, 2016 at 9:16 am

    The Dem Liberals (Joan Walsh etc). on the twitter are going full throttle with this, it's a twofer as Joan is using this to attack Sanders supporters for not being on the front lines of Russia Fear.

    Anarcissie December 10, 2016 at 12:00 pm

    The story serves many purposes. One is firing a shot across TrumpCo's bow: 'Submit to us or we'll delegitimate your election.' (Apparently TrumpCo has not delivered a convincing submission yet.)

    Another is excusing the Democratic Party establishment for losing the election, and thus diverting the wrath of the rank and file. Evidently it's also going to be used against the Sanders faction of the Democrats. About all we can do at the moment is remember to remember the names of the people who purveyed and supported the story, just as we should remember to remember the names of those who purveyed WMD stories.

    Steve C December 10, 2016 at 12:41 pm

    Job #1 always is suppressing the Sanders faction. Not beating Trump or the Republicans. They want control of their little pond.

    cwaltz December 10, 2016 at 1:18 pm

    Personally, after what we did in Ukraine (essentially funding a revolution) I refuse to get the vapors because Russia apparently "helped" elect Trump by exposing (not forcing her to be a liar or cheat) Hillary.

    Perhaps they should consider that it could be worse, a foreign nation could be arming people and encouraging them to topple the government we have like what we're doing in Syria. It isn't like the very sharp divisions elsewhere haven't resulted in civil war.

    Cry Shop December 10, 2016 at 9:37 am

    All of this crap about Russia, or the electoral college system is a distraction from the real issues at hand about our political system, which is a two party one oligarchy (ALEC) anti-democratic system. The rot runs from national presidential elections to the comptroller of the smaller city governments.

    If any candidate was capable of speaking to the working and middle class, then either Russia nor the the 0.01% who compose the oligarchy could control who wins in popular elections. What is really needed is to eliminate either the two party system, or democratize their methods of selecting candidates.

    Think Hillary played an unfair hand to Sanders? That was nothing compared to the shenanigans that get played at local level, state level, and Congress level to filter out populist candidates and replace them with machine / oligarchy pets.

    MyLessThanPrimeBeef December 10, 2016 at 11:02 am

    Flimsy distractions.

    Coincidentally, all these urgent initiatives will lead to replacing Trump with Hillary as president. "I will tear down the very building just to achieve my Pyrrhic victory."

    OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL December 10, 2016 at 5:29 pm

    Thank you, sorry Dems, Boris Badunov did not swing the election. If you want *hard* evidence (not fake news) of a foreign government influencing the election you might have a look at the beheading, gay-killing, women-supressing tyrannical monarchy known as The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and ask whether it made sense for them to be the *#1* contributor to your candidate.

    HBE December 10, 2016 at 10:08 am

    Yes, the NYT piece on Russian hacking is complete evidence free tripe. Not once do they say what evidence they base these accusations on, beyond the Cyrillic keyboard. The code for Cyrillic keyboard is, "fuzzy bear" et al. as the original reporting on the DNC hack and the company that ran security made clear that this was the one and only piece of concrete evidence the attacks by "fuzzy bear" et al. were perpetrated by the Russians.

    So based on a Cyrillic keyboard and the below quote, unnamed "American intelligence agencies know it was the Russians, really?

    "They based that conclusion, in part, on another finding - which they say was also reached with high confidence - that the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee's computer systems in addition to their attacks on Democratic organizations, but did not release whatever information they gleaned from the Republican networks."

    Based on this it appears the NYTs definition of fake reporting is anything that isn't fed directly to it by unnamed experts or the USG and uncritically reported.

    I think these unnamed agencies are not going to have a very good working relationship with the orange overlord if they keep this up. They might not even be getting that new war they wanted for Christmas.

    Pavel December 10, 2016 at 11:00 am

    It's as though the NYT and WaPo had these vast pools of accumulated credibility and they could go out on a limb here Oh wait - their credibility has been destroyed countless times over the past decade or so. One would think they'd realise: If you're in a ditch, the first thing to do is stop digging.

    Especially when dealing with a President Trump. He's already made his distaste for the WaPo clear. We are entering a new, crazy, dangerous era of press-presidential relations. All the more reason for the newspapers to behave responsibly - is that too much to ask?

    integer December 10, 2016 at 7:32 pm

    The world is flat . Note: This is not me awarding a Thomas L. Friedman prize. In this case, I am simply sharing the article because I think it is hilarious.

    integer December 10, 2016 at 8:38 pm

    Also, Bradford deLong should be included with Krugman and Friedman, though the length and width of deLong's connections don't seem to have the same acceleration, energy, or viscosity, as the other two. There are also olfactory and temporal differences.

    integer December 11, 2016 at 1:32 am

    Come to think of it, I also don't think Krugman Turdman or Friedman Flathead would have to grovel to Neera "I'm a loyal soldier" Tanden and John "Done, so think about something else" Podesta to get a family member a "meritocratic" job.

    YassirYouBetcha December 10, 2016 at 12:47 pm

    Multiple languages use the Cyrillic alphabet, including Bulgarian and, notably, Ukrainian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrillic_script

    local to oakland December 10, 2016 at 11:52 am

    See also this. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/chuck-schumer-russia-senate-election-inquiry-232464

    TK421 December 10, 2016 at 11:57 am

    If Russia is so dangerous, then anyone who mishandles classified information (say, by storing it on a personal server) should be prosecuted, shouldn't they?

    Aumua December 10, 2016 at 2:00 pm

    Nowhere, in any of this, is it mentioned that Clinton's illegal private email server (that got hacked) played any factor whatsoever. It just stinks so bad, I wonder how they can not smell what they are sitting in.. I also wonder just where the line is between those who actually buy into this hysteria, and those who simply feel justified in using whatever means they can to discredit Trump and overturn the election. I think there's a lot of overlap and grey area there in many people's minds.

    Anonymous December 10, 2016 at 2:20 pm

    Summarizing a very plausible theory, NeoCon Coup Attempt: As Syria's Assad (with Russian help) is close to crushing HRC's jihadi Queda & Nusra rebels in Aleppo, the NeoCons are freaking out on both sides of the Atlantic.

    What to do? Jill's recount is floundering. So, last resort: Concoct Russia hacking myth to either delay Dec 19 EC vote or create more faithless electors. Result: A NeoCon like HRC or a NeoCon sympathizer is installed.

    Two biggest war hawks, McCain and Graham, are leading the Senate charges against Russia. All of this within days of Obama sending 200 MORE US troops to Syria and lifting the ban on more arms to the Syrian rebels, including anti-aircraft MANPADS.

    Plenue December 10, 2016 at 5:03 pm

    The recount farce makes me angry, and has made me resolve to never give Stein my vote again. Apparently she's in opposition to much of her party leadership on this, so if they ditch her in the future and get someone better I may consider voting for them again. The reality of Trump as president is going to be bad enough, attempting to sabotage the transition isn't doing anyone any favors. I don't like Obama at all, but he wants a clean, peaceful transfer of power, and on that issue at least he's correct.

    R McCoy December 10, 2016 at 5:16 pm

    That implies the NeoCon establishment views DJT and cabinet as a threat in any way, which is an extremely dubious premise. Occam's razor: Clinton and the media establishment that gifted the country DJT will do anything they can to cast the blame elsewhere.

    MyLessThanPrimeBeef December 10, 2016 at 6:24 pm

    I'm not sure if that is a simpler explanation. I offer this: It's simpler to see that they are engaging in a struggle for now and the future – that means the neocons vs Trump.

    Hillary vs Trump, invoking Russia now, is about fighting the last war. That one was over more than a month ago. It's more convoluted to say one team still desires to continue the fight.

    Chief Bromden December 10, 2016 at 5:51 pm

    You may be on to something http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/russian-interference-could-give-courts-legal-authority_us_584be136e4b0151082221b9c

    "The story reveals that a CIA assessment detailing this conclusion had been presented to President Obama and top congressional leaders last week." You read that? It's "detailed". None of us peasants will ever know what those "details" are, but its the f#ckin CIA, dude.

    Jagger December 10, 2016 at 7:54 pm

    You read that? It's "detailed". None of us peasants will ever know what those "details" are, but its the f#ckin CIA, dude.

    I just read the NYT article covering the same topic, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/us/obama-russia-election-hack.html?_r=0 ,

    The problem is we are expected to just trust the NYT and CIA without evidence??? Anybody remember WMD in Iraq?? The complete loss of credibility by the NYT and CIA over the last decade means I have to see credible evidence before I believe anything they say. But that is just me. From reading the NYT comments on the OBama Russia election hack article, the NYT commenters have en mass swallowed the story hook, line and sinker. They apparently don't need evidence and have completely loss any sort of functioning long term memory.

    Benedict@Large December 10, 2016 at 1:47 pm

    And it's pretty clear that Clinton is right in with it. The woman has literally lost her marbles

    cwaltz December 10, 2016 at 10:22 pm

    Based on the fact that she was hidden more than actually performing on the campaign trail, that is a possibility. She may have very well been our own puppet government member that some were ready to install here just like we tend to do over in other nations. No real marbles needed since she wouldn't actually be running things. It's come to my attention that we seem to be inching closer and closer to third world here and those places rarely have vibrant democracies.

    Chief Bromden December 10, 2016 at 8:04 am

    Seems coordinated to me -- Globe/Times/WaPo. Double down for WaPoo who are now reporting from area 51 where they found Bigfoot sitting on a stockpile of Sadam's WMDs. Reading this article is surreal. The CIA, a terrorist outfit which our own former reporter (Bernstein) showed to be infesting our own newsroom, whispered in our ear that the Cold War 2.0 is going to escalate with or without the establishment coronation queen.

    "Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House" The link on WaPoo's site actually says a different headline so I am just sharing the headline itself. Not another secret assessment . no more passing notes in class, students.

    Eustache de Saint Pierre December 10, 2016 at 8:49 am

    Robert Reich has posted the news that the Russians helped to secure the election for Trump on his FB page, to it seems much acclaim – perhaps I was foolish for having expected better from him.

    Steve H. December 10, 2016 at 9:31 am

    Sifting the election through a Peter Turchin filter, Sanders' run was a response to 'popular immiseration' while the choice-of-billionaires was 'intra-elite competition'. WaPo seems allied with the CIA-FIRE sector Clintonian group, while T may be more inclusive of the classic MICC-Pentagon sector which was asserting itself in Syria.

    I needed Jalen & Jacoby to sooth me to sleep last night, after seeing the last chart (Fig. 14.4) from Turchin's latest book. You can see it by hitting Ctrl-End from this pdf . If he's correct, this election was just the warm-up for 2020. Crikey.

    subgenius December 10, 2016 at 3:29 pm

    Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, who is a close associate of Assange, called the CIA claims "bullshit", adding: "They are absolutely making it up." "I know who leaked them," Murray said. "I've met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it's an insider. It's a leak, not a hack; the two are different things.

    witters December 10, 2016 at 11:08 pm

    The link to CM – and further disgracefulness from the now worthless Guardian: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/12/cias-absence-conviction/

    Vatch December 10, 2016 at 6:08 pm

    Although I'm convinced that the Republicans are, on average, noticeably worse than the Democrats, I agree with you. It is useful that there is no doubt about where Trump and the Congressional Republicans stand, which is on the side of the billionaires and the giant corporations. We've had 8 years of Obama's obeisance to the oligarchs, and millions of Americans still don't understand that this was happening.

    I hope people will vigorously lobby their Representatives and Senators, and pay attention to who the genuine progressives are in the 2018 primaries.

    Invy December 10, 2016 at 3:12 pm

    Like ordinary citizens, although for the opposite reasons, elites are losing faith in democratic government and its suitability for reshaping societies in line with market imperatives. Public Choice's disparaging view of democratic politics as a corruption of market justice, in the service of opportunistic politicians and their clientele, has become common sense among elite publics-as has the belief that market capitalism cleansed of democratic politics will not only be more efficient but also virtuous and responsible. [11]

    Countries like China are complimented for their authoritarian political systems being so much better equipped than majoritarian democracy, with its egalitarian bent, to deal with what are claimed to be the challenges of 'globalization' -- a rhetoric that is beginning conspicuously to resemble the celebration by capitalist elites during the interwar years of German and Italian fascism (and even Stalinist communism) for their apparently superior economic governance. [12]

    How will capitalism end – New Left Review

    jgordon December 10, 2016 at 3:38 pm

    Right, the euphemisms have been done away with. I always knew Trump would be a disaster. However, Trump is a survivable disaster–with Hillary that would have been the end.

    MyLessThanPrimeBeef December 10, 2016 at 6:30 pm

    If Trump has many Goldman guys, is it a case of 'keeping your enemies close?'

    Altandmain December 10, 2016 at 6:37 pm

    In the long run, a Clinton presidency would be far more damaging.

    First of all, the Democrats would use Clinton to suppress the left and to insist that Clinton was more electable. That would lead to a validation of the idea that the left has nowhere to go and set a precedent for decades with a 3 point formula:

    1. Suppress the left
    2. Accept money from Wall Street and move to the right with each election
    3. Use identity politics as a distraction.

    A Trump victory forces questions on the conventional wisdom (not really wisdom), and forces changes. At best, they can hope to shove another Obama that is attractive on the outside, but will betray people, but even that will be harder because people now are more watchful. Not to mention, the mainstream media has lost its power.

    There were other dangers. Clinton wanted war with Russia. That could easily escalate into a nuclear conflict. With Trump, the risk is reduced, although given his ego, I will concede that anything is possible. We would also be seeing some very damaging neoliberal policies.

    The reality is that the US was screwed the moment Sanders was out of the picture. With Trump, at least it is more naked and more obvious. The real challenge is that the left has a 2 front war, first with the corporate Democrats, then the GOP. On the GOP side, Trump's supporters are going to wake up at some point to an Obama like betrayal, which is exactly what I expect will happen.

    There are elements of the Trump fan base already calling him out for the people he has appointed, which is a very encouraging sign. Trump's economic performance is what will make or break him. He has sold himself on his business acumen. Needless to say, I expect it will break him because he won't even try to do anything for his base.

    relstprof, December 10, 2016 at 6:46 pm

    I like a lot of your analysis. "We would also be seeing some very damaging neoliberal policies." We could still yet under Trump, given the cabinet nominees.

    The left must be vigilant and smart. There is opportunity here, but sidetracking on fake news, pop vote, etc. doesn't gain much in terms of opposition.

    Michael, December 10, 2016 at 10:27 pm

    I think you're possibly right, and I just couldn't pull the lever to vote for Trump. Sometimes we just have to be true to ourselves and hope it works out.

    RenoDino December 10, 2016 at 8:26 am

    By dangerous and delegitimizing I assume you mean the results of the election will be reversed sometime in the next six weeks while the current establishment still has martial authority.

    All the intelligent agencies are now in lock step over Russian intervention. How do they let this result stand? Trump obviously realizes his win is now in play and has gone after those same agencies pointing out their gross incompetence.

    Both sides now fear the other side will lock them up or, at the very least, remove them from power permanently. Why do I think this is not over?

    MyLessThanPrimeBeef December 10, 2016 at 11:14 am

    Michael Moore agrees with you – something is, or might be (more accurate description of what he is said to have said, I think), brewing, according to him, or rather, his intuition .

    John Parks December 10, 2016 at 12:56 pm

    I am certainly not ready to rule out Moore's gut feeling. Capitalist Party + MSM + Clinton + Nuland + CIA has shown to be an equation that ends in color revolution ..or at least an attempted color revolution What the State Department and MSM have pleasantly referred to in the past as a bloodless coup. See Ukraine, Brazil, Argentina et al

    Sammy Maudlin December 10, 2016 at 8:26 am

    At the same time that the media hysteria over "fake news" has reached a fever pitch, yesterday the Senate passed the "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" , colloquially known as the Portman-Murphy Counter-Propaganda Bill, as part of the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Conference Report.

    According to Senator Portman's press release, the Bill "will improve the ability of the United States to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation by establishing an interagency center housed at the State Department to coordinate and synchronize counter-propaganda efforts throughout the U.S. government." The bill also creates a "grant program for NGOs, think tanks, civil society and other experts outside government who are engaged in counter-propaganda related work."

    While the passage of this bill seems very coincidentally timed given recent events, it was actually introduced in March. Not sure whether it simply followed a normal legislative track, or was brought back from the dead recently, etc.

    Of note is the fact that, according to Steve Sestanovich, a Senior Counsel at the Council on Foreign Relations , "a lot of what the bill wants done is actually being done," noting that a range of agencies are already focused on the disinformation problem, and that traditional foreign policy tools still have a major role to play.

    Eclair December 10, 2016 at 10:46 am

    " establishing an interagency center housed at the State Department to coordinate and synchronize counter-propaganda efforts throughout the U.S. government." Our very own Ministry of Truth!

    grizziz December 10, 2016 at 2:52 pm

    It is important to find work for our newly minted graduates of marketing, psychology and sociology as well as those graduates of the communication school and the arts. The need of our post-industrial information age is to make things up as opposed to just making things. Our liberal nation has promised our children that after they have enslaved themselves through student debt they will find work. The work they find is likely to be meaningful only to the creditors who wish to be repaid.

    The graduates will find idealistic rationales like patriotism or making "'Merica Grate Again" to soothe their corrupted souls while keeping the fake news as fresh as a steamy load.

    integer December 10, 2016 at 11:04 am

    US Psychological Warfare in Ukraine: Targeting Online Independent Media Coverage

    Under Ukrainian law journalists that disagree with Kiev's policies are collaborators. They are subject to any mechanism Kiev can devise to stop them. In the case of RT Ruptly or the Guardian this means developing a strategy to ruin their reputations. The Interpreter was developed to that end. Kiev has gone so far as to petition the UK government to censure the Guardian for its coverage of events in Ukraine hoping to bully the publication into line. US broadcasters (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) have put RT on the same list as ISIS.

    From yesterday's links but seems appropriate. This plan to censor opposing viewpoints in the US was intended to be executed during a Clinton presidency, and would've been almost impossible to stop under those circumstances. There is now a window of opportunity to fight back and ruin these clowns once and for all.

    local to oakland December 10, 2016 at 12:46 pm

    But these memes are now in play differently by Trump appointees. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/betsy-devos-claim-media-fake-news-232459

    Government messing with the First Amendment is dangerous. I feel like an electrician watching someone reach for the wrong wire.

    integer December 10, 2016 at 1:28 pm

    That may be but what we are seeing now is just an echo of the Clinton/Soros plan, and not even close to the disaster that would result from having Soros et al at the helm. My guess is that the CIA are now simply using gullible Republicans (yes, there is certainly some redundancy there) as useful idiots, but this dynamic significantly weakens the original plan.

    shinola December 10, 2016 at 3:50 pm

    "I feel like an electrician watching someone reach for the wrong wire." I'm definitely stealing that one – thanks!

    cnchal December 10, 2016 at 8:28 am

    Trump, the Man in the Crowd

    Amy Davidson ends her article with this paragraph.

    And that is why the rallies are likely to endure: to serve as calibrators of or infomercials for what Trump believes that "the public" wants. One can waste a lot of time delving into the question of Trump's psychological need for affirmation . What is politically more important is how he might use the set piece of a cheering crowd to brush aside other considerations, particularly those involving the checks on the Presidency, and the willingness of those in other areas of the government, or in the White House itself, to exercise them. Should courts worry about "a lot of angry people"? One important point not to let go of is that a crowd that the President assembles and the broader public are two very different things, no matter how big the arena, or how filled it is with love . A better opportunity to hear that public voice will come in two years, at the midterm elections. Maybe those will surprise Trump.

    News flash for Amy. When a narcissist uses the word "love" it doesn't mean what you think it does. Those rallies are about training people to react emotionally in a way that is fulfilling to Donald. Nothing more, nothing less.

    MyLessThanPrimeBeef December 10, 2016 at 11:55 am

    A better opportunity to hear that public voice will come in two years, at the midterm elections. Maybe those will surprise Trump.

    We remind ourselves that no one can help us but us. We empower ourselves.

    So, it goes for today, as it did in 2008. Such moderation!!! A better opportunity will come in two years!!!! I said that to myself 8 years ago, but I didn't hear much of it from the media then. And we (not just I) say that now.

    As for crowds reacting and it being fulfilling for the one being looked up on – again, it's the same human psychology, whether the guy on stage is a rock star, Lenin, Roosevelt, Pol Pot, the next savior or Idi Amin. How much love is there for anyone in any long term relationship, except to affirm and be affirmed by 'love' everyday, in small acts or otherwise, much less some politicians you interact through abstractions, like, through the media or stories told to us.

    kareninca December 10, 2016 at 6:13 pm

    "Those rallies are about training people to react emotionally in a way that is fulfilling to Donald. Nothing more, nothing less."

    These rallies are Trump's means of maintaining contact with his base, and making sure that he knows what they want. And a means of showing that he is trying to get it for them. If Hillary had bothered to do anything of the sort she would have been elected. Sanders did it and it was much appreciated. Trump's ego is huge but the rallies are much more than an ego-trip.

    Jhallc December 10, 2016 at 8:51 am

    Re: WP's response to Truthdig's retraction request. It seems as if they are doubling down on the "not our responsibility to verify the validity theme". My first reaction is that the WP is now the equivalent of the National Enquirer. What's next, a headline " I gave birth to Trump's Love Child".

    Steve H. December 10, 2016 at 9:15 am

    : The right has its own version of political correctness. It's just as stifling.

    It looks like this perspective is snapping into place. From a letter in our (paywalled) local paper, from Dec. 3:

    telling everyone else not to be so sensitive or PC (ditto; theirs is a "conservative" PC). [Kenneth D. Pimple]

    Steeeve December 10, 2016 at 2:06 pm

    Patriotic Correctness is a useful term and concept. Otherwise, the article was extremely long-winded and boring. Editor to writer: "I need you to fill 3,000 words worth of space with this 50-word idea "

    Steve H. December 10, 2016 at 10:59 am

    Panem et circenses.

    But then I think of the old Chicago prayer:

    Where's my bread, Daley?

    fosforos December 10, 2016 at 12:00 pm

    Long, long ago I learned that the only really trustworthy stories in the "Press" were on the sports pages. Now I'm scarcely sure of even that

    cwaltz December 10, 2016 at 10:38 pm

    I don't consider Trump a compromise candidate and that's largely because I don't see him actually moving the country forward in the right direction. Sanders, for me, would have been a compromise from the point of view of he probably wouldn't have moved us far enough fast enough for me but he would have set us leftward instead of ever rightward and that IS an improvement.

    The Trumpening December 10, 2016 at 10:06 am

    The mainstream media is doubling down on imagined pro-Russian heresies in a fashion not seen since the Reformation. Back then the Catholic Church held a monopoly on ideology. They lost it to an unruly bunch of rebellious Protestants who were assisted by the new technology of the printing press.

    Nowadays various non-conformist internet sites, with the help of the new technology of the internet, are challenging the MSM's monopoly on the means of persuasion. To show how much things have changed, back in the 60's, dissidents such as the John Birch Society were limited to issuing pamphlets to expound on their theories of Russians taking over America. In a very ironic role-reversal, today it is the increasingly desperate Washington Post that more closely matches the paranoia of the John Birch Society as it accuses non-conformist media heretics – who are threatening the MSM's monopoly on the means of persuasion - of allowing Russians to take over America.

    But let's spare a thought for poor Jeff Bezos. He basically thought he was purchasing the medieval equivalent of a Bishopry when he bought the WaPo. But now after running six anti-Trump editorials each and every day for the past 18 months, in which his establishment clergy engaged in an ever increasing hysteria-spiral trying to outdo each other in turning Trump into Hitler, it ends up Bezos' side lost the election anyway. It's like he bought a Blockbuster store in 2008 and never even thought about Netflix!

    And so now the MSM is literally launching an Establishment Inquisition by issuing "indexes" of prohibited heretical websites.

    Where will this lead? The grossly paranoiac reading is the Establishment's Counter Reformation is laying the ideological groundwork for a sort of coup d'etat to be followed by the rule of a goodthink junta. In this case we have to start calculating how many divisions are loyal to Trump's gang of generals versus how many are loyal to Obama's generals. A more moderate reading is that with these anti-Russian headlines, the Establishment is attempting to pressure Trump to stay the Establishment course on foreign policy and to appoint a SecState who is hostile to Russia. And in the best case these crazy MSM ramblings are just the last gasps of soon to be extinct media mammoths.

    fosforos December 10, 2016 at 12:17 pm

    Or is it CIA preparation for an Electoral College coup and an H of Reps "election" of–Lindsy Graham?

    The Trumpening December 10, 2016 at 2:07 pm

    One thing you can say about Trump is that he is most certainly not a wuss. In the face of this firestorm about Russian influence sources say Trump is going to nominate Rex Tillerson, who is very pro-Putin, as Secretary of State!

    Lindsie Graham is going to be apoplectic!

    tgs December 10, 2016 at 2:51 pm

    Do you think Tillerson will be confirmed?

    MyLessThanPrimeBeef December 10, 2016 at 3:09 pm

    I wonder what happens when they don't confirm any of his nominees? Is this a case of 'I will nominee so many you don't like, you will be forced to confirm at least a few?'

    The Trumpening December 10, 2016 at 4:05 pm

    Yes I do because Trump is reportedly naming NeoCon John Bolton as undersecretary. That's going to be a package deal; if they reject Tillerson then Bolton is gone as well. The NeoCons are desperate to get Bolton into the Administration.

    Bolton's job will be to go on talk shows and defend Trump's policies. If he doesn't do it then he gets fired.

    And so from the rest of the world's point of view, Tillerson is the carrot but Bolton remains in the background as the stick in case anyone starts thinking Trump is too soft and decides to test him.

    Baby Gerald December 10, 2016 at 10:58 am

    Glenn Greenwald dissects the fake news spewing about Russian involvement with aplomb:

    Anonymous Leaks to the WashPost About the CIA's Russia Beliefs Are No Substitute for Evidence

    [Dec 10, 2016] A Soft Coup Attempt Furious Trump Slams Secret CIA Report Russia Helped Him Win

    Praetorian Guard Redux. Any nation that embraces secret police will find itself ruled by them in short order.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Yes, the CIA's sterling reputation around the world for truth-telling and integrity might be sullied if someone doubts their claims... https://t.co/2uyQXvFdOK - Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 10, 2016 ..."
    "... When is it hardest to get people not to blindly accept anonymous, evidence-free CIA claims? When it's very pleasing to believe them. - Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 10, 2016 ..."
    "... "...there is no clear evidence - even now," said Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a member of the Trump transition team. "There's a lot of innuendo, lots of circumstantial evidence, that's it." ..."
    "... "...Obama wants the report before he leaves office Jan. 20, Monaco said. The review will be led by [PROVEN LIAR] James Clapper, the outgoing director of national intelligence, officials said." ..."
    "... Aside from its instigation of coups and alliances with right-wing juntas, Washington sought to more subtly influence elections in all corners of the world. And so did Moscow. Political scientist Dov Levin calculates that the "two powers intervened in 117 elections around the world from 1946 to 2000 - an average of once in every nine competitive elections. ..."
    "... In the late 1940s, the newly established CIA cut its teeth in Western Europe, pushing back against some of the continent's most influential leftist parties and labor unions. In 1948, the United States propped up Italy's centrist Christian Democrats and helped ensure their electoral victory against a leftist coalition, anchored by one of the most powerful communist parties in Europe. CIA operatives gave millions of dollars to their Italian allies and helped orchestrate what was then an unprecedented, clandestine propaganda campaign : This included forging documents to besmirch communist leaders via fabricated sex scandals, starting a mass letter-writing campaign from Italian Americans to their compatriots, and spreading hysteria about a Russian takeover and the undermining of the Catholic Church. ..."
    "... "We had bags of money that we delivered to selected politicians, to defray their political expenses, their campaign expenses, for posters, for pamphlets," recounted F. Mark Wyatt , the CIA officer who handled the mission and later participated in more than 2½ decades of direct support to the Christian Democrats. ..."
    "... This template spread everywhere : CIA operative Edward G. Lansdale, notorious for his efforts to bring down the North Vietnamese government, is said to have run the successful 1953 campaign of Philippines President Ramon Magsaysay. Japan's center-right Liberal Democratic Party was backed with secret American funds through the 1950s and the 1960s. The U.S. government and American oil corporations helped Christian parties in Lebanon win crucial elections in 1957 with briefcases full of cash. ..."
    "... In Chile, the United States prevented Allende from winning an election in 1964. "A total of nearly four million dollars was spent on some fifteen covert action projects, ranging from organizing slum dwellers to passing funds to political parties," detailed a Senate inquiry in the mid-1970s that started to expose the role of the CIA in overseas elections. When it couldn't defeat Allende at the ballot box in 1970, Washington decided to remove him anyway. ..."
    "... Obama & The Presstitutes: Legalized DOMESTIC Propaganda to American Citizens The National Defense Authorization Act of July 2013 (NDAA) included an amendment that legalized the use of propaganda on the American public. The amendment - originally proposed by Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and passed – nullified the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which explicitly forbids information and psychological operations aimed at influencing U.S. public opinion. The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 allowed U.S. propaganda intended to influence foreign audiences to be used on the domestic population. ..."
    "... This Russia CIA Program aimed at US Citizens is part of the OBAMA FRAUD to cover the crimes of Clinton et al. The MSM and especially the NYT is the epi-center of "Fake News" ..."
    "... Hillary was a big threat to Russia security. Trump was willing to work with Russia. Does anyone really believe Russia has absolutely no part to play in Trump's win? Think again. ..."
    "... Thinking is one thing. Proving it is another. And what do you "think" about the CIA and Victoria Nuland's role in toppling the elected government in the Ukraine? ..."
    "... After a year of MSM propaganda and lies, you are now obsessed with "fake news" ironically the kind that totally obliterated your propaganda for the lies that they were. ..."
    "... Go back to the 1960s. Phillp Graham and his wife rans Wa Post. Phillip got a young girl friend and started going off the reservation saying WaPo was becoming a mouthpiece for the See Eye Ah. He was going to divorce his wife. He then was commited to an insane asylum, released and then killed himself with a shotgun. ..."
    "... There have to be good, patriotic Americans within CIA These intelligence reports are obvious fictions: The agitprop of a neocon/zionist Deep State that fully intends to expand the wars, target Iran and Russia, while sending American blood and treasure to pay their bill. ..."
    "... Kennedy knew that the CIA was nothing but a group of Useless, Meddling, Lying Assholes, and made it known Publicly. Unfortunately for him, things didn't turn out all that well. "Wetwork" is never in shortage with that crew. ..."
    "... Praetorian Guard Redux. Any nation that embraces secret police will find itself ruled by them in short order. ..."
    "... Most CIA directors are/were members of the Rockefeller/CFR including: Morell, Petraeus, Hayden, Tenet, Deutch, Woolsey, Gates, Webster, Casey, Turner, Bush, Colby, Schlesinger, Helms, McCone and Allen Dulles. Also every Fed chairman since WW2. See member lists at cfr dot org. ..."
    "... The domestic policies of both CFR wings are the same: the maintenance of the American Empire... There is no possibility of [outsiders] capturing power at the top of either party... ..."
    Dec 10, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com

    Overnight the media propaganda wars escalated after the late Friday release of an article by the Washington Post (which last week admitted to using unverified, or fake, news in an attempt to smear other so-called "fake news" sites) according to which a secret CIA assessment found that Russia sought to tip last month's U.S. presidential election in Donald Trump's favor, a conclusion presented without any actual evidence, and which drew an extraordinary, and angry rebuke from the president-elect's camp.

    "These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction," Trump's transition team said, launching a broadside against the spy agency. "The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It's now time to move on and 'Make America Great Again.' "

    The Washington Post report comes after outgoing President Barack Obama ordered a review of all cyberattacks that took place during the 2016 election cycle , amid growing calls from Congress for more information on the extent of Russian interference in the campaign. The newspaper cited officials briefed on the matter as saying that individuals with connections to Moscow provided WikiLeaks with email hacked from the Democratic National Committee, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign chief and others.

    Without a shred of evidence provided, and despite Wikileaks' own on the record denial that the source of the emails was Russian, the WaPo attack piece claims the email messages were steadily leaked out via WikiLeaks in the months before the election, damaging Clinton's White House run. Essentially, according to the WaPo, the Russians' aim was to help Donald Trump win and not just undermine the U.S. electoral process, hinting at a counter-Hillary intent on the side of Putin.

    "It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia's goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected," the newspaper quoted a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation last week to key senators as saying. " That's the consensus view."

    CIA agents told the lawmakers it was "quite clear" - although it was not reported exactly what made it "clear" - that electing Trump was Russia's goal, according to officials who spoke to the Post, citing growing evidence from multiple sources.

    And yet, key questions remain unanswered, and the CIA's report fell short of being a formal U.S. assessment produced by all 17 intelligence agencies the newspaper said, for two reasons. As we reported in November " The "Fact" That 17 Intelligence Agencies Confirmed Russia is Behind the Email Hacks Isn't Actually A "Fact ", and then also because aside from so-called "consensus", there is - once again - no evidence, otherwise the appropriate agencies would have long since released it, and this is nothing more than another propaganda attempt to build tension with Russia. In fact, the WaPo admits as much in the following text, which effectively destroys the article's entire argument :

    The CIA presentation to senators about Russia's intentions fell short of a formal U.S. assessment produced by all 17 intelligence agencies. A senior U.S. official said there were minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency's assessment, in part because some questions remain unanswered.

    For example, intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin "directing" the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks, a second senior U.S. official said. Those actors, according to the official, were "one step" removed from the Russian government, rather than government employees. Moscow has in the past used middlemen to participate in sensitive intelligence operations so it has plausible deniability.

    * * *

    "I'll be the first one to come out and point at Russia if there's clear evidence, but there is no clear evidence - even now," said Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a member of the Trump transition team. "There's a lot of innuendo, lots of circumstantial evidence, that's it."

    And since even the WaPo is forced to admit that intelligence agents don't have the proof that Russian officials directed the identified individuals to supply WikiLeaks with the hacked Democratic emails, the best it can do is speculate based on circumstantial inferences, especially since, as noted above, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has denied links with Russia's government , putting the burden of proof on the side of those who challenge the Wikileaks narrative. So far that proof has not been provided.

    Nonetheless, at the White House, Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz said Obama called for the cyberattacks review earlier this week to ensure "the integrity of our elections."

    "This report will dig into this pattern of malicious cyberactivity timed to our elections, take stock of our defensive capabilities and capture lessons learned to make sure that we brief members of Congress and stakeholders as appropriate," Schultz said.

    Taking the absurdity to a whole new level, Obama wants the report completed before his term ends on January 20, by none other than a proven and confirmed liar : " The review will be led by James Clapper, the outgoing director of national intelligence, officials said. " In other words, the report that the Kremlin stole the election should be prepared by the time Trump is expected to be sworn in.

    "We are going to make public as much as we can," the spokesman added. "This is a major priority for the president."

    The move comes after Democrats in Congress pressed the White House to reveal details, to Congress or to the public, of Russian hacking and disinformation in the election.

    On Oct. 7, one month before the election, the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence announced that "the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of emails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations." "These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process," they said.

    Trump dismissed those findings in an interview published Wednesday by Time magazine for its "Person of the Year" award. Asked if the intelligence was politicized, Trump answered: "I think so."

    "I don't believe they interfered," he said. "It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey."

    Worried that Trump will sweep the issue under the rug after his inauguration, seven Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee called on Nov. 29 for the White House to declassify what it knows about Russian interference. The seven have already been briefed on the classified details, suggesting they believe there is more information the public should know. On Tuesday this week, leading House Democrats called on Obama to give members of the entire Congress a classified briefing on Russian interference, from hacking to the spreading of fake news stories to mislead U.S. voters.

    Republicans in Congress have also promised hearings into Russian activities once the new administration comes in.

    Obama's homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco said the cyberinterference goes back to the 2008 presidential race, when both the Obama and John McCain campaigns were hit by malicious computer intrusions.

    * * *

    An interesting aside to emerge from last night's hit piece and the Trump team response is that there is now a full blown turf war between Trump and the CIA, as NBC's Chuck Todd observed in a series of late Friday tweets:

    The implication in the Trump transition statement is that he doesn't believe a single thing from the CIA

    - Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) December 10, 2016

    Is the next Commander-in-Chief is signaling that the CIA won't be a major player in his national security team?

    - Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) December 10, 2016

    So stunned by the Trump transition statement on the Post-CIA-Russia story that I half expect a walk back by tomorrow

    - Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) December 10, 2016

    How helpful is it for the CIA's reputation around the world if the next US questions their findings so publicly? Good luck Mike Pompeo

    - Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) December 10, 2016

    To which Glenn Greenwald provided the best counterargument:

    Yes, the CIA's sterling reputation around the world for truth-telling and integrity might be sullied if someone doubts their claims...https://t.co/2uyQXvFdOK - Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 10, 2016

    When is it hardest to get people not to blindly accept anonymous, evidence-free CIA claims? When it's very pleasing to believe them. - Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 10, 2016

    However, of the mini Tweetstorm, this was the most important aspect: the veiled suggestion that in addition to Russia, both the FBI and the Obama presidency prevented Hillary from becoming the next US president...

    While Obama's FBI director smeared Hillary, Obama sat on evidence of Russian efforts to elect Trump that had basis in evidence.

    - Franklin Foer (@FranklinFoer) December 10, 2016

    ... which in light of these stunning new unproven and baseless allegations, she may very well have renewed aspirations toward.

    * * *

    So while there is no "there" there following the WaPo's latest attempt to fan the rarging fires of evidence-free propaganda, or as the WaPo itself would say "fake news", here is why the story has dramatic implications. First, the only two quotes which matter:

    "...there is no clear evidence - even now," said Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a member of the Trump transition team. "There's a lot of innuendo, lots of circumstantial evidence, that's it."

    * * *

    "...Obama wants the report before he leaves office Jan. 20, Monaco said. The review will be led by [PROVEN LIAR] James Clapper, the outgoing director of national intelligence, officials said."

    And then the summary:

    1. Announce "consensus" (not unanimous) "conclusion" based in circumstantial evidence now, before the Electoral College vote, then write a report with actual details due by Jan 20.
    2. Put a proven liar in charge of writing the report on Russian hacking.
    3. Fail to mention that not one of the leaked DNC or Podesta emails has been shown to be inauthentic. So the supposed Russian hacking simply revealed truth about Hillary, DNC, and MSM collusion and corruption.
    4. Fail to mention that if hacking was done by or for US government to stop Hillary, blaming the Russians would be the most likely disinformation used by US agencies.
    5. Expect every pro-Hillary lapdog journalist - which is virtually all of them - in America will hyperventilate (Twitter is currently on fire) about this latest fact-free, anti-Trump political stunt for the next nine days.

    Or, as a reader put it, this is a soft coup attempt by leaders of Intel community and Obama Admin to influence the Electoral College vote, similar to the 1960s novel " Seven Days in May ."

    Nemontel Dec 10, 2016 9:13 AM ,

    Trump is the first more or less independent candidate in decades. Most of our politicians are chosen by the Oligarchy.

    http://www.truthjustice.net/politics/chosen-leaders-proven-failures/

    Keyser -> TeamDepends Dec 10, 2016 9:22 AM ,
    Once again it's a case of "watch the shiny object"... The "secret CIA report" seems to focus on who leaked the documents to Wikileaks and not the content of those documents... The left have not refuted that the emails are real, just who leaked them to Assange... Fuck 'em, if they keep Trump from the white house there will be revolution...
    manofthenorth -> Manthong Dec 10, 2016 10:55 AM ,
    And the song remains the same; From none other than the Washington Post, oh the irony.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/10/13/the-long-hi...

    "Aside from its instigation of coups and alliances with right-wing juntas, Washington sought to more subtly influence elections in all corners of the world. And so did Moscow. Political scientist Dov Levin calculates that the "two powers intervened in 117 elections around the world from 1946 to 2000 - an average of once in every nine competitive elections."

    In the late 1940s, the newly established CIA cut its teeth in Western Europe, pushing back against some of the continent's most influential leftist parties and labor unions. In 1948, the United States propped up Italy's centrist Christian Democrats and helped ensure their electoral victory against a leftist coalition, anchored by one of the most powerful communist parties in Europe. CIA operatives gave millions of dollars to their Italian allies and helped orchestrate what was then an unprecedented, clandestine propaganda campaign : This included forging documents to besmirch communist leaders via fabricated sex scandals, starting a mass letter-writing campaign from Italian Americans to their compatriots, and spreading hysteria about a Russian takeover and the undermining of the Catholic Church.

    "We had bags of money that we delivered to selected politicians, to defray their political expenses, their campaign expenses, for posters, for pamphlets," recounted F. Mark Wyatt , the CIA officer who handled the mission and later participated in more than 2½ decades of direct support to the Christian Democrats.

    This template spread everywhere : CIA operative Edward G. Lansdale, notorious for his efforts to bring down the North Vietnamese government, is said to have run the successful 1953 campaign of Philippines President Ramon Magsaysay. Japan's center-right Liberal Democratic Party was backed with secret American funds through the 1950s and the 1960s. The U.S. government and American oil corporations helped Christian parties in Lebanon win crucial elections in 1957 with briefcases full of cash.

    In Chile, the United States prevented Allende from winning an election in 1964. "A total of nearly four million dollars was spent on some fifteen covert action projects, ranging from organizing slum dwellers to passing funds to political parties," detailed a Senate inquiry in the mid-1970s that started to expose the role of the CIA in overseas elections. When it couldn't defeat Allende at the ballot box in 1970, Washington decided to remove him anyway."

    Manthong -> ThaBigPerm Dec 10, 2016 12:16 PM ,

    This is in the UK Express. So it has to be true.

    A US Official has claimed the Russians are out to get Merkel in a cyber campaign.

    A CIA probe confirms Moscow helped Trump win the election.

    "In both cases, said the official, Mr. Putin's campaigns in both Europe and the US are intended to disrupt and discredit the Western concept of democracy by promoting extremist candidates, parties, and political figures."

    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/741960/russia-angela-merkel-germany-election-cyber-attack-plot-us-official-cia

    Isn't it grand that we get all this great, comprehensive information from the modern MSM?

    The Express and WaPo are in a class unto themselves.

    Creative_Destruct -> TruthHunter Dec 10, 2016 1:02 PM ,
    Both WAPO , & C.TODD would NOT be missed. Per Todd: "How helpful is it for the CIA's reputation around the world if the next US questions their findings so publicly?"

    Todd is concerned about The CIA's "Reputation" ?????? AS IF its current rep is wonderful??? - TODD: There is no "reputation" to damage!!! Lame brain !!

    zhandax -> Creative_Destruct Dec 10, 2016 3:08 PM ,
    17 intelligence agencies? Is this some dystopian record?

    "There's a lot of innuendo, lots of circumstantial evidence, that's it."

    So these 'intelligence' agencies are in the same boat as the pizzgate crowd. The main difference is after failing to produce any actionable evidence the pizzagate crowd will loose interest and move on. We still have to give the bureaucrats at these intelligence agencies a paycheck next month.

    There needs to be one yuge housecleaning.

    Kidbuck -> Pinto Currency Dec 10, 2016 12:03 PM ,
    Russians are training the illegals in secret camps in the Sierra Madre mountains before they are released into the US. I was there and saw it. Bigfoot was guarding the entrance.
    Jim in MN -> cossack55 Dec 10, 2016 12:15 PM ,
    The only WMDs around here are on WEINER'S LAPTOP. That laptop is the real 'shiny object'. Eyes on the prize, folks.
    Omen IV -> manofthenorth Dec 10, 2016 1:16 PM ,
    Obama & The Presstitutes: Legalized DOMESTIC Propaganda to American Citizens The National Defense Authorization Act of July 2013 (NDAA) included an amendment that legalized the use of propaganda on the American public. The amendment - originally proposed by Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and passed – nullified the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which explicitly forbids information and psychological operations aimed at influencing U.S. public opinion. The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 allowed U.S. propaganda intended to influence foreign audiences to be used on the domestic population.

    Signed by .. Obama. This Act formalized systems in place covertly or ad hoc for some time.

    This Russia CIA Program aimed at US Citizens is part of the OBAMA FRAUD to cover the crimes of Clinton et al. The MSM and especially the NYT is the epi-center of "Fake News" The Smith-Mundt Modernization Bill was incorporated into the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (H.R.4310) . The Smith-Mundt provisions weren't part of the bill when it was originally introduced, but were added on May 18, 2012. included in amendment 1140 , which was approved by roll call vote 288 . http://foreignpolicy.com/channel/the-cable/ http://www.businessinsider.com/ndaa-legalizes-propaganda-2012-5

    beemasters -> Manthong Dec 10, 2016 11:18 AM ,
    Hillary was a big threat to Russia security. Trump was willing to work with Russia. Does anyone really believe Russia has absolutely no part to play in Trump's win? Think again. They should and I think they did! Whether it was an illegal intervention would be another question.
    Bay of Pigs -> beemasters Dec 10, 2016 11:36 AM ,
    Thinking is one thing. Proving it is another. And what do you "think" about the CIA and Victoria Nuland's role in toppling the elected government in the Ukraine? How about NATO expansion for decades under Clinton, Bush and Obama? Aren't these DIRECT THREATS against Putin and Russia? Yes, they most certainly are. Fuck the CIA They do far more harm than good for the people in the USA.
    Krungle -> beemasters Dec 10, 2016 12:53 PM ,
    Hillary was a threat to life on Earth. She made it clear her intent was to wage war against Russia (and probably China). Obviously the US has been conducting cyberwarfare, psyops and propaganda against Russia, as this has been documented in the past. Russia's response may merely have been presenting authentic information via RT/Sputnik/etc. and putting clips of Putin online where he sounds like a rational human being. In other words, they may be guilty of nothing more than providing Americans with the truth, much as America did with the Soviets.
    mccvilb -> Greyhat Dec 10, 2016 12:03 PM ,
    That was exactly what this brought to mind for me - a John F Kennedy moment, but not his assassination. I was thinking of an earlier time well before this., ie, Nikita Krushev banging the table at the UN with his shoe. The state of the nation - people were in a panic because Russia let it be known it was about to bring nuclear missiles into Cuba. It was a ploy by the Russians and Krushev to de-escalate the tensions between the two countries over our attempt to take out Castro and the Bay of Pigs Invasion.

    Fade to today. Why would the Russians care who won the presidency? Hillary the war monger or the Donald, the negotiator? Ahh, maybe because we just brought into Turkey then consequently moved fifty nuclear missiles into position along Russia's border? Who authorized and ordered that? Would that be any cause for worry by Russia or its citizenry? Is that or is it not total insanity? Total fuckery? Obama and Hillary have put us four minutes away from a worldwide nuclear holocaust and now they are trying to make Trump look like he was in bed with Putin. I don't know what Trump is but I do know he and Putin are the only two people on the same wavelength right now, thank the electoral college.

    Kayman -> nmewn Dec 10, 2016 10:08 AM ,
    Bay of Pigs, Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction. The CIA will fabricate any truth you would like. The Deep State has shit its' pants.
    Smiddywesson -> Eirik Magnus Larssen Dec 10, 2016 10:51 AM ,
    You are delusional, dishonest, ignrorant, and proud of it. Fortunately, YOU LOST.

    After a year of MSM propaganda and lies, you are now obsessed with "fake news" ironically the kind that totally obliterated your propaganda for the lies that they were.

    After a year of cackling laughter when every two bit dictator and NWO globalist bad mouthed Trump, like a child, you are OUTRAGED that Russia might have not wanted Hillary to take power and make war against it. At least Russia didn't PUBLICALLY attempt to influence an American election LIKE HILLARY'S NWO GOONS DID FROM THEIR EXECUTIVE OFFICES.

    The popular vote: Ignoring fraud, which was proven in the Michigan recount, Hillary supporters are trying to make hay out of her garnering 2.6 million more votes than Trump. Besides the fact that this is irrelevant in a campaign for the electoral college, 2.6 million votes is only somewhere @0.7% of the US population. That's hardly a mandate, especially when we consider she only had that dubious edge over Trump, not the entire playing field. There were other candidate you know.

    I'm sorry, I forgot, YOU LOST, and you think you can spoil our good time with the assertion that the better candidate was Hillary. LOL, losers.

    Chris Dakota -> Eirik Magnus Larssen Dec 10, 2016 11:41 AM ,
    Trump is a wildcard, we all knew that when we voted for him.

    Hillary is a witchcard and we all knew what she would do.

    Bernie wasn't even a choice, Hillary had him as a straw man opponent.

    Rand Paul to me was the best choice but establishment didn't want him, Gay media wanted Trump because they thought Hillary could beat him and many of the Ron Paulers still butthurt over him endorsing Romney. Never mind Ron Paul didn't even put up a fight when they robbed him of the nomination he won.

    Trump is a fighter, something we felt we needed.

    Freddie -> Moe Hamhead Dec 10, 2016 10:40 AM ,
    Go back to the 1960s. Phillp Graham and his wife rans Wa Post. Phillip got a young girl friend and started going off the reservation saying WaPo was becoming a mouthpiece for the See Eye Ah. He was going to divorce his wife. He then was commited to an insane asylum, released and then killed himself with a shotgun.

    http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?/topic/2935-philip-graham/&p...

    Phil's wife was the daughter of Eugene Meyer who ran The Fed.

    Watergate was not what you were told. Nixon wanted tariffs and the Rockefellers (who myguess started the CIA - David was an OSS officer in WW2) got mad at their boy Nixon. Nixon hated George Bush and did not trust him. All the info the Wa Post got on Nixon was C**IIA info to Ben Bradley, editor of Wa Post, probably from George Bush. All of Nixons,relatively minor, dirt was passed from See EYE Ah to Wa Post. Woodward and Bernstein just typed it up.

    Bradley was brther in law to Cord Meyer (operation mockingbird). Cord's wife (Mary Pinchot-Meyer) had an ongoing affair with JFK. After he was killed, she was gonna spill the beans like Marilyn Monroe. She was killed taking a walk. Ben BRadley and the See EYE Ah rush to her apartment to get her diary.

    War Machine -> Chupacabra-322 Dec 10, 2016 2:51 PM ,
    the CIA has been arming Al Qaeda and (likely) 'ISIS'.

    It is very probable US forces will be killed by these weapons.

    Add to that the small issue of the hundreds of thousands of people, Christian and non-Salafist/non-Wahhabi Muslims murdered by the Islamopsycho and Acadami etc. private western mercs.

    There have to be good, patriotic Americans within CIA These intelligence reports are obvious fictions: The agitprop of a neocon/zionist Deep State that fully intends to expand the wars, target Iran and Russia, while sending American blood and treasure to pay their bill.

    And now they are going to try to overturn an election in which Clinton not only lost by the rules of our system, but in which Clinton's 'popular vote' win was the product of illegal immigrant and other fraudulent voting.

    all of which means they are also willing to risk civil war.

    Vatican_cameo -> Keyser Dec 10, 2016 9:27 AM

    Kennedy knew that the CIA was nothing but a group of Useless, Meddling, Lying Assholes, and made it known Publicly. Unfortunately for him, things didn't turn out all that well. "Wetwork" is never in shortage with that crew.

    MilwaukeeMark -> Vatican_cameo Dec 10, 2016 9:44 AM ,
    I have developed a begrudging admiration for Stalin. He knew how to decapitate the hydra and keep it under his control.
    tmosley -> Vatican_cameo Dec 10, 2016 9:44 AM ,
    Praetorian Guard Redux. Any nation that embraces secret police will find itself ruled by them in short order.
    Uzda Farce -> Vatican_cameo Dec 10, 2016 11:32 AM ,
    Most CIA directors are/were members of the Rockefeller/CFR including: Morell, Petraeus, Hayden, Tenet, Deutch, Woolsey, Gates, Webster, Casey, Turner, Bush, Colby, Schlesinger, Helms, McCone and Allen Dulles. Also every Fed chairman since WW2. See member lists at cfr dot org.

    "I have discussed Council on Foreign Relations Team A vs. Team B for 35 years. I have seen two anti-CFR people get through the [presidential] screening... The domestic policies of both CFR wings are the same: the maintenance of the American Empire... There is no possibility of [outsiders] capturing power at the top of either party..."

    http://archive.lewrockwell.com/north/north1193.html

    https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/the-cfr-the-cia-and-the-banks/

    [Dec 10, 2016] Why the US elite loves so much to demonise Russia

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... In principle, every router between the DNC server and Russia has the potential to be hacked, with a tunnel added to send the traffic somewhere else in the world with new source and destination addresses. This is known as router table poisoning. It is preventable but the mechanisms are rarely ever used because the security services want to be able to do this themselves. There are some nice logs of the NSA using this. ..."
    "... In principle, someone at an ISP or backbone service could have had a laptop plugged into a switch or router to do the same thing, or lit up a strand of dark fibre to let some uber-wealthy business do this. And there's no shortage of uber-wealthy businesses who aren't keen on Democrats. This technique is used for local and remote network diagnostics, no reason it can't be used nefarious, it's not like the hardware cares why a wire is plugged in. ..."
    "... Russia has an independent foreign policy and acts in what it perceives as it's own best interests. It has refused to become a vassal state of the West and is a threat to the Empire's full-spectrum dominance. Worst of all it has begun trading outside the $US in energy and other resources with China and Iran. ..."
    "... Mainstream media are now busy repressing any news and any questioning about facts ..."
    "... Western media are in full panic as Aleppo falls with all sorts of gruesome tales about the mistreatment of their favorite terrorists in Aleppo and a strange silence on the whereabouts of their '250K civilians' under siege ..."
    "... I cant believe the Fake News outlets are still making a big deal about this issue. Obomber is leaving in a cloud of failure as he deserves ..."
    "... "Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state." ― Noam Chomsky, Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda. ..."
    "... New Canadian documentary - All Governments Lie. "It lucidly argues that powerful interests have been creating supercharged fake stories for decades to advance their own nefarious interests. And the institutional media have too often blithely played along." The Globe and Mail. ..."
    "... No comments about Seth Rich the DNC staffer Assange hinted had leaked the Podesta emails to Wikileaks and was subsequently shot multiple times and died at 04:20 on a Washington DC street in a 'motiveless' crime in which none of his possessions were taken. ..."
    "... The rise of the right wing in Europe is due to the fact that Social Democratic parties have completely sold out to neo-liberal agenda. ..."
    "... So Putin's plan to undermine U.S. voter confidence was to simply show what actually happens behind the scenes at the DNC, how diabolical! ..."
    "... Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash, has published a report that claims that that Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta was on the executive board of a foreign company that received $35 million from the Kremlin. "The company was a transparent Russian front, and how much Podesta was compensated - and for what - is unclear. In addition, Podesta failed to disclose his position on that board to the Federal government, as required by law," John Schindler of the Observer wrote. ..."
    "... So it's true because the CIA said so. That's the gold standard for me. ..."
    "... "Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies" - Ron Paul ..."
    "... At least Tucker Carlson is able to see through the BS and asks searching question. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRkeGkCjdHg ..."
    "... President-elect Donald Trump's transition team said in a statement Friday afternoon that the same people who claim Russia interfered in the presidential election had previously claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. ..."
    "... The neoliberal corporate machine is wounded but not dead. They will use every trick, ploy and opportunity to try to regain power. The fight goes on. ..."
    "... Good occasion to substantiate the accusation which ,substantiated or not,will remind the "useful idiots" of the "change of regime " US policy and who started the Ukrainian crisis. ..."
    "... Just another chapter in the sad saga of the Democrats unwillingness to admit they ran the worst candidate & the worst campaign in recent memory. It's not our fault! Them dirty Russkies did it! ..."
    Dec 09, 2016 | www.theguardian.com

    From: Barack Obama orders 'full review' of possible Russian hacking in US election Spncer Ackerman in New York and David Smith in Washington

    Geoff Smythe , 24m ago

    Well, if Rupert Mudroach, an American citizen, can influence the Australian elections, who gives a stuff about anyone else's involvement in US politics?

    The US loves demonising Russia, even supporting ISIS to fight against them.

    The United States of Amnesia just can't understand that they are run by the military machine.

    As Frank Zappa once correctly stated: The US government is just the entertainment unit of the Military.

    Nataliefreeman, 11 Dec 2016

    Altogether the only thing people are accusing the Russians of is the WikiLeaks scandal. And in hindsight of the enormous media bias toward Trump it really comes of as little more than leveling the playing field. Hardly the sort of democratic subversion that is being suggested.

    And of course there is another problem and that is in principle, the DNC server could have had malware in an e-mail that set up a NAT entry that made the connecting computer appear somewhere else, with the entry deleted afterwards. Typically, IP table modifications aren't logged, so this would not be detectable.

    In principle, the DNC server could have had malware in an e-mail that ran a SED script at a specific time that changed any occurrence of one IP address with another. Not sure anyone would bother with this, but it's why good system admins place so much emphasis on securing logs. However, it's obvious we're not talking about good admins.

    In principle, every router between the DNC server and Russia has the potential to be hacked, with a tunnel added to send the traffic somewhere else in the world with new source and destination addresses. This is known as router table poisoning. It is preventable but the mechanisms are rarely ever used because the security services want to be able to do this themselves. There are some nice logs of the NSA using this.

    In principle, someone along the way could tap into the fibre, spoofing IP addresses and injecting/sniffing packets. The US even has a submarine designed for this, but optics aren't complex and any number of neo-phone phreaks could have the hardware.

    In principle, someone at an ISP or backbone service could have had a laptop plugged into a switch or router to do the same thing, or lit up a strand of dark fibre to let some uber-wealthy business do this. And there's no shortage of uber-wealthy businesses who aren't keen on Democrats. This technique is used for local and remote network diagnostics, no reason it can't be used nefarious, it's not like the hardware cares why a wire is plugged in.

    In principle, the supposed destination machine could have been hacked to relay the packets in encrypted form to the South Pole or a college campus in Texas. There are many examples of client machines being hacked to do this. It's basically what zombie machines are in botnets.

    In practice, it is flat-out guaranteed that none of the security agencies could distinguish this from a Russian attack. Nothing in the area monitored could tell the difference. We know, for a fact, that college kids spoofing a scan from China have fooled the DoD and NSA on previous occasions, it has caused international incidents.

    So we have known forms of attack that are known to exist, aren't complex and in some cases are already used for attacks. They are 100% untraceable.

    HollyOldDog -> Nataliefreeman, 11 Dec 2016 01:4
    Don't know about Russians, but in the early 2000's the Ukrainian hackers had some nasty viruses embedded in email attachments that could fuckup ARM based computers.
    smellycat -> waltercarl67, 11 Dec 2016 00:0
    Time to stop attempting regime change in other countries then, if you condemn it in your own. What goes around comes around.
    caveOfShadows , 10 Dec 2016 23:1
    European governments tried to elect Hillary Clinton. Latin American and Asian allies of the US tried to elect Clinton.

    Top leaders of France, the UK, Germany, all leaked to US newspapers, with dire warnings of how Trump's election would lead to bad outcomes.

    Many countries made as clear as possible, without coming out officially for a candidate, that they were for the election of Clinton.

    Mexico tried to get Clinton elected. Believe me, they did. Not officially, of course, but almost.

    But all we hear about is Russia.

    Wonder why???

    uyCybershy -> caveOfShadows , 10 Dec 2016 23:1
    Russia has an independent foreign policy and acts in what it perceives as it's own best interests. It has refused to become a vassal state of the West and is a threat to the Empire's full-spectrum dominance. Worst of all it has begun trading outside the $US in energy and other resources with China and Iran.
    imperfetto , 10 Dec 2016 23:0
    Mainstream media are now busy repressing any news and any questioning about facts, as the last battle in their support to jidaists fighting the Syrian Army. This is the dark pit where our so called free press has fallen into.
    Flugler -> imperfetto , 10 Dec 2016 23:1
    Yep had a chat with an army mate yesterday asked him what the fcuk the supposed head of MI6 was on about regarding Russian support for Syrian govt suggesting Russian actions made terrorism more likely here in UK. He shrugged his shoulders and said he hoped Putin wiped the terrorists out...
    smellycat -> imperfetto , 10 Dec 2016 23:4
    Western media are in full panic as Aleppo falls with all sorts of gruesome tales about the mistreatment of their favorite terrorists in Aleppo and a strange silence on the whereabouts of their '250K civilians' under siege

    Of course no news on the danger to the civilians of W,Aleppo, who have been bombarded indiscriminately for months by the 'moderates' in the east of the city or the danger to the civilians of Palmyra, Mosul or al Bab.

    Geoff Smythe -> smellycat , 11 Dec 2016 01:3
    Or the 50,000 that have been evacuated out of Aleppo by the Russian military. https://www.rt.com/news/369869-syria-evacuation-civilians-aleppo /
    Merseysidefella , 10 Dec 2016 21:5
    I cant believe the Fake News outlets are still making a big deal about this issue. Obomber is leaving in a cloud of failure as he deserves. I´ll still look for the Guardian articles on football which are excellent.
    Cheers!
    GuyCybershy -> confettifoot , 10 Dec 2016 21:0
    The Sanders movement inside the Democratic party did offer some hope but this was snuffed out by the DNC and the Clinton campaign in collusion with the media. This is what likely caused her defeat in November and not some Kremlin intrigue.
    dopamineboy , 10 Dec 2016 20:5
    "Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state." ― Noam Chomsky, Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda.
    dopamineboy , 10 Dec 2016 20:5
    "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality," Karl Rove.
    caveOfShadows -> dopamineboy , 10 Dec 2016 23:1
    Don't use quotes when you are doing a fake attribution.
    dopamineboy , 10 Dec 2016 20:4
    New Canadian documentary - All Governments Lie. "It lucidly argues that powerful interests have been creating supercharged fake stories for decades to advance their own nefarious interests. And the institutional media have too often blithely played along." The Globe and Mail.
    joinupthedots , 10 Dec 2016 20:4
    Fake news....No news.....None sense news?

    Uncle Sam has been doing it for years and the degree of incestuousness between MSM and the "Agencies" is all right here (just one example)

    http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKmeyerM.htm

    smellycat -> joinupthedots , 10 Dec 2016 20:5
    That's some serious shit
    '"The same sons of bitches," he hissed, "that killed John F. Kennedy."
    stoneshepherd , 10 Dec 2016 20:2
    No comments about Seth Rich the DNC staffer Assange hinted had leaked the Podesta emails to Wikileaks and was subsequently shot multiple times and died at 04:20 on a Washington DC street in a 'motiveless' crime in which none of his possessions were taken.

    Hmmm....

    Flugler -> stoneshepherd , 10 Dec 2016 20:3
    Distract the masses with bullsh*t , nothing new... Trump needs to double up on his personal security, he has doubled down on the CIA tonight bringing upmtheir bullsh*t on WMD. Thing are getting interesting...
    Liesandstats , 10 Dec 2016 19:2
    Meanwhile the good guys with their Smart bombs indulge in a spot of collateral damage. (Or war crimes as it's described when Russians do it).

    https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/breaking-90-iraqi-soldiers-killed-in-mosul-from-us-airstrikes/

    This article is jiberish, as are the ones trying to say that the Russians caused Brexit.

    GuyCybershy -> sunflowerxyz , 10 Dec 2016 19:3
    The rise of the right wing in Europe is due to the fact that Social Democratic parties have completely sold out to neo-liberal agenda.
    Powerspike , 10 Dec 2016 19:1
    Spreading lies about the very real Podesta emails and their importance seems to be a fake news stock in trade. Since Hillary was responsible I'm not sure where Putin comes into the picture.
    https://theintercept.com/2016/12/09/a-clinton-fan-manufactured-fake-news-that-msnbc-personalities-spread-to-discredit-wikileaks-docs /
    GuyCybershy , 10 Dec 2016 19:0
    So Putin's plan to undermine U.S. voter confidence was to simply show what actually happens behind the scenes at the DNC, how diabolical!
    Powerspike , 10 Dec 2016 18:3
    "If we can revert to the truth, then a great deal of one's suffering can be erased, because a great deal of one's suffering is based on sheer lies. "
    R. D. Laing
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
    US politicians and the MSM depend on sheer lies.....
    Powerspike -> KassandraTroy , 10 Dec 2016 18:5
    They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.
    R. D. Laing
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++
    I'm sick of jumping through their hoops - how about you?
    James7 , 10 Dec 2016 17:2
    "Tin Foil Hat" Hillary--
    "This is not about politics or partisanship," she went on. "Lives are at risk, lives of ordinary people just trying to go about their days to do their jobs, contribute to their communities. It is a danger that must be addressed and addressed quickly."

    We fail to see how Russian propaganda has put people's lives directly at risk. Unless, of course, Hillary is suggesting that the increasingly-bizarre #Pizzagate swarm journalism campaign (which apparently caused a man to shoot up a floor tile in a D.C. pizza shop) was conjured up by a bunch of Russian trolls.

    And this is about as absurd as saying Russian trolls were why Trump got elected.

    "It needs to be said," former counterintelligence agent John R. Schindler (who, by the way, believes Assange and Snowden are both Russian plants), writes in the Observer, "that nearly all of the liberals eagerly pontificating about how Putin put Trump in office know nothing about 21st century espionage, much less Russia's unique spy model and how it works. Indeed, some of the most ardent advocates of this Kremlin-did-it conspiracy theory were big fans of Snowden and Wikileaks -- right until clandestine Russian shenanigans started to hurt Democrats. Now, they're panicking."

    (Nonetheless, #Pizzagate and Trump, IMHO, are manifestations of a population which deeply deeply distrusts the handlers and gatekeepers of the status quo. Justified or not. And with or without Putin's shadowy fingers strumming its magic hypno-harp across the Land of the Free. This runs deeper than just Putin.)

    Fake news has always been around, from the fake news which led Americans to believe the Pearl Harbor attack was a surprise and completely unprovoked .

    To the fake news campaigns put out by Edward Bernays tricking women into believing cigarettes were empowering little phallics of feminism. (AKA "Torches of Freedom.")

    This War on Fake News has more to do with the elites finally realizing how little control they have over the minds of the unwashed masses. Rather, this is a war on the freaks, geeks and weirdos who've formed a decentralized and massively-influential media right under their noses.

    Laissez Faire Today

    James7 -> fedback , 10 Dec 2016 17:3
    and there may be some truth to that. An article says has delved into financial matters in Russia.

    Kremlin Connection? The TRUTH About Hillary's Shady Ties To Russia REVEALED
    Find out why insiders say Clinton has some explaining to do.

    Americans have no idea just how closely Hillary Clinton is tied to the Kremlin! That's the shocking claim of a new report that alleges the Democratic nominee is secretly pals with Vladimir Putin and his countrymen.

    Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash, has published a report that claims that that Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta was on the executive board of a foreign company that received $35 million from the Kremlin. "The company was a transparent Russian front, and how much Podesta was compensated - and for what - is unclear. In addition, Podesta failed to disclose his position on that board to the Federal government, as required by law," John Schindler of the Observer wrote.

    As Radar previously reported, when Clinton was secretary of state, she profited from the "Russian Reset," a failed attempt to improve relations between the U.S. and Russia.

    chweizer wrote, "Many of the key figures in the Skolkovo process - on both the Russian and U.S. sides - had major financial ties to the Clintons. During the Russian reset, these figures and entities provided the Clintons with tens of millions of dollars, including contributions to the Clinton Foundation, paid for speeches by Bill Clinton, or investments in small start-up companies with deep Clinton ties." Schweizer also details "Skolkovo," a Silicon Valley-like campus that both the U.S. and Russia worked on for developing biomed, space, nuclear and IT technologies. He told the New York Post that there was a "pattern that shows a high percentage of participants in Skolkovo who happen to be Clinton Foundation donors."

    BaronVonAmericano , 10 Dec 2016 17:0
    So it's true because the CIA said so. That's the gold standard for me.

    So let me be the first to thank Russia for providing us with their research.

    Instead of assassination, coup or invasion, they simply showed us our leaders' own words when written behind the public's backs.

    I'm no fan of Putin, but this was a useful bit of intelligence you've shared with us.
    Happy Christmas, Vlad.

    Next time why not provide us with the email of all our banks and fossil fuel companies; you can help us clean up both political parties with one fell swoop that way.

    GuyCybershy -> BaronVonAmericano , 10 Dec 2016 17:0
    "Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies" - Ron Paul
    greyford14 -> GuyCybershy , 10 Dec 2016 17:1
    Be careful there, Ron Paul is an FSB agent of Putin, according to the Washington Post.
    elias_ , 10 Dec 2016 17:0
    At least Tucker Carlson is able to see through the BS and asks searching question.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRkeGkCjdHg
    GuyCybershy -> elias_ , 10 Dec 2016 17:1
    Dems are so out to lunch that they make FOX pundits seem sane. I would say the Democratic party is beyond hope of saving.
    sblejo , 10 Dec 2016 16:4
    The U.S. is getting what it deserves, IF Russia was even dumb enough to meddle. The government in this country has been meddling in other countries' affairs sixty years, in the Middle East, in South America and other places we don't even know about. The result is mayhem, all in the 'interests' of the U.S., as it is described.
    Burnaby1000 , 10 Dec 2016 16:4
    Note that most supporters of the Russian hacks never (and cannot) present rational arguments, just dubious talking points--AKA Fake News.

    But it is fun to spot the gaps in their logic, and the holes in their stories.

    Great sport--rather like hunting hares.

    GuyCybershy -> Burnaby1000 , 10 Dec 2016 16:4
    We need to trust the CIA, they'd never fix evidence to manipulate the American public.
    BaronVonAmericano -> Burnaby1000 , 10 Dec 2016 16:5
    Where's the gap in this logic:
    A) The American public has been offered ZERO proof of hacking by the Russian government to alter our election.
    B) Even if true, no one has disputed the authenticity of the emails hacked.
    C) Therefore, the WORST Russia could have done is show us who are own leader are when they don't think we're listening.
    D) Taken together, this article is pretty close to fake news, and gives us nothing that should outrage us much at this time -- unless we are trying to foment war with Russia or call for a military coup against the baboon about to take the oath of office.
    foolisholdman , 10 Dec 2016 16:3
    Hacking by unnamed individuals. No direct involvement of the Russian government, only implied, alleged, etc. Seems to me that if Hillary had obeyed the law and not schemed behind the scenes to sabotage Bernie S. there would have been nothing to leak! Really this is all about being caught with fer fingers in the cookie jar. Does it matter who leaked it? Did the US public not have a right to know what the people they were voting for had been up to? It's a bit like the governor of a province being filmed burgling someone's house and then complaining that someone had leaked the film to the media, just when he was trying to get re-elected!
    GuyCybershy -> foolisholdman , 10 Dec 2016 16:3
    The US public has a right to know what CNN, New York Times and the Washington Post want them to know.
    sblejo -> foolisholdman , 10 Dec 2016 16:4
    It is called passing the buck, and because of the underhanded undermining of Bernie Sanders, who was winning, we have Trump. Thank you Democratic party.
    aidanfahey , 10 Dec 2016 16:3
    I am disappointed that the Guardian gives so much prominence to such speculation which is almost totally irrelevant. Why would we necessarily (a) believe what the superspies tell us and (b) even if it is true why should we care?

    I am also very disappointed at the Guardians attitude to Putin, the elected leader of Russia, who was so badly treated by the US from the moment he took over from Yeltsin. I was in Russia as a visitor around that time and it was obvious that Putin restored some dignity to the Russian people after the disastrous Yeltsin term of office. If the US had been willing to deal with him with respect the world could be a much better place today. Instead the US insisted in trying to subvert his rule with the support of its supine NATO allies in order to satisfy its corporate rulers.

    GuyCybershy -> aidanfahey , 10 Dec 2016 16:5
    They expected Russia to fall apart like the USSR and then they could march in and pick up the pieces. Putin prevented this and this why they hate him.
    NickinHalifaxNS , 10 Dec 2016 16:2
    If this is true, the US can hardly complain. After all, the US has a long record of interfering in other countries' elections--including CIA overthrow of elected governments and their replacement with murderous, oppressive, right-wing dictatorships.

    If the worst that Russia did was reveal the truth about what Democratic Party figures were saying behind closed doors, I'd say it helped correct the unbalanced media focus on preventing Trump from becoming President. Call it the globalization of elections.

    BaronVonAmericano , 10 Dec 2016 15:5
    First, the government has yet to present any persuasive evidence that Russia hacked the DNC or anyone else. All we have is that there is Russian code (meaningless according to cyber-security experts) and seemingly baseless "conclusions" by "intelligence" officials. In other words, fake news at this point.

    Second, even if true, the allegation amounts to an argument that Russia presented us with facts that we shouldn't have seen. Think about that for a while. We are seeing demands that we self-censor ourselves from facts that seem unfair. What utter idiocy.

    This is particularly outrageous given that the U.S. directly intervenes in the governance of any number of nations all the time. We can support coups, arm insurgencies, or directly invade, but god forbid that someone present us with unsettling facts about our ruling class.

    This nation has jumped the shark. The fact that Trump is our president is merely confirmation of this long evident fact. That fighting REAL NEWS of emails whose content has not been disputed is part of our war on "fake news," and the top priority for some so-called liberals, promises only worse to come.

    elias_ , 10 Dec 2016 14:5
    >> Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said Russia had "succeeded" in "sow[ing] discord" in the election, and urged as much public disclosure as is possible.

    What utter bullshit. The DNC's own dirty tricks did that. Donna Brasille stealing debate questions and handing them to Hillary so that she could cheat did that. The FBIs investigation into Hillary did that. Podesta's emails did that. The totally one-sided press coverage (apart from Fox) of the election did that. But it seems the american people were smart enough to see through the BS and voted for trump. Good for them.

    And we're gonna need a lot more than the word of a few politicised so-called intelligence agencies to believe this russo-hacking story. These are the same people who lied about Iraqi WMDs so they are proven fakers/liars. These are also the same people who hack EVERYONE else so I, quite frankly, have no sympathy even of the story turns out to be true.

    MrIncredlous , 10 Dec 2016 14:4
    Obama is a disgrace to his office.

    Announce "consensus" (not unanimous) "conclusion" based in circumstantial evidence now, before the Electoral College vote, then write a report with actual details due by Jan 20.
    Put a proven liar in charge of writing the report on Russian hacking.
    Fail to mention that not one of the leaked DNC or Podesta emails has been shown to be inauthentic. So the supposed Russian hacking simply revealed truth about Hillary, DNC, and MSM collusion and corruption.
    Fail to mention that if hacking was done by or for US government to stop Hillary, blaming the Russians would be the most likely disinformation used by US agencies.
    Expect every pro-Hillary lapdog journalist - which is virtually all of them - in America will hyperventilate (Twitter is currently on fire) about this latest fact-free, anti-Trump political stunt for the next nine days.
    Or, as a reader put it, this is a soft coup attempt by leaders of Intel community and Obama Admin to influence the Electoral College vote, similar to the 1960s novel "Seven Days in May."

    DanielDee , 10 Dec 2016 14:4
    When the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security release a joint statement it is not without very careful consideration to the wording.
    Therefore, to understand what is known by the US intelligence services one must analyse the language used.

    https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-department-homeland-security-and-office-director-national

    This is very telling:
    "The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts."

    Alleged:
    adjective [attributive]
    said, without proof, to have taken place or to have a specified illegal or undesirable quality

    Consistent:
    adjective
    acting or done in the same way over time

    Method:
    noun
    a particular procedure for accomplishing or approaching something

    Motivation:
    noun
    a reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way

    So, what exactly is known by the US intelligence services?

    Well what we can tell is:
    the alleged (without proof) hacks were consistent (done in the same way) with the methods (using a particular procedure) and motivations (and having reason for doing so) with Russian State actions.

    There is absolutely no certainty about this whatsoever.

    elias_ , 10 Dec 2016 14:4
    Thank God Obama will be out of office soon. He is the biggest disappointment ever. He has ordered the death of THOUSANDS via drone strikes in other people's countries and most of the deaths were innocent bystanders. If President Xi of China or Putin were to do that we would all be calling them tyrannical dictators and accusing them of a back door invasions. But somehow people are brainwashed into thinking its ok of the US president to do such things. Truly sickening.
    Flugler , 10 Dec 2016 14:4
    Says the CIA the organisation set up to destabilise governments all over the world. Lol.....
    Congratulations for keeping a straight face I hope Trump makes urgently needed personnel changes in the alphabet soup agencies working against humanity for very many years.
    Susanna246 , 10 Dec 2016 13:1
    Beware --

    This is an extremely dangerous game that Obama and the political elites are playing.

    The American political elites - including senetors, bankers, investors, multinationals et al, can feel power and control slipping away from them.

    This makes them very dangerous people indeed - as self-preservation and holding onto power is their number one priority.

    What they're aiming to do ( a child can see what's coming ), is to call into question the validity of Trump's victory and blame the Russians for it.

    The elites are looking to create chaos and insurrection, to have the result nullified and to vilify Putin and Russia.

    American and Russian troops are already lined up and facing each other along the Eastern European borders and all it takes is one small incident from either side.

    And all because those that have ruled the roost for so many decades ( in the White house, the 2 houses of Congress and Wall St ), simply cannot face losing their positions of power, wealth and political influence.

    They're out to get Trump, the populists and President Putin.

    God help us all.

    MacTavi5h , 10 Dec 2016 12:5
    This is starting to feel like an attempt to make the Trump presidency appear illegitimate. The problem is that it could actually make the democrats look like sore losers instead. We've had the recount, now it's foreign interference. This might harm them in 2020.

    I don't like that Trump won, but he did. The electoral college system is clearly in the constitution and all sides understood and agreed to it at the campaign commencement. Also some, by no means all, of commenters saying that the popular vote should win have also been on referendum BTL saying the result isn't a legitimate leave vote, make your minds up!

    I don't want Trump and I wanted to remain but, by the rules, my sides lost.

    alexfoxy28 , 10 Dec 2016 12:5
    Yet in August, Snowden warned that the recent hack of NSA tied cyber spies was not designed to expose Hillary Clinton, but rather a display of strength by the hackers, showing they could eventually unmask the NSA's own international cyber espionage and prove the U.S. meddles in elections around the world.

    http://yournewswire.com/snowden-claims-russia-can-expose-u-s-meddling-in-foreign-elections /

    nishville , 10 Dec 2016 12:3
    A reader's comment from the Independent:

    Will the CIA be providing evidence to support these allegations or is it a case of "just trust us guys"? In any event, hypocrisy is a national sport for the Yanks. According to a Reuters article 9 August 2016 "NSA operations have, for example, recently delved into elections in Mexico, targeting its last presidential campaign. According to a top-secret PowerPoint presentation leaked by former NSA contract employee Edward Snowden, the operation involved a "surge effort against one of Mexico's leading presidential candidates, Enrique Peña Nieto, and nine of his close associates." Peña won that election and is now Mexico's president.

    The NSA identified Peña's cellphone and those of his associates using advanced software that can filter out specific phones from the swarm around the candidate. These lines were then targeted. The technology, one NSA analyst noted, "might find a needle in a haystack." The analyst described it as "a repeatable and efficient" process.

    The eavesdroppers also succeeded in intercepting 85,489 text messages, a Der Spiegel article noted.

    Another NSA operation, begun in May 2010 and codenamed FLATLIQUID, targeted Pena's predecessor, President Felipe Calderon. The NSA, the documents revealed, was able "to gain first-ever access to President Felipe Calderon's public email account."

    At the same time, members of a highly secret joint NSA/CIA organization, called the Special Collection Service, are based in the U.S. embassy in Mexico City and other U.S. embassies around the world. It targets local government communications, as well as foreign embassies nearby. For Mexico, additional eavesdropping, and much of the analysis, is conducted by NSA Texas, a large listening post in San Antonio that focuses on the Caribbean, Central America and South America."

    zulugroove -> nishville , 10 Dec 2016 13:4
    Fake news!! ...That would be a Clinton / Obama , reply!!
    CTG2016 , 10 Dec 2016 12:0
    Breaking news! CIA admits people in USA aren't smart enough to vote for the person right person. Why blame Russians now?
    Come on. Let's move on and enjoy the mess Trump will start. This is going to be worse than GWB.
    We should all just enjoy the political comedy programs.
    Gallicdweller , 10 Dec 2016 11:1
    The CIA accusing a foreign power of interfering in the election of a showman for president - it would take me all day top cite the times that this evil criminal organisation has interfered in the affairs of other countries, ordered assassinations, coups etc. etc. etc
    Dave Harries , 10 Dec 2016 10:4
    Yes like the "help" the CIA gave to the Taliban, Bin Laden and Co. when the Russians were in Afghanistan.
    Then these dimwits from the CIA who taught Bin Laden and Co guerrilla warfare totally "missed" 9/11 and Twin Towers with all their billions of funding.
    So basically this is a total load of crap and if you think we are going to believe any reports vs. Russia these fools at the CIA are going to publish then think again.
    fedback , 10 Dec 2016 10:4
    During the election our media was exposed as in essence a propaganda tool for the Democrat campaign and they continue the unholy alliance after the election
    Liesandstats , 10 Dec 2016 10:4
    Instead of trying to blame the Russians how about reflecting on why the Democrats picked such a dreadful candidate.
    ana ruiz , 10 Dec 2016 10:2
    Pathetic move from an organisation that created ISIS and is single handling every single conflict in the world. Here we have a muppet president that for once wants to look after USA affairs internally and here we have a so alleged independent organisation that wants to keep bombing and destabilising the world. Didn't Trump said he wanted to shake the FBI and CIA ? Who is going to stop this machine of treachery ? : south America, middle east ...Asia ... they put their fingers on to create a problem- solution caveat wereas is to create weapons contracts /farma or construction and sovereign debt . But it never tricles down to the layperson ..
    Tim Jenkins , 10 Dec 2016 10:2
    "We are Not calling into question the election results"
    next White House sentence - "Just the integrity.. " WTF

    What more do you need to know - Bullshit Fake News.. propaganda, spoken by the youngest possible puppet boy White House Rep. who almost managed to have his tie done up..

    I am bookmarking this guy, for a laugh! White House Fake Newscaster ..:)

    Worth watching the sides of his mouth onto his attempt to engage you with the eyes, but blinking way too much before, during and after the word "Integrity".. FAKE!

    His hand signals.. lmfao, so measured, how sweet.. now sack the sycophants --

    fedback , 10 Dec 2016 10:2
    People should know that these Breaking News stories we see in Western media on BBC, Guardian etc, about Russian interference are in fact from Wash Post and NY Times quoting mysterious sources within the CIA
    Of course we know that Wash Post and NY Times were completely objective during the election and didn't favor any party
    fedback , 10 Dec 2016 10:0
    Russia made Hillary run the most expensive campaign ever, spending 1.2 billion dollars.
    Russia stole Hillary's message to the working people and gave her lousy slogans
    Tim Jenkins , 10 Dec 2016 09:5
    My real comment is below, but work with me, for a moment.
    So, since 2008, eh? Barack has thought carefully, with a legal mind.

    Can't we somehow blame the Russians for the whole Economic collapse.. coming soon, Wall Street Cyber Crash, screwed up sKewed up systems of Ponzi virus spiraling out of control..

    blame the Russians , logic, the KGB held the FED at gunpoint and said "create $16.2 Trillion in 5 working days"
    jeez, blame anything and anybody except peace prize guy Obama, the Pope, Bankers & Israel..

    Now can we discuss the Security of the Pound against Cyber Attack.. what was it 6% in 2 minutes, early on Sunday morning, just over month ago.. whoosh!

    It seems more important than discussing an election where the result was always OBVIOUS!

    And we called it, just like Kellyanne Conway..

    Who is Huma Abedin? I wish to know and hear her talking to Kellyanne Conway, graciously in defeat.. is that so unreasonable?
    ********
    Obama wishes to distract from exceedingly poor judgement, at the very minimum....
    after his Greek Affair with Goldman Sachs.. surely.

    As for his other Foreign Policy: Eternal Shame, founded on Fake News!
    Obama the Fake News Founder to flounder over the Russians, who can prove that he, Obama supports & supported Terrorism!

    Thus this article exists, to create doubt over the veracity of evidence to be presented over NATO's involvement in SYRIA! Obama continues to resist, or loose face completely..

    Just ask Can Dundar.... what he knows now and ask Obama to secure the release of Can Dundar's wife's passport, held for no legitimate reason in Turkey! This outrageous stand off, from Erdogan & Obama to address their failures and arrogant disrespect of Woman and her Legal Human Rights is Criminal.. & a Sickness of Mind that promotes Dictatorship!

    Mainstream Media - Fake News.. for quite some time!
    & Obama is guilty!

    Powerspike , 10 Dec 2016 09:4
    President-elect Donald Trump's transition team said in a statement Friday afternoon that the same people who claim Russia interfered in the presidential election had previously claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
    http://dailycaller.com/2016/12/09/trump-team-same-people-who-say-russia-meddled-in-election-said-iraq-had-wmds/#ixzz4SQWsDXpZ
    alexfoxy28 , 10 Dec 2016 09:1
    It's getting funny as Biden promised cyber attack on Russia weeks before Trump was elected .. due to Russian hackers?
    uptonogoode -> alexfoxy28 , 10 Dec 2016 09:5
    Link?
    alexfoxy28 -> uptonogoode , 10 Dec 2016 09:5
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/721851/russia-joe-biden-obama-cyber-attack-war-clinton-putin-US-moscow

    or just google about it.

    ArtherOhm , 10 Dec 2016 08:5
    Is the USA, as author of windows software, really unable to prevent foreign hacking?

    Do the CIA never do anything like this?

    Do we actually have any evidence rather than just a lot of allegations?

    Shotcricket -> Burnaby1000 , 10 Dec 2016 09:0
    'Russia like to surprise' ?

    The one certainty of the US/EU led drive to remove an elected leader just in their 2nd year after an election that saw them gain 47% of the popular vote was the Russki response, its borders were immediately at open 'threat' from any alliance. NATO or otherwise, the deep sea ports of eastern Ukraine which had always been accessed by the Russki fleets would lose guaranteed access etc....to believe the West was surprised by this action, would be to assume the US Generals were as stupid as the US administration, they knew exactly the response of the Russkis & would have made no difference if their leader had been named Putin or Uncle Tom Cobbly.

    In some ways the Russkis partitioning of the East of Ukraine could well minimise the possibility of a world conflict as the perceived threat is neutralised by the buffer.

    The Russkis cyber doodah is no different to our own the US etc, they're all 'at it' & all attempt to inveigle the others in terms of making life difficult.....not too sure Putin will be quite as comfortable with the Pres Elects 3 Trumpeteers though as the new Pressie looks likely to open channels of communications but those negotiations might well see a far tougher stance......still, in truth, all is never fair in love or war

    Powerspike , 10 Dec 2016 08:4
    .....that the CIA is not only suddenly involved, but suddenly at the forefront, may well reflect President-elect Trump's stated policy intentions being far removed from those that the CIA has endorsed, and might be done with an eye toward undermining Trump's position in those upcoming policy battles.
    At the center of those Trump vs. CIA battles is Syria, as the CIA has for years pushed to move away from the ISIS war and toward imposing regime change in Syria. Trump, by contrast, has said he intends to end the CIA-Saudi program arming the Syrian rebels, and focus on fighting ISIS. Trump was even said to be seeking to coordinate anti-ISIS operations with Russia.
    The CIA allegations could easily imperil that plan, as so long as the allegations remain part of the public discourse, evidence or not, anything Trump does with respect to Russia is going to have a black cloud hanging over it.
    http://news.antiwar.com/2016/12/09/cia-claims-russia-intervened-to-get-trump-elected /
    Nataliefreeman , 10 Dec 2016 08:3
    Oh dear Obama trolls? Food for your starved thoughts:

    Your degree of understanding IT is disturbing, especially given how dependent we are on it.

    This is all very simple. The process by which you find out if and how a machine was hacked was clearly documented in the Russian "Internet Audit", run by a group of Grey Hats.

    Grey Hats: People concerned about security who perform unauthorized hacks for relatively benign purposes, often just notifying people of how their system is flawed. IT staff have mixed reactions(!), the illegality is not disputed but the benefit of not being hit by a Black Hat first can be considerable at times. Differentiation is rare, especially as some hacktivist groups belong here, causing no damage beyond reputational by flagging activity that is not acceptable to the hacktivists.

    Black Hats: These are the guys to worry about. These include actually destructive hacktivists. These are the ones who steal data for malicious purposes, disrupt for malicious purposes and just generally act maliciously.

    Nothing in reports indicates if the DNC hack was Grey Hat or Black Hat, but it should be obvious that there is a difference.

    IP addresses and hangouts - worthless as evidence. Anyone can spoof the former, happens all the time (NMap used to provide the option, probably still does), Grey Hats and Black Hats alike have the latter and may break into other people's. It's all about knowing vulnerabilities.

    That voting machines were even on the Internet is disturbing. That they and the DNC server were improperly configured for such an environment is frightening - and possibly illegal.

    The standard sequence of events is thus:

    Network intrusion detector system identifies crafted packet attacking known vulnerability.
    In a good system, the firewall is set to block the attack at that instant.

    If the attacker scans the network, the only machine responding to such knocks should be a virtual machine running a honeypot on attractive-looking port numbers. The other machines in the zone should technically violate the RFCs by not responding to ICMP or generating recognized error codes on unused/blocked ports.

    The system logger picks up an event that creates a process that shouldn't be happening.
    In a good system, this either can't happen because the combination of permissions needed doesn't exist, or it doesn't matter because the process is root jailed and hasn't the privileges to actually do any harm.

    The file alteration logger (possibly Tripwire, though the Linux kernel can do this itself) detects that a process with escalated privileges is trying to create, delete or alter a file that it isn't supposed to be able to change.
    In a good system with mandatory access controls, this really is impossible. In a good system with logging file systems, it doesn't matter as you can instruct the filesystem to revert those specific alterations. Even in adequate but feeble systems, checkpoints will exist. No use in a voting system, but perfectly adequate for a campaign server. In all cases, the system logs will document what got damaged.

    The correct IT manager response is thus:
    Find out why the firewall wasn't defaulting to deny for all unknown sources and for unnecessary ports.
    Find out why the public-facing system wasn't isolated in the firewall's DMZ.
    Find out why NIDS didn't stop the attack.
    Non-public user mobility should be via IPSec using certificates. That deals with connecting from unknown IP addresses without exposing the innards of the system.
    Lock down misconfigured network systems.
    Backup files identified by file alteration detection as corrupt for forensic purposes.
    Revert files identified by file alteration detection as corrupt to last good version.
    Close permission loopholes. Everything should run with the fewest privileges necessary, OS included. On Linux, kernel permissions are controlled via capabilities.
    Establish from the logs if the intruder came through a public-facing application, an essential LAN service or a non-essential service.
    If it's a LAN service, block access to that service outside the LAN on the host firewall.
    Run network and host vulnerability scanners to detect potential attack vectors.
    Update any essential software that is detected as flawed, then rerun the scanners. Repeat until fixed.
    Now the system is locked down against general attacks, you examine the logs to find out exactly what failed and how. If that line of attack got fixed, good. If it didn't, then fix it.
    Password policy should prevent rainbow attacks, not users. Edit as necessary, lock accounts that aren't secure and set the password control system to ban bad passwords.

    It is impossible from system logs to track where an intruder came from, unsecured routers are common and that means a skilled attacker can divert packets to anywhere. You can't trust brags, in security nobody is honest. The sensible thing is to not allow such events in the first place, but when (not if) they happen, learn from them.

    GraemeHarrison , 10 Dec 2016 08:2
    If the USA is to investigate the effect of foreign governments 'corrupting' the free decisions of the American people in elections, perhaps they could look into the fact that for the past three decades every Republican candidate for president, after they have won the nomination of their party, has gone to just one foreign country to pledge their firm commitment/allegiance to that foreign power, for the purpose of shoring up large blocks of donors prior to the actual presidential election. The effect is probably more 'corrupting' than any leak of emails!
    SamSamson , 10 Dec 2016 08:2
    Obama should confess to creating ISIS, sustaining ISIS & utilising ISIS as a proxy army to have them do things that he knew US soldiers could never be caught doing!!!

    They then spoon fed you bullshit propaganda about who the bad guys were, without ever being to properly explain why the US armed forces were prevented from taking any hostile action against ISIS, until they were FORCED TO, that is, when Putin let the the cat out of the bag!!!

    LordTomnoddy , 10 Dec 2016 08:1
    Hilarious. One would've thought Obama of all presidents would be reluctant to delve too deeply into this particular midden. As the author of the weakest and most incompetent American foreign policy agenda since Carter's, it's much the likeliest that if China or Russia have been hacking US elections, then by far the biggest beneficiary will have been himself.
    Tim Jenkins , 10 Dec 2016 08:1
    Just another attempt to distract from realities, like:-

    From:[email protected] To: [email protected], [email protected] Date: 2015-05-28 12:12 Subject: Fwd: POLITICO Playbook

    cdm Begin forwarded message: > From: Lynn Forester de Rothschild <[email protected]> > Date: May 28, 2015 at 9:44:12 AM EDT > To: Nick Merrill <[email protected]>, "Cheryl Mills ([email protected])" <[email protected]> > Subject: FW: POLITICO Playbook > > Morning, > I am sure you are working on this, but clearly, the opposition is trying to undercut Hillary's reputation for honesty (the number one characteristic people look for in a President according to most polls) ..and also to benefit from an attack on wealth that Dems did the most to start I am sure we need to fight back against both of these attacks. > Xoxo > Lynn > > By Mike Allen (@mikeallen; [email protected]), and Daniel Lippman (@dlippman; [email protected]) > > > > QUINNIPIAC POLL, out at 6 a.m., "Rubio, Paul are only Republicans even close to Clinton": "In a general election, ... Clinton gets 46 percent of American voters to 42 percent for Paul and 45 percent of voters to 41 percent for Rubio." Clinton leads Christie 46-37 ... Huckabee 47-40 ... Jeb 47-37 ... Walker 46-38 ... Cruz 48-37 ... Trump 50-32. > > --"[V]oters say 53-39 percent that Clinton is NOT honest and trustworthy, but say 60-37 ... that she has strong leadership qualities. Voters are divided 48-47 ... over whether Clinton cares about their needs and problems." > > --RNC's new chart - "'Dead Broke' Clintons vs. Everyday Americans": "Check out the chart below to see how many households in each state it would take to equal the 'Dead Broke' Clintons." http://bit.ly/1Avg8iE

    Blind leading the Blind.. & Obama knows that very well after it was clear that Clinton was NEVER trusted by the Voters, which makes Debbie and the DNC look like a complete bunch of..

    Idiots?!?! STILL BLAMING The RUSSIANS.... instead of themselves!

    She was and always will be unelectable due to exceedingly poor judgement, across the board.

    Can we move on?

    Polly123456 , 10 Dec 2016 08:0
    Who is in charge of Internet security in the US government? Because it seems full of holes. Last time it was the Chinese and this time it's the Russians, yet not one piece of evidence to say where hacks have come from. How much are these world class Internet security people paid? And why do they still have a job? People sitting in their bedrooms on a pc from stores like staples have hacked their security regularly.
    AlexPeace , 10 Dec 2016 08:0

    In 2016, he said, the government did not detect any increased cyber activity on election day itself but the FBI made public specific acts in the summer and fall, tied to the highest levels of the Russian government. "This is going to put that activity in a greater context ... dating all the way back to 2008."

    Extremely vague. Seems like there is no evidence at all to suggest any Russian involvement, but they need to pretend otherwise. Blah, blah, blah, Weapons of mass destruction... Apollo mission, etc
    FMinus , 10 Dec 2016 08:0
    Ole, Russians exposed the DNC emails, we knew about that. I though this should investigate Russians vote rigging, but I guess not. I for once welcome anyone who hacks my government and exposes their skeletons, so I can see what kind of dirty garbage I had leading or potentially leading my country.

    Maybe the DNC should play fair and not dirty next time and put a candidate forward without skeletons that still reek of rotting flesh.

    Robert Stokes -> FMinus , 10 Dec 2016 08:3
    You rig electronic voting machines by reflashing the firmware or switching out the sd cards. Can't be done remotely.
    Baldrick Daacat , 10 Dec 2016 07:5
    And the CIA has never intervened in a foreign election?
    VibePit -> Baldrick Daacat , 10 Dec 2016 08:0
    Oh heaven forbid!! The Shah of Iran was democratically elected but of course. . .
    HeathCardwell , 10 Dec 2016 07:2
    Don't believe any of this at all.
    American has been thee most corrupt and disgusting western nation for decades, run by people who are now being shown for who they really are and they're shitting themselves big time. The stakes don't get higher than this.
    theonetruepainter , 10 Dec 2016 07:1
    What's the point of this?

    The American people don't want Clinton because she is a liar and a dangerous psychopath who also ignored the working people.

    If you want to change that, get her treatment. Don't try to undermine the election result.

    theonetruepainter , 10 Dec 2016 07:0
    How can you not respect Putin?

    He's spent the last few years making fools out of Clinton, Kerry and the obomber.

    If you didn't want him to let Crimea rejoin Russia, then you shouldn't have initiated the coup that broke up Ukraine.

    Peter Turner , 10 Dec 2016 07:0
    What a total load of double talk. There is zero integrity in anything CIA says or does since the weapons of mass destruction deal or before that it was the Iran Contra deal and before that it was the Bay of Pigs. Now we have this rigging os the election results based on zero evidence. The whole thing is just idiocy. What is Obama trying to achieve?The end game will be for Obama to go down in history as ... let's just say he is not the smartest tool in the shed when it comes to being a so called world leader. Well done Obama you have now completely trashed what is left of your legacy.
    LondonLungs , 10 Dec 2016 06:5

    "CIA concludes Russia interfered to help Trump win election – report "

    You might as well ask accountants to do a study on wether it's worthwhile to use an accountant. Part of the CIAs job is to influence elections around the world to get US-Corporation friendly gov'ts in to power. So yes of course they are going to say that a gov't can influence elections, if they said otherwise then they'd be admitting they're wasting money.

    Ted Reading Reading 10 Dec 2016 06:3
    So, it was the Russians! I knew it must've been them, they're so sneaky. All HFC had was the total backing of the entire establishment, including prominent Republican figures, the total fawning support of the entire main-stream media machine which carefully controlled the "she's got a comfortable 3 point lead maybe even double-digit lead" narrative and the "boo and hiss" pantomime slagging of her opponent. Plus the endless funds from the crooked foundation and murderous fanatics from the compliant Gulf states, and lost. But hey, do keep this going please, it'll help the Trumpster get a second term! Trump/Nugent 2020.
    righteousfist01 , 10 Dec 2016 06:2
    It's possible the Russians hacked and released the documents. However the report is not saying the Russians created them.

    So whatever was so deplorable about them was all Democrat

    Nataliefreeman -> righteousfist01 , 10 Dec 2016 06:3
    Good point. Add that the whole election was dogged is the most glaring media bias and suddenly Russia comes off as simply leveling the playing field a bit
    12inchPianist , 10 Dec 2016 06:1
    CIA finds Russia had covertly influenced election. CIA finds FBI had overtly influenced election. Fancy that!
    ashleigh2 , 10 Dec 2016 06:1
    The 'secret' enquiry reported to Congress that the CIA concludes etc, etc, etc. Then yet more revelations from 'anonymous sources' are quoted in the Washington Post and The New York Times reaching the same conclusions.....talk about paranoia, or are the Democrats guilty of news fakery of the highest order to deny the US voters....
    Nataliefreeman , 10 Dec 2016 05:5
    Ooh Obama...there's a little snag about this investigation.

    In principle, the DNC server could have had malware in an e-mail that set up a NAT entry that made the connecting computer appear somewhere else, with the entry deleted afterwards. Typically, IP table modifications aren't logged, so this would not be detectable.

    In principle, the DNC server could have had malware in an e-mail that ran a SED script at a specific time that changed any occurrence of one IP address with another. Not sure anyone would bother with this, but it's why good system admins place so much emphasis on securing logs. However, it's obvious we're not talking about good admins.

    In principle, every router between the DNC server and Russia has the potential to be hacked, with a tunnel added to send the traffic somewhere else in the world with new source and destination addresses. This is known as router table poisoning. It is preventable but the mechanisms are rarely ever used because the security services want to be able to do this themselves. There are some nice logs of the NSA using this.

    In principle, someone along the way could tap into the fibre, spoofing IP addresses and injecting/sniffing packets. The U.S. even has a submarine designed for this, but optics aren't complex and any number of neo-phone phreaks could have the hardware.

    In principle, someone at an ISP or backbone service could have had a laptop plugged into a switch or router to do the same thing, or lit up a strand of dark fibre to let some uber-wealthy business do this. And there's no shortage of uber-wealthy businesses who aren't keen on Democrats. This technique is used for local and remote network diagnostics, no reason it can't be used nefarious, it's not like the hardware cares why a wire is plugged in.

    In principle, the supposed destination machine could have been hacked to relay the packets in encrypted form to the South Pole or a college campus in Texas. There are many examples of client machines being hacked to do this. It's basically what zombie machines are in botnets.

    In practice, it is flat-out guaranteed that none of the security agencies could distinguish this from a Russian attack. Nothing in the area monitored could tell the difference. We know, for a fact, that college kids spoofing a scan from China have fooled the DoD and NSA on previous occasions, it has caused international incidents.

    So we have known forms of attack that are known to exist, aren't complex and in some cases are already used for attacks. They are 100% untraceable.

    Bosula , 10 Dec 2016 05:5
    How about a Presidential review covering US interference in the elections of countries around the world?
    Paulare -> Bosula , 10 Dec 2016 06:2
    But where to start?

    UK, Australia, Chile, Nicoragua, Cuba, Philippines, Malaysia, Germany...?

    such choice..

    Bosula -> Paulare , 10 Dec 2016 08:0
    Yes. Maybe do it on a regional basis across the globe.
    Anarchy4theUK , 10 Dec 2016 05:4
    Of course the Americans would never interfere in other people's elections would they?...........I imagine the Russians wanted to avoid a nuclear war with war monger Hilary & who can blame them?
    Nataliefreeman -> Anarchy4theUK , 10 Dec 2016 06:1
    Y'know really all they seem to be looking possibly guilty of is the wikileaks scandal. Compare that to the enormous media bias regarding Trump and suddenly the Russians at worst come off as evening the playing field so as to help an election be less biased...
    Kris Penny , 10 Dec 2016 05:4
    When certain members of the public would believe one man over those who have more intelligence in a follicle than he will ever have floating in his cranium is when you realise that a place like Guantanamo should exist, exclusively for them.
    http://www.allgov.com/news/where-is-the-money-going/surprise-cost-of-ammo-for-us-navy-destroyers-new-guns-800000-a-shot-161114?news=859762
    Newmacfan , 10 Dec 2016 05:3
    Paranoia about Russia has arrived at the laughable, almost like the fable of the boy who cried wolf! Even the way the CIA statement is worded makes you smile. "silk purse sows ear"? Everyone is clutching at straws rather than looking down the barrel at the truth......that folks is what is missing from Western Politics......"The Truth" --
    StephenO , 10 Dec 2016 04:3

    Obama expected the review to be completed before he leaves office...

    Really?? Obama wants a "deep review" of internet activities surrounding the elections of 2008, 2012, and 2016; and he wants this done in less than 40 days? And it encompasses voting stations throughout the 50 states? That's the definition of political shenanigans.

    Dom Michaels -> pureist , 10 Dec 2016 04:3
    Seeing as how the CIA interfered with Ukraine before and during the overthrow of Yanukovich, and with Moscow protests a few years ago...... seems like everyone is always trying to interfere with each-other. Hypocrisy abounds
    MarkThomason , 10 Dec 2016 03:5
    This is not really a fight against Trump. That is lost. This is an intramural fight among Democrats.

    This is desperate efforts by the corporate Democrats to hang on to power after Hillary (again) lost.

    Excuses. Allegations without sources given, anonymous.

    Remember that the same people used the same media contacts to spread fake news that the Podesta leaks were faked, and tried to shift attention from what was revealed to who revealed it.

    GuyCybershy -> MarkThomason , 10 Dec 2016 04:0
    Agreed. Another reason why the Democratic party is not worth saving. 13 million voted for Sanders in the primary, that is enough to start a new party.
    Fabr1s , 10 Dec 2016 03:4
    if the Ruskies did it, there's something funny: they did it on Obama's watch and her protege, Hillary, lost it. The system is a real mess in this case.

    Kris Penny , 10 Dec 2016 03:4
    Read and research further...
    https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-department-homeland-security-and-office-director-national
    GeoffP -> Kris Penny , 10 Dec 2016 04:0
    Interesting link. It raises a particularly salient question: assuming the Russians did indeed do it - and after the whole CIA yellow cake thing in Iraq, no one could possibly doubt national intelligence agencies any more - does it particularly matter?

    Did the Russians write the emails? The betrayal of Sanders, the poor protection on classified materials, the cynical, vicious nonsense spewed out by the HRC campaign, the media collusion with the DNC and HRC: did the Russians do these things too? Or was that Clinton and the DNC? Silly question, I'm sure.

    sejong -> jcadams , 10 Dec 2016 03:5
    Russia's competence with computer hacking and cyber espionage is a given

    So what? What about Chinese or Israeli competence in these areas?

    This is Fake News that exists only because Clinton lost.

    The real news is about in competence by HRC, DWS, and the DNC in foisting a sure loser on American voters.

    naomh -> sejong , 10 Dec 2016 03:5
    Thank you for speaking the truth!!!!
    GeoffP -> jcadams , 10 Dec 2016 04:0
    Well, chief, the Wisconsin recount is in and the results are staggering: after the recount, Clinton has gained on Trump by 3 votes... and Trump gained on Clinton by a heady six votes. One begins to wonder at the 'Manchurian candidate' claim.
    third_eye , 10 Dec 2016 03:3
    It is precisely charades like this that millions in the US and around the world have given up on the establishment. Business as usual or rather lying as usual will only alienate more not-so-stupid citizens. It speaks volumes about their desperation that they're are actually employing such obviously infantile tactics on the Russia even as they continue to paper over Hillary's tattered past. The result of the investigation is totally predictable..................Yes, the Russians were involved in hacking the elections, but..........for reasons of national security, details of the investigative process and evidence cannot be revealed.
    Longleveler , 10 Dec 2016 03:2
    If the Russians really wanted Trump to win that means they helped Hillary win the Democratic primaries because Bernie would have beat Trump.. There was a mess of hanky-panky going on to defeat Bernie, and deflecting the blame to a foreign actor should keep the demonstrators off the streets.
    If someone is gullible enough to believe the Russians did it they'd also believe that Elvis made Bigfoot hack the DNC. That's even more plausible since bigfoot is just a guy who spends so much time sitting at his computer he lost all interest in personal hygiene.
    Will D , 10 Dec 2016 03:1
    The Democrats are really desperate to find anything they can use to challenge the results of the election.

    Either way they look foolish - openly investigating the possibility of Russian hacking which acknowledges that their electoral systems aren't well secured, OR look really foolish if they find anything (whether real or faked).

    The big question now is if, and how much, they will fake the findings of the investigation so that they can declare the election results wrong, and put Clinton into the White House.

    Clearly, it is a case of desperate times calling for desperate measures. It is incredible that one man can make the largest Western nation look so ridiculous in the eyes of the world.

    madeiranlotuseater , 10 Dec 2016 02:4
    Pot calling the kettle black. Reveal fully what the CIA get up to all over the planet. The phoney intel America has used to go to war causing countries to implode. The selective way they release information to project the picture they want. I am not convinced that Russia is any better or any worse than the USA.
    onofabeach , 10 Dec 2016 02:3
    I can understand the Russians wanting Obama in 2008 and 2012 because he is a weak leader and totally incompetent.

    I can also understand Putin preferring DJT to HRC.

    It's about time the planet settled down a little bit, Trump and Putin will do more for world peace in the next year than Obama achieved in his 8 wasted years in charge.

    The Democrats have yet to realise the reason for their demise was not the racists, the homophobes, the KKK, the Deplorables, the misogynists, the xenophobes etc etc etc.

    It was Hillary Clinton.

    Get over it, move on, stop whining, get out of your safe room, put the puppy down, throw the play dough away, stop protesting, behave like an adult.

    As much as I am enjoying the monumental meltdown of the left, it is getting sad now and I am starting to feel very sorry for you.

    BoBiel , 10 Dec 2016 02:2
    Georgia Says Someone in U.S. Government Tried to Hack State's Computers Housing Voter Data

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/georgia-reports-attempt-to-hack-states-election-database-via-ip-address-linked-to-homeland-security-1481229960

    http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2016-12-08/georgia-accuses-us-of-trying-to-hack-its-election-systems

    123Akava , 10 Dec 2016 02:1
    What a sad bunch of clowns. But the time is ripe. You and your sort are done Obama, Hillary Clinton, Juncker, Merkel, Hollande, Mogherini, Kerry, Tusk, Nuland, Albright, Breedlove, SaManThe Power and the rest of the reptiles. With all respect - mwuahahaha! - you will soon sink into the darkness of the darkest places of history, but you won't be forgotten, no you won't!
    poppetmaster , 10 Dec 2016 02:0
    The Democrats still don't understand that the problem in American politics is everything that happened BEFORE election day.

    How can you worry about the ballot boxes when the entire process from beginning to end is utterly corrupt.

    CarlHansen , 10 Dec 2016 02:0
    As for the Podesta email. John Podesta was so stupid that he gave out his password in a simple email scam that any 8 year old kid could have conducted. I wouldn't be surprised if Assange did it himself. Assange will be celebrating at the demise of Hillary.
    phobeophobe , 10 Dec 2016 02:0
    Guys! Your side lost the election. Get over it & stop looking for excuses.

    I don't think it was the Russians, it was just a lot of people got sick of being told what to think & how to behave by your side of politics.

    It is because people who disagree with you are either ignored, shut-down or called names with weaponised words such as "racist, bigot, xenophobe, homophobe, islamophobe, you name it. You go out onto the streets chanting mindless slogans aimed at shutting down debate. You have infiltrated academia and no journalism graduate comes out of a western univerity without a 60 degree lean to the left. People of alternative views to what is now the dominant social paradigm are not permitted to speak at universities. Once they were the vanguard of dangerous ideas. Now they are just sheep pens.

    You have infiltrated the mainstream media so of course people need to go to Info Wars, Breitbart & Project Veritas to get the other side to your one-sided argument.

    Your side of politics has regulated the very words we speak so that we can't even express a thought anymore without being chanted down, or shut down, prosecuted or sued.

    There was once a time when it was the left who spoke up for freedom of speech. It was the left who demanded that a man be judged by the content of his character & not the color of his skin & it was once the right who used to be worried about the Russians taking over our institutions.

    Have a look at yourselves. Look at what you've become. You've stopped being the guardians of freedom & now you have become the very anti-freedom totalitarians you thought you were campaigning against.

    Bleating about the "popular vote" doesn't cut it either. That's like saying, the other side scored more goals than us but we had possession of the ball more times. It is sad for you but it is irrelevant.

    Trump won the election! Get over it!

    Let's see what sort of job he does before deciding what to do next.

    Nataliefreeman , 10 Dec 2016 01:5
    News flash for all the obamabots:

    In principle, the DNC server could have had malware in an e-mail that set up a NAT entry that made the connecting computer appear somewhere else, with the entry deleted afterwards. Typically, IP table modifications aren't logged, so this would not be detectable.

    In principle, the DNC server could have had malware in an e-mail that ran a SED script at a specific time that changed any occurrence of one IP address with another. Not sure anyone would bother with this, but it's why good system admins place so much emphasis on securing logs. However, it's obvious we're not talking about good admins.

    In principle, every router between the DNC server and Russia has the potential to be hacked, with a tunnel added to send the traffic somewhere else in the world with new source and destination addresses. This is known as router table poisoning. It is preventable but the mechanisms are rarely ever used because the security services want to be able to do this themselves. There are some nice logs of the NSA using this.

    In principle, someone along the way could tap into the fibre, spoofing IP addresses and injecting/sniffing packets. The U.S. even has a submarine designed for this, but optics aren't complex and any number of neo-phone phreaks could have the hardware.

    In principle, someone at an ISP or backbone service could have had a laptop plugged into a switch or router to do the same thing, or lit up a strand of dark fibre to let some uber-wealthy business do this. And there's no shortage of uber-wealthy businesses who aren't keen on Democrats. This technique is used for local and remote network diagnostics, no reason it can't be used nefarious, it's not like the hardware cares why a wire is plugged in.

    In principle, the supposed destination machine could have been hacked to relay the packets in encrypted form to the South Pole or a college campus in Texas. There are many examples of client machines being hacked to do this. It's basically what zombie machines are in botnets.

    In practice, it is flat-out guaranteed that none of the security agencies could distinguish this from a Russian attack. Nothing in the area monitored could tell the difference. We know, for a fact, that college kids spoofing a scan from China have fooled the DoD and NSA on previous occasions, it has caused international incidents.

    So we have known forms of attack that are known to exist, aren't complex and in some cases are already used for attacks. They are 100% untraceable.

    DanielDee , 10 Dec 2016 01:3
    Joe Biden unwittingly gave the game up when he spoke to the press with indignation of the Russian hacks. The US would respond in kind with a covert cyber operation run by the CIA First of all it would be the NSA, not the CIA Secondly, it's not covert when you tell the press! Oh Joe, you really let the Obama administration down with that gaffe! Who would believe them now? A lot of people it would seem. Mainly those still reeling from an election they were so vested in
    fedback , 10 Dec 2016 01:2
    Unfortunately our media has lost all credibility.
    For years we were told it was necessary to remove the dictator Assad in Syria. The result, a country destroyed, migrant crisis that fuelled Brexit and brought EU to its knees.
    Now they are going to sell the 'foreign entities decided the US election'.
    It's just a sad situation
    GuyCybershy -> fedback , 10 Dec 2016 01:2
    Syria has been destroyed because Western client states in the Middle East wanted this to happen. Assad had a reasonably successful secular government and our medieval gulf state allies felt. threatened by his regime. there was the little business of a pipeline, but of course that would be called a "conspiracy theory".
    SomersetApples , 10 Dec 2016 01:1
    If Obama has resources to spend on investigations, he should be investigating why the US is providing guided missiles to the terrorist in Syria. We had such great hopes for him, and he has proved to be totally useless as a president. Rather than giving us leadership and guidance he is looking under his bed for spooks. Just another example of his incompetence at a time when we needed leadership.

    Looking for proof of espionage will be like trying to prove a negative and only result in a possible or at best a likely type of result for no purpose. It would just be another case of an unsupported accusation being thrown about.

    Facing up to the question of who is supplying weapons to terrorist would require the courage to take on the Military Industrial Complex and he hasn't got it. Trump will be different.

    ID3053875 , 10 Dec 2016 01:0
    If the russians did interfere in the USA elections perhaps is a bit of poetic justice.
    The USA has interfere in Latin America for over hundred years and they have given us Batista, Somoza, Trujillo, Noriega, Pinochet, Duvaliers , military juntas in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Streener in Paraguay to name a few. They all were narcissists, racists and insecure. The american people love this type of leader now they got him in the white house may be from Russia with love. Empires get destroyed from within, look at Little Britain now, maybe the same will happen soon in the USA.
    Viva China , is far from Latin America
    nbk46zh , 10 Dec 2016 01:0
    So if the US managed to somehow get rid of Russia and China, what would they do then? How would it justify hundreds of billions in defense spending? Just remember, the US military industry desperately needs an external enemy to exist. Without it, there is no industry.
    ID5151903 , 10 Dec 2016 01:0
    No I disagree. I don't think it was a conpriscy. It was just decades of misinformation, lies, usually perpertrated by our esteemed foreign minister. The man is a buffoon , liar and incompetent. It is quite amusing to see how inept, Incompotent and totally unsuited this man child is to public office.
    PullingTheStrings , 10 Dec 2016 01:0
    Good to see alot of Americans on here back into Mccarthyism/Paranoia/scapegoating/Witch hunting/Propaganda.
    smellycat , 10 Dec 2016 01:0
    Clinton's 'Russia did it' cop-out
    https://off-guardian.org/2016/12/09/clintons-russia-did-it-cop-out /
    prairdog , 10 Dec 2016 00:4
    Why should we trust US intelligence which is essentially US propaganda?
    DanielDee , 10 Dec 2016 00:3
    Another red herring that smacks of desperation. The final death throes of a failed administration. These carefully chosen words reveal a lot. The email leaks were "consistent with the methods and motivations" of Russian hackers. In layman's terms its the equivalent of saying "we haven't got a clue who it was but it's the kind of thing they would probably do". Don't expect a smoking gun because it doesn't exist, otherwise we would have known about it by now.
    PostTrotskyite -> DanielDee , 10 Dec 2016 00:3
    It's not just the US who has accused Putin of meddling in their domestic affairs. Germany and the UK have made the same allegations. Are they wrong too?
    DanielDee -> PostTrotskyite , 10 Dec 2016 00:5
    I think anyone with reasonable intelligence would take each accusation on a case by case basis. There is no doubt that Russia conducts cyber operations, as the US and UK and Germany does. There is also little doubt that significant Russophobia exists, particularly since the failed foreign attempt of regime change in Syria that was thwarted by Russia. On that last point many citizens of the West are coming to the realisation that a secular government in Syria is preferable to one run by jihadists installing crude sharia law (Libya was certainly a lesson). Furthermore, if Hillary Clinton had succeeded one dreads to think of the consequences of her no-fly-zone plans. Thankfully she didn't succeed, no doubt in part to wikileaks revelations, who for the record stated that did not result from Russian hacks
    sejong , 10 Dec 2016 00:2
    Fake News is mass gaslighting, removing any sense of what is real. Biggest psy-op ever.
    gondwanaboy , 10 Dec 2016 00:1
    Barack Obama orders 'full review' of possible Russian hacking in US election


    FAKE NEWS ALERT

    JCDavis -> gondwanaboy , 10 Dec 2016 00:2
    They already stated their conclusions, now they have to find evidence.
    Yodasyodel , 9 Dec 2016 23:5
    Hows the election recount going? You know the one this paper kept going on about a few weeks ago in Wisconsin that was supposed to be motivated by "Russian Hacking" in the election? Not very well but you have gone quiet. Also I see the Washington Post has been forced to backtrack for implying news outlets like Breitbart are Russian controlled on the advice of their own lawyers....after all calling someone a Russian agent without a shred of evidence is seriously libellous and they know it. Russian agents to blame yeah ok Obama no doubt the Easter Bunny will be next in your sights you fraud.
    Wilderloo , 9 Dec 2016 23:5
    Look no further than Hillarys private server. Classified information sent and received and Obam was part of it. Obama is a liar and a fraud who is now blaming the Russians for crooked Hillarys loss.
    SUNLITE , 9 Dec 2016 23:5
    Feed the flames of the war mongers that want Russia and Putin to be our bogeyman.Feed the military industrial complex more billions.The U.S. Defense budget is already 10 times that of Russia ,feed NATO already on Russia's boarder with tanks ,troops and heavy weapons.i did expect more from this pres,... The lies ,mis information and propaganda has worked so well since the end of WW2,upon a public who has been fed those lies {and is to busy with sports ,gadgets,games, alcohol and other drugs }for 70 yrs by a compliant,for profit lap dog media more interested in producing infotainment and profits than supplying information..If you don't think the "public" isn't very poorly informed and will believe anything ,..just look at who the next prez will be..
    GuyCybershy -> SUNLITE , 10 Dec 2016 00:0
    I don't think it's true that Trump voters were less informed than Clinton voters. The public knows that they all lie, they simply choose the one who's lies most appeal to them.
    Alexander Bach , 9 Dec 2016 23:5
    Did he also order to investigate the Clinton's deeds revealed by the 'hackers'?
    fedback , 9 Dec 2016 23:3
    Unfortunately Obama is not leaving office with dignity.
    This action is another attempt to delegitimize the election of Trump. We already have the recount farce going on.
    If Republicans had tried to delegitimize the election of Obama we know what the reaction from media would have been. An outcry against antidemocratic and racist behaviour
    USApatriot12 , 9 Dec 2016 23:3
    The corporate media is so predictable at this point. The news cranks up the anti-Russia hysteria while the guys over in entertainment roll out a slick fantasy about anti-Nazi resistance. It all adds up to a big steaming pile of crap but you hope it will push enough buttons to keep the citizens chained to their their desks for another quarter. Don't bet on it. As a great American said at another time of upheaval, you can't fool everyone forever...
    GuyCybershy -> USApatriot12 , 9 Dec 2016 23:3
    We're supposed to condemn "white nationalism" in The US and UK while supporting it in Ukraine.
    GeeDeeSea -> GuyCybershy , 9 Dec 2016 23:4
    That's not all. We in US and UK are supposed to condemn jihadists in Iraq while supporting them Syria.
    James7 -> Eddy Cannella , 9 Dec 2016 23:2
    Hillary? Although I would lean to more "Grey."

    Kremlin Connection? The TRUTH About Hillary's Shady Ties To Russia REVEALED
    Find out why insiders say Clinton has some explaining to do.

    Americans have no idea just how closely Hillary Clinton is tied to the Kremlin! That's the shocking claim of a new report that alleges the Democratic nominee is secretly pals with Vladimir Putin and his countrymen.

    Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash, has published a report that claims that that Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta was on the executive board of a foreign company that received $35 million from the Kremlin. "The company was a transparent Russian front, and how much Podesta was compensated - and for what - is unclear. In addition, Podesta failed to disclose his position on that board to the Federal government, as required by law," John Schindler of the Observer wrote.

    As Radar previously reported, when Clinton was secretary of state, she profited from the "Russian Reset," a failed attempt to improve relations between the U.S. and Russia.
    chweizer wrote, "Many of the key figures in the Skolkovo process - on both the Russian and U.S. sides - had major financial ties to the Clintons. During the Russian reset, these figures and entities provided the Clintons with tens of millions of dollars, including contributions to the Clinton Foundation, paid for speeches by Bill Clinton, or investments in small start-up companies with deep Clinton ties." Schweizer also details "Skolkovo," a Silicon Valley-like campus that both the U.S. and Russia worked on for developing biomed, space, nuclear and IT technologies. He told the New York Post that there was a "pattern that shows a high percentage of participants in Skolkovo who happen to be Clinton Foundation donors."

    raymondffoulkes , 9 Dec 2016 23:1
    So it's anti-Russia propaganda today again, all over the Guardian as well as everywhere else.

    I daresay they have a few things (perhaps a tad more important than football and athletics) to say about us as well..

    smellycat -> raymondffoulkes , 9 Dec 2016 23:2
    Sour grapes at the liberation of Aleppo and their loss of face.
    I'm surprised they haven't started asking about the missing 250K civilians,who must even now be languishing in Assad's dungeons.
    Keeping that one for tomorrow probably.
    nbk46zh , 9 Dec 2016 23:1
    When Cheney used the terror alert levels to keep the US population in the constant state of fear, the Democrats denounced it as fear mongering. Now they're embracing the same tactics in the constant demonization of Russia. Look, it's raining today! Russia must be trying to control the weather in the US! Get them! Utterly ridiculous.
    stegordon21 , 9 Dec 2016 23:0
    The US has been the most bloodthirsty, aggressive nation in my lifetime. Where the US goes we obediently follow. Yet as Obama (7 countries he's bombed in his presidency, not bad for a Nobel Prize Winner) continues to circle Russia with NATO on their borders. We're continually spun headline news that Russia is the aggressor and is continually meddling in foreign affairs. We are the aggressors, we are the danger to ourselves and it's we who are run by megalomaniac elites who pump us full of fear and propaganda.
    nbk46zh , 9 Dec 2016 23:0
    Malicious cyberactivity... has no place in international community... No? When West does it, then it's for democratic purposes? But invading countries on a humanitarian pretense does? So Democrats are still looking to blame Russia for everything not going their way I see. This rhetoric didn't work for Clinton in the election and it won't now. Stop with this nonsense
    GuyCybershy -> nbk46zh , 9 Dec 2016 23:1
    There wasn't a lot of outrage about the use of the "stuxnet" virus against Iran. You see, when we do it is always for a good cause.

    Paulare , 9 Dec 2016 22:5
    Take the long view folks.

    The Egyptian Empire lasted millenum,
    The Greek and Roman Empires a thousand years, give or take.
    The Holy Roman Empire centuries.
    The British and French circa 200 years.
    The USSR about 70, the USA 70 and counting

    This is just the cyclical death throes of empires played out at ever increasing speed before our very eyes.

    DexDex , 9 Dec 2016 22:5
    5 articles abut Russia, again. This is the Russia interference in the Guardian. Putin must be stopped.
    Earl_Grey -> DexDex , 9 Dec 2016 23:0
    NATO has bought a subscription to the Guardian
    TonyBlunt , 9 Dec 2016 22:5
    Is all this hoohaa the BBC and the Guardian trying to get some revenge for the Russian liberating East Aleppo?
    TheIPAResistance , 9 Dec 2016 22:5
    This is exactly why we should never move to electronic voting. Can you imagine the lengths the IPA would go to ensure their men security the power they need to roll out their neoliberal agenda? As a tax-free right wing think tank composed of rich like Rinehart, Murdoch, Forrest, et al. the sky's the limit.
    Anthony1152 , 9 Dec 2016 22:4
    The five stages of dealing with psychological trauma: Anger, Denial, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. Hillary and the Democrats are still at stage one and two. Obama is only beginning stage one as events dawn on him.
    TheCharacteristicEquation 9 Dec 2016 22:4
    I really do feel the established media and its elite hierarchy are vexed by both the Trump victory and Brexit here in the UK. Now the media attention turns to a report on another of its perpetual campaigns, namely Russia, and corruption in sport.

    I'm not going to doubt the 'findings', but I know humans are corrupt ALL over the world, but it does strike me that no Western outlet, ever prints anything positive about Russia. I mean - nothing, zero!

    dallasdunlap , 9 Dec 2016 22:3
    If, indeed, the Russian government gathered the DNC and Podesta info released by Wikileaks, the Russians did the American people a favor by pulling back the curtain on behind the scenes scheming by Clinton campaign potentates.
    Of course, I don't believe the Democratic claim that Clinton lost the election because of the Russians and the FBI.
    GuyCybershy -> dallasdunlap , 9 Dec 2016 22:4
    Podesta's password was "p@ssword". Inexcusable carelessness.
    smellycat , 9 Dec 2016 22:3
    Nothing wrong with a bit of regime change now and then, so we've been told. No good crying when the Russians do it to you.
    sammy3110 , 9 Dec 2016 22:3
    It's instructive to see the Guardian drag up Reagan's "Evil Empire" spiel, but only after Hillary lost.
    GeeDeeSea , 9 Dec 2016 22:3
    US backed a coup, or set up a coup, to overthrow the democratically elected government in Ukraine which led to war. Putin's payback seems fully justified.
    theenko -> GeeDeeSea , 9 Dec 2016 22:4
    sweet fucking jesus

    Yanukovych is a disgrace to Ukrainian's everywhere and a traitor to his country. Fucking Putin puppet should be in jail.

    GeeDeeSea -> theenko , 9 Dec 2016 22:4
    sweet fucking jesus

    Porshenko is a disgrace to Ukrainian's everywhere and a traitor to his country. Fucking Obama puppet should be in jail.

    Earl_Grey , 9 Dec 2016 22:3
    Oh my, a foreign country may have had a tiny influence on a US Election.

    How about investigating the overthrow of the Democratically elected Govt in Ukraine, or the influence the US has had on the Syrian Govt, or even in Australia, where the Chinese Govt donates massive amounts of money to Political Parties (note, there's no link of course between Chinese Govt donations and Chinese Companies being able to buy most of Australia and employ Chinese Nationals in Australia on Chinese conditions and 500,000 Chinese Nationals being able to buy Real Estate in Sydney alone... none whatsoever).

    bcnteacher , 9 Dec 2016 22:3
    Good call! Something is fishy about the US electoral system.
    COReilly , 9 Dec 2016 22:2
    I'm not a policy or think tank wonk, but isn't Russia just a euphemism for China. Aren't their geopolitical interests linked. You just say Russia because China has us by the financial balls (I'm sure the Guardian would prefer to NOT be censored on the mainland) right? Package it that way and I'm on board. My love of Dostoevsky goes out the window. Albeit I still think Demons one of the best novels ever written. Woke me up.
    fedback , 9 Dec 2016 22:1
    Survivor of Bosnian sniper fire Hillary Clinton decries fake news in speech yesterday
    Aaron Aarons , 9 Dec 2016 22:1
    I'm all in favor of delegitimizing the incoming semi-fascist Trump/Pence regime, and find Obama's talk of a smooth transition disgusting. However, I reject the appeal to Russophobia or other Xenophobia.

    BTW, Obama and his collaborators like Diane Feinstein have done a lot to prepare the legal basis for fascistic repression under the new POtuS.

    Sund Fornuft , 9 Dec 2016 22:1
    I already know what the comission will find. They will find evidences that Iraq holds vast ammonúnt of weapons of mass destruction! Oh wait, that was already used.
    kalander , 9 Dec 2016 22:0
    Obama has been as useless as his predecessor young Bush. His policies generally are in tatters and the US neo cons evil fantasy of full spectrum dominance has met its death in Syria. Bravo.
    ShoppingKingLouie , 9 Dec 2016 22:0
    The neoliberal corporate machine is wounded but not dead. They will use every trick, ploy and opportunity to try to regain power.

    The fight goes on.

    fedback , 9 Dec 2016 21:5
    After an election cycle with proven collusion between the DNC/Hillary Clinton campaign and our media, our media has the nerve to come up with the term 'fake news'.
    Hypocrisy at its finest
    John Urquhart , 9 Dec 2016 21:5
    Nobody does paranoia like the yanks. To the rest of the world, the unedifying spectacle of the world's biggest bullies, snoops, warmongers, liars and hypocrites complaining about how unfair life is, is pretty nauseating. Most of America's problems are home-grown.
    ShoppingKingLouie , 9 Dec 2016 21:5
    Why fake the news when you can just strong the media companies into muzzling their criticism?

    http://nypost.com/2016/12/09/mika-brzezinski-says-clinton-camp-tried-to-pull-her-off-the-air /

    mjp3470 , 9 Dec 2016 21:5
    And the final report will conclude with something along the lines of:
    'After a thorough, exhaustive investigation of all relevant evidence concerning the potential of foreign interference in the United States electoral process, the results of the investigation have shown that, although there remain troubling questions about the integrity of U.S. cyber-security which should prompt immediate Congressional review, there has been uncovered no conclusive evidence to support the conjecture that cyber attacks originating with any foreign actor, state or individual had any significant effect on the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election, and that there is no cause or justification for the American People to question the fairness of or lose faith in the electoral process and laid out by and carried out according to the Constitution.'
    I do Holiday cards too.
    garenmel -> mjp3470 , 9 Dec 2016 22:2
    My hat off to you sir/madam. This was great!
    Powerspike , 9 Dec 2016 21:5
    Georgia's Secretary of State is accusing someone at the Department of Homeland Security of illegally trying to hack its computer network, including the voter registration database.
    In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, copied to the full Georgia congressional delegation, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp alleges that a computer with a DHS internet address attempted to breach its systems.
    http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/309530-state-of-georgia-allegedly-accusing-homeland-security-of-attempted-hack

    Wake up and smell the BS, the hacking is being done by people a lot nearer home.....

    feliciafarrel , 9 Dec 2016 21:5
    Oh dear, the GOP seem to have forgotten what they were saying about Putin and the Kremlin a short while back:

    The continuing erosion of personal liberty and fundamental rights under the current officials in the Kremlin. Repressive at home and reckless abroad, their policies imperil the nations which regained their self-determination upon the collapse of the Soviet Union. We will meet the return of Russian belligerence with the same resolve that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. We will not accept any territorial change in Eastern Europe imposed by force, in Ukraine, Georgia, or elsewhere, and will use all appropriate constitutional measures to bring to justice the practitioners of aggression and assassination.

    https://www.gop.com/platform/american-exceptionalism/

    Are they going to conveniently forget all decency and morality? Is the white supremacist agenda in the GOP finally in the ascendant?

    Russian Troll (Number 254) 9 Dec 2016 21:5
    I as a Russian Troll do not like this investigation and will do or say anything in order to change your mind. Putin is not a problem, the EU is.
    Powerspike , 9 Dec 2016 21:4
    ..... prohibiting "fake" or "false" news would be a cure worse than the disease, i.e., censorship by other means. The government cannot be trusted with distinguishing fake from genuine news because it has ulterior motives. News the government dislikes would be conflated with fakery, and news the government approved would be conflated with truthfulness. Private businesses like Facebook cannot be trusted with distinguishing fake from genuine news because its overriding mission is to make money and to win popularity, not to spread truth. It would suppress news that risked injury to its reputation or profits but leave news that did the opposite undisturbed.
    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/5/reflections-fake-news /
    GuyCybershy , 9 Dec 2016 21:4
    "The Anonymous Blacklist Promoted by the Washington Post Has Apparent Ties to Ukrainian Fascism and CIA Spying".

    http://www.alternet.org/media/anonymous-blacklist-promoted-washington-post-has-shocking-roots-ukrainian-fascism-eugenics-and

    GuyCybershy , 9 Dec 2016 21:3
    Clinton lost even though she outspent Trump two to one. She was just a lousy candidate who ran a terrible campaign.
    fimbulvinter -> GuyCybershy , 9 Dec 2016 21:4
    Uh excuse me but that sort of introspection doesn't fly. She was flawless and the blame rests solely on Russia/alt-right/Sanders/Third Parties/Racism/Misogyny/Alignment of the stars/etc/etc
    emilyadam , 9 Dec 2016 21:3
    I thnk the idea that russia has world domination is quite laughable, what else they gonna be blamed for next, reduction of giraffe population!Lol
    I think a teeny wee paranoia is setting in, or outright deliberate propaganda, too obvious
    Jim Moodie , 9 Dec 2016 21:3
    Is this worse than when the two CIA operatives were caught searching through files in the Offices of the British Labour Party about thirty years ago. What goes around comes around.

    The CIA hacks have been destabalisuping Government for a at least seventy years.

    One thing is pretty obvious paper ballots and a different ballot for each is much harder to rig.

    It is ironic it takes a despot life key Trump to bring the issue to a head AFTER unexpectedly won.

    freeandfair -> Jim Moodie , 9 Dec 2016 21:3
    "Is this worse than when the two CIA operatives were caught searching through files in the Offices of the British Labour Party about thirty years ago. What goes around comes around."

    The CIA were caught hacking into the US Congressional computers just 6 or so months ago. Nothing came out of it.

    guest88888 , 9 Dec 2016 21:3

    possible Russian hacking in US election

    Based on the fact that the US 2000 (and possibly 2004) election was outright stolen by George Bush Jr., perhaps the propagandists in the White House and media ought to be looking for a "Russian connection" in regards to our illustrious former president.

    Texas_Sotol , 9 Dec 2016 21:3
    I'm shocked--shocked--to hear that our close Russian allies have done anything to influence and undermine the stability of other countries. Preposterous accusation! And to try to become huge winners in the Western Hemisphere, by cheating? Vitriolic nonsense!

    Many posters here actually believe that Good Old Russia should just stick with what they do best. That's poison!

    Fencewalker -> Bluebird101 , 9 Dec 2016 21:4
    Rather like the Litvenenko inquiry...full of maybe's and possibilities, with not a shred of hard, factual proof shown - demonstrating that the order came from the Kremlin.
    It's just a total accident that Putin's most vocal opponents keep getting shot in the head, gunned down on bridges, suffering 'accidents' or strange miscarriages of (sometimes post-mortem) 'justice' and fall victim to radiological state-enacted terrorism in foreign countries. No pattern there, whatsoever.
    Informed17 , 9 Dec 2016 21:3
    I am at a loss. On the one hand, I hear about Russian economy in tatters, gas station posing as a country, deep crisis, economy the size of Italy, rusty old military toys, aircraft carrier smoking out the whole Northern hemisphere, etc. On the other hand, I hear about Russian threat all the time, which must be countered by massive build up of the US and EU military, Russia successfully interfering in the elections in the beacon of democracy, the US, with 20 times greater economy, with powerful allies, the best armed forces in the world, etc. Are we talking about two different Russias, or is this schizophrenia, pure and simple?
    jamese07uk -> Informed17 , 9 Dec 2016 21:3
    It's always easy to find reasons to fear something, added to that the psychology of the unknown, and we have the makings of very powerful propaganda. Whatever Russia's level of corruption, and general society, I feel I cannot trust the Western media anymore 100%. There seems to be a equally sinister hidden agenda deep within Western Elites - accessing Russia's land, political and potential wealthly resources must surely be one of them!? The longterm Western agenda/mission?
    spiridonovich , 9 Dec 2016 21:1
    The Democratic Party's problem is Russia, which the President is rightly putting front and center. All Russians are the summit of eviality, and must be endlessly scapegoated in order for Democrats to regain power for the nation's greater good.

    Democrats' problems have nothing to do with corruption, glaring conflicts of interest, favoritism, ass-licking editors, crappy data, lacking enthusiasm, and horribly poor judgement.

    None of these issues need to be publicly addressed, being of no consequence to independent voters, and the President, Guardian, et al. must continue their silent -- and "independent" -- vigil on such silly topics, if Democrats are to have any hope of cultivating enough mindless, enraged, and abandoned sheep to bring them future victories.

    ImmortalTao , 9 Dec 2016 21:1
    I admire Trump, Putin & Farage. Don't agree with them but I have admiration for them. They show all the cunning, calculating, resourcefulness that put the European race on top. Liberals don't like that and want to see the own people fall to the bottom. Thankfuly the neoliberal elite are finishedm
    MJMaguire , 9 Dec 2016 21:1
    Absurd nonsense - the third anti-Russian story of the day. Very little of this has much traction because of the sheer volume of misinformation coming out about Russia. there are very good cogent reasons why the Democrats lost the US election - none of them have anything to do with Russia.
    slats7 , 9 Dec 2016 21:0
    another pathetic attempt to delegitimize Trump. wanna know why he won? look in the mirror, Barry.
    oldsunshine -> slats7 , 9 Dec 2016 21:2
    Will Obama see Clinton if he looks in the mirror??
    Bluejil , 9 Dec 2016 21:0
    I can't see a thing wrong with reviewing the last three election cycles, if there is any doubt at all and to put speculation to bed, it should be done.
    CurtBrown -> Bluejil , 9 Dec 2016 21:1
    Why stop at the last three?
    Karl Marks -> CurtBrown , 9 Dec 2016 21:4
    Because the US is more concerned about money than democratic integrity.
    dicksonator , 9 Dec 2016 21:0
    So the US intelligence servies aren't doing similar operations?

    If they werent, heads would roll as they have a considerable budget. Did we learn nothing from Edward Snowden? Are Russia just better at this? I doubt it.

    I think both sides conduct themselves in a despicable manner so please dont call me a Putin apologist. Well, feel free actually, I could'nt care less.

    gray2016 , 9 Dec 2016 21:0

    Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election


    US interference:

    COUNTRY OR STATE Dates of intervention Comments
    VIETNAM l960-75 Fought South Vietnam revolt & North Vietnam; one million killed in longest U.S. war; atomic bomb threats in l968 and l969.
    CUBA l961 CIA-directed exile invasion fails.
    GERMANY l961 Alert during Berlin Wall crisis.
    LAOS 1962 Military buildup during guerrilla war.
    142 more rows

    Shall I go on with anoter 142? US lying scumbags

    yeCarumba -> gray2016 , 9 Dec 2016 21:0
    the vietnam fiasco alone is enough to disqualify america from any criticism about interference in internal affairs
    they practically destroyed the country
    KitKnightly , 9 Dec 2016 20:5
    The pathetic way the media are pushing this big-bad-Russians meme is a little depressing.

    This "hack" is totally fictional, the wikileaks e-mails were almost certainly that...leaks. As most o their output has been over the years. For 95% of the Wikileaks existence there have been absolutely zero connections with "the Kremlin", in fact they have leaked stuff damaging to Russia before now.

    The Russian's did not hack the DNC, or rig the election, this is yet another example of the political establishment hysterically pointing fingers and making up lies when their chosen side loses an election.

    freeandfair -> KitKnightly , 9 Dec 2016 21:3
    I remember how North Korea was blamed for Sony hack. I think they were even cut from the internet for a day and there was all this talk of punishing them. And then later it came out that very likely wasn't North Korea. Only the news cycle already moved on and nobody cared.
    mismeasure , 9 Dec 2016 20:5
    Traditionally, the best Cold Warriors have been right-wing liberals. In the absence of policies that concretely benefit the people they engage in threat inflation and demagoguery.
    SergeyL , 9 Dec 2016 20:4
    In 90s US set all figures in Russia - from president to news program anchor. Elections of 96 were ripped by American "advisors" so that Eltsyn with 3% rating "won" them. It's payback time.
    Shaemus Gruagain , 9 Dec 2016 20:4
    Oh how wonderful it is to watch them smart and the bonus? no more Obamas.
    uest88888 -> PeteCW , 9 Dec 2016 21:3
    And yet the so-called "Russian trolls" (which is apparently anyone who exercise a modicum of skepticism) seem to be winning here at CiF based on the number of likes per comment, which is likely why the NSA sponsored propagandists and clueless dopes are getting so increasingly shrill.
    Mattster101 , 9 Dec 2016 20:3
    If you take a wider view, this is all really about keeping the Dems in the game, trying to undo the Trump validity and give them another go in 4 or so years. Really, seems quite desperate that a man that allowed 270000 wild horses to be sold for horsemeat this year across the border to Mexico, brought HC in to his own cabinet having said 'she will say anything and do nothing', knowing what a nightmare that would make, and is going to watch his healthcare get ripped to shreds, needs more accomplishments in his last year, aka Obama, ergo, let's investigate the evil russians and their female athletes with male DNA ( you would think I am making this stuff up, but I am not ) ... Come on Grandma, where are you when we need you most
    nolongersilent , 9 Dec 2016 20:3
    we must somehow, subvert the despicable populace that elected trump. we must erase from history the conceding of president elect clinton - newpeak from the ministry of truth. we'll get her into the white house if it takes more cash, lies, and corruption. after all, who needs democracy in the democratic party when we have big brother. democracy just confuses the members. we'll send the despicables through the ministry of love to re-educate them, of course, this IS 1984 after all....we will vote for you, the intelligentsia of the left knows what is best for you.
    eldudeabides , 9 Dec 2016 20:3
    Should Hillary have been disqualified (and prosecuted) for having access to debate questions beforehand?
    Nete75 , 9 Dec 2016 20:3
    "Malicious cyber activity, specifically malicious cyber activity tied to our elections , has no place in the international community. Unfortunately this activity is not new to Moscow. We've seen them do this for years ... The president has made it clear to President Putin that this is unacceptable."

    Note how carefully it specifies that it is cyber activity tied to the american elections that is inappropriate. I presume that is simply to avoid openly saying that mass-surveillance by the US government of everyone's private email, and social network accounts doesn't come under that "no place in the international community" phrase. You know, one does wonder how these people's faces don't come off in shame when whinning about potential interference by foreign governemnts after a full 8 years or so of constant revelations of permanent spying and mass-surveillance by the US government of international leaders and ordinary citizens worldwide.

    Boghaunter , 9 Dec 2016 20:2
    So the DNC was hacked - so what. Hacking is so common these days as to be expected. A quick perusal of the internet provides some SIGNIFICANT hacks that deserved some consternation:

    9/4/07 The Chinese government hacked a noncritical Defense Department computer system in June, a Pentagon source told FOX News on Tuesday.

    Spring 2011 Foreign hackers broke into the Pentagon computer system this spring and stole 24,000 files - one of the biggest cyber-attacks ever on the U.S. military,

    On the 12th of July 2011, Booz Allen Hamilton the largest U.S. military defence contractor admitted that they had just suffered a very serious security breach, at the hands of hacktivist group AntiSec.

    5/28/13 The confidential version of a Defense Science Board report compiled earlier this year reportedly says Chinese hackers accessed designs for more than two dozen of the U.S. military's most important and expensive weapon systems.

    June 2014 The UK's National Crime Agency has arrested an unnamed young man over allegations that he breached the Department of Defense's network last June.


    1/12/15 The Twitter account for U.S. Central Command was suspended Monday after it was hacked by ISIS sympathizers (OK twitter accounts shouldn't be a big deal. Why does US CentCom even HAVE a twitter account???)

    5/6/15 OPM hack: China blamed for massive breach of US government data

    Omoikani , 9 Dec 2016 20:2
    And so the neocon propaganda machine trundles on, churning out this interesting material day after day. The elephant in the room is that if you get hacked you have no knowledge of this until your private stuff is all over the internet, and the chances of finding out who did it are zilch. Everyone in IT security knows this.
    johhnybgood , 9 Dec 2016 20:1
    Another "fake news" story. Does anybody with a pulse really believe that Russia hacked the DNC? The US Security Services admitted that it was NOT Russia; the likelihood is that the leaks were provided to Wikileaks by insiders within the US Administration - they wanted to ensure that Hillary did not win. None of the actual revelations were covered by the MSM, and "the Russians did it" was a convenient distraction.
    Omoikani -> johhnybgood , 9 Dec 2016 20:2
    All people that on earth do dwell have no clue who hacked the DNC to the amusing end that Podesta's e-mails ended up on the internet, but it suits a dangerous political narrative to demonise Russia until it becomes plain logical to attack them.
    peterward881 , 9 Dec 2016 20:0
    YES YES let attack Russia, YES YES YES, Russia Russia we should carry on attacking Russia. We the journalists are well paid by the man from Australia. YES YES we must to carry on attacking Russia and forget the shit happening in other countries. YES YES it is our duty.
    guest88888 , 9 Dec 2016 20:0

    Election hacking: Obama orders 'full review' of Russia interference

    And I guess Obama has also ordered the Guardian to do a full court press of anti-Russian propaganda, just judging by the articles pumped out on today's rag alone.

    The US government is seemingly attempting the "Big Lie" tactic of Joseph Goebbels and instigating support in the public for war against Russia. By repeating the completely unsubstantiated allegations that Russia has somehow "interfered with the election" they hope, without any genuine basis, to strong arm the public into accepting a further ramping of tensions and starting yet another illegal war for profit.

    Chirographer , 9 Dec 2016 19:5
    There's nothing wrong with conducting the investigation, but shouldn't it have been done before accusing Russia?

    And aren't all the people cited in the article political appointees, Democrats or avowed Trump enemies, and then there's closing, " A spokesman for the director of national intelligence declined to comment."

    Karega , 9 Dec 2016 19:5
    Surely of all the Orders Obama might issue during his last weeks in office, why does he choose to give a stupid Order that effectively makes US some sort of Banana Republic? This man was/is more hype than real! At a stroke of a pen he seriously undermines the integrity of the US Electoral System. Whatever credibility was left has now been eroded by these constant and silly claims that somehow Russians installed Trump as President. Doesn't that make Trump some sort of Russian Agent?
    Meanwhile MSM keeps on streaming some fake news and theories and then Obama Orders US intelligence to dig deeper. This is lunacy!
    alexfoxy28 , 9 Dec 2016 19:5
    Obama certainly understands that Russia is not the reason why Trump was elected. However, he wants to create new obstacles on the way of normalization of relations between the US and Russia and make it more difficult for Trump.

    However, Trump is not a weak man, not a skinny worm; and he can hit these opponents back so hard that international court for them (for invasions into sovereign countries) will lead to their life sentences.

    Ginen , 9 Dec 2016 19:5
    Only two weeks ago the Obama Administration publicly stated there was no evidence of cybersecurity breaches affecting the electoral process, as reported in the NYT :

    The administration, in its statement, confirmed reports from the Department of Homeland Security and intelligence officials that they did not see "any increased level of malicious cyberactivity aimed at disrupting our electoral process on Election Day."

    The administration said it remained "confident in the overall integrity of electoral infrastructure, a confidence that was borne out." It added: "As a result, we believe our elections were free and fair from a cybersecurity perspective."

    Was Obama lying then or is he lying now?
    imperfetto , 9 Dec 2016 19:5
    Is there any limit to the ridicolous, Mr. Obama? what is this? a tragicomic play of the inept?
    Here we are with the most childish fabrication that it must be the Russians' fault if Trump won the election. I'll be laughing for an entire cosmic era! And all this after US publically announced that they were going to launch a devastating acher attack against the badies: the Russians, which of course didn't work out. Come on, this is more comedy that a serious play.

    What probably is going on, the readers can gather by having a look at the numberless articles that are being published by maistream media against the Russians.
    Why this histeric insurgence of Russofobia? Couldn't it be that it is intolerable for the US and their allies to see the Russians winning in Aleppo, and most of all restoring peace and tollerance among the population returning to their abbandoned homes.

    brothersgrimm , 9 Dec 2016 19:3
    I think Hillary, in part, lost the election due to all the fake news being pumped out by the mainstream corporate media, doing her bidding. People are tired of it, along with all the corruption and lies that came to the surface through the likes of Wikileaks.
    Trump is a terrible alternative, but the only alternative people were given, so many went with it.
    Now we see fake news making out the Russians to be the bad guys again, pumping out story after story, trying to propagandize the population into sucking up these new memes. Russia has its problems, and will always act in its own self-interest, but it's nothing compared to the tactics the US uses, bullying countries around the world to pander to its own will, desperately trying to maintain its Empire.
    RoachAmerican , 9 Dec 2016 19:3
    Examine something real, Nuclear Hillary. It must be time for Spring Planting??
    http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/23/us/clinton-foundation-donations-uranium-investors.html?_r=0

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syEjkPyqRew
    Minutes 20 to 25
    Uranium One Wyoming
    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html

    http://www.npr.org/2015/04/23/401781313/clinton-foundation-linked-to-russian-effort-to-buy-uranium-company
    https://youtu.be/jkfE10g8xbc
    at 25 minutes et seq
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkfE10g8xbc&feature=youtu.be


    Below, first paragraphs are the most important
    http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/five-questions-about-the-clintons-and-a-uranium-company

    The 1 2 3 Step of Acquisition of Uranium One
    http://www.businessinsider.com/the-clintons-putin-and-uranium-2015-4

    Going Private Part Public Company Disappears
    http://www.wise-uranium.org/ucscr.html

    http://www.pravdareport.com/russia/economics/22-01-2013/123551-russia_nuclear_energy-0 /
    Coward Comey needs to go.

    Joelbanks , 9 Dec 2016 19:3
    The scripture tells us those who live by the sword will perish by it.

    America was in the interference of other countries' elections before its ugly 2016 presidential election. Remember Ukraine and Secretary Hillary Clinton's employee Victoria F****the EU Nuland in Ukraine. Now we have the makings of some kind of conflict with Russia over its alleged meddling in America's elections. More global tension= More cash flowing into the US equity market, money printing by another means.

    hardlyeverclever , 9 Dec 2016 19:3
    I'd be surprised if the Russians weren't trying to affect the outcome of the election. The Brits had a debate in Parliament on Trump, Obama made threats to the UK on the Brexit vote, so who knows what we're all doing in each others elections behind closed doors while we are clear to do so publically.

    The MSM's absolute refusal to address the leaks in a meaningful way (other than the stuff about recipes) suggests to be no one felt it a big deal at the time.

    alexfoxy28 , 9 Dec 2016 19:3
    Obama could realise that Hillary's viewes on Putin and Russia did not help her at all. People are not that stupid, they see well, use own brains and not so easily impressed by whatever CNN says to them.
    Alun Jones , 9 Dec 2016 19:2
    John McAfee said that any organization sophisticated enough to do these hacks is also sophisticated enough to make it look as though any country they want did it. So it could have been anyone.
    palindrome , 9 Dec 2016 19:2
    Obama earlier this year: Russia is not a world power, only a regional power.

    Obama now: Russia has the power to manipulate the USA election.

    Which one is it then?

    Of course it's all bull...Obama is another establishment puppet who cannot accept that people have figured out their modus operandi.

    diddoit , 9 Dec 2016 19:2
    It's reported today on Ars Technica : ThyssenKrupp suffered a "professional attack"

    The steelmaker, which makes military subs, says it was targeted from south-east Asia.

    ..the design of its plants were penetrated by a "massive," coordinated attack which made off with an unknown amount of "technological know-how and research."

    The internet and precious information...

    alexfoxy28 , 9 Dec 2016 19:2
    Neoliberals are just desperately losing ideological competition at home and abroad. They cannot convince people that they are right because it's not what's going on.

    It does not matter what some others say, it's what really goes on matters.

    alexfoxy28 -> imipak , 9 Dec 2016 21:0
    But there is innate, basic self-interest in all people (that does not depend on education, ethnicity, race) and people know it instinctively well. They will not go against it even if all around will tell otherwise.
    alexfoxy28 -> alexfoxy28 , 9 Dec 2016 21:1 0 1
    simulacra27 , 9 Dec 2016 19:2
    The fake news channel brought to you by Obama and co.
    p.s. I mean that people cannot be manipulated by others at this basic level when some higher level manipulative tools are used.
    Kasem3000 , 9 Dec 2016 19:1
    I love how this has now become solid fact. No confirmation, nothing official but it is no common fact that the Russians interfered. How many reports do we hear about US interference with foreign countries infastructure through covert means.
    ShoppingKingLouie , 9 Dec 2016 19:1
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/08/vladimir-putin-hillary-clinton-russia

    Meh. Seems like tampering happens all the time. How many elections in South America did the USA fix? How many in the middle east and Africa? I think this "russian's did it" rhetoric is counterproductive as it is stopping Democrats from doing the introspective needed to really understand why HRC lost the election.

    ShoppingKingLouie , 9 Dec 2016 19:1
    How can you on the one hand crusade against "fake news" and on the other promote this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/dec/08/artist-alison-jackson-self-publishes-spoof-trump-photos-despite-fear-of-being-sued#comments

    Sutir Comed , 9 Dec 2016 19:0
    Imagine if the shoe were on the other foot and there was credible evidence that the Russians had rigged the election in favor of the Democrat. The right-wing echo chamber would be having seizures! These people are UTTER HYPOCRITES. And they would obviously rather win with the help of a hostile foreign power than try to preserve the integrity of our elections.
    MayorHoberMallow , 9 Dec 2016 19:0
    Russia may or may not have hacked the DNC. I'd like to find out. I hope the DNC aren't enough of doofusses to assume this wouldn't be in the realm of possibility.
    I presume that the U.S. has its own group of hackers doing the same Worldwide. This is not a criticism; I would expect the U.S. intelligence community to learn what our rivals, and even some of our friends, are up to.
    Timothy Everton , 9 Dec 2016 19:0
    This is getting to be pretty lame. I have doubts that "Russia" could interfere to any great extent with our elections any more than we could with theirs. Sure, individuals or organizations, and more than likely in THIS country, could do so. And they have, as we saw with the DNC and Sanders campaign (and vice versa). Let's not go into an almost inevitable nuclear war over what is quite possibly "fake news".
    dreylon , 9 Dec 2016 19:0
    Russia did this, Russia did that
    its getting very boring now, you have lost all credibility
    you have cried wolf to many times
    stop trying to manipulate us
    Johnny Kent , 9 Dec 2016 18:5
    When will the Democrats get it? It wasn't the Russians, who are blamed for everything, including the weather, by desperate Western failed leaders, but an unsuitable candidate in Clinton, which lost them the Election. Bernie Sanders would have walked it.
    Catonaboat , 9 Dec 2016 18:5
    Well Guardian I do believe you hit a nerve, I don't think I've ever seen a more one sided BTL. Me thinks some people do protest too much.
    Iaorana , 9 Dec 2016 18:5
    Regarding the notorious "fuck the EU " on the part of the US "diplomat" Victoria Nuland "the State Department and the White House suggested that an assistant to the deputy prime minister of Russia Dmitry Rogozin was the source of the leak, which he denied " Wiki

    Good occasion to substantiate the accusation which ,substantiated or not,will remind the "useful idiots" of the "change of regime " US policy and who started the Ukrainian crisis.

    Lafcadio1944 , 9 Dec 2016 18:5
    Boy, oh boy, fake news is everywhere just read this headline!

    Election hacking: Obama orders 'full review' of Russia interference

    Which states as fact there was interference by Russia and that the investigation is to determine how bad it was. NO EVIDENCE WHAT SO EVER has been offered by anyone that Russia interfered in any way. FAKE NEWS!!

    Mike5000 , 9 Dec 2016 18:5
    Voting machine hacking is a very serious problem but you generally need physical access to a voting machine to hack it. Anyone notice thousands of Russians hanging around in Detriot, Los Angeles, etc election HQs? How about Clinton drones?

    If the DNC hadn't rigged the primary we'd be celebrating president-elect Bernie. If they hadn't rigged the general Hillary would have lost by a landslide.

    ShoppingKingLouie , 9 Dec 2016 18:5
    We never investigated this tho did we Former President Obama?

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/08/vladimir-putin-hillary-clinton-russia

    Time to put on your big girl pants, accept defeat and leave gracefully.

    Powerspike , 9 Dec 2016 18:5
    1000 Russian athletes were doping in the 2012 Olympics - but it's taken until now to realise it?!
    Russia influenced the 2016 US election?!
    Russia is presently "influencing" the German elections?!
    Russia is killing civilians and destroying hospitals with impunity in Syria?!
    etc
    Wow! Russia is taking over the world, it must be stopped, can anyone save us? Obama? Trump? NATO?
    Look out! Russian armies are massing on the border ready to sweep into Europe.......arrhhh!

    I love the smell of gibberish in the morning!

    geofffrey , 9 Dec 2016 18:4
    ***Newsflash***

    Reads:

    "..ex-prime minister Anthony Charles Lynton Blair of the United Kingdom, and Hillary Rodham Clinton of the United States of America, have formally announced a new transatlantic political party to be named: The Neoliberal Elite Party for bitter anti-Brexiters and sore anti-Trumpettes.

    dahsab , 9 Dec 2016 18:4
    Rather rich coming from my country which has interfered in elections around the world for decades. I suppose it's only cheating if the other team does it.

    Not that they'll find any evidence. Just another chapter in the sad saga of the Democrats unwillingness to admit they ran the worst candidate & the worst campaign in recent memory. It's not our fault! Them dirty Russkies did it!

    [Dec 10, 2016] McCarthys Smiling Ghost Democrats Point the Finger at Russia by Norman Solomon

    Notable quotes:
    "... Joe McCarthy rose to corrosive prominence at the midpoint of the 20th century by riding hysteria and spurring it on. The demagoguery was fueled not only by opportunistic politicians but also by media outlets all too eager to damage the First Amendment and other civil liberties in the name of Americanism and anti-communism. ..."
    "... Most Democratic leaders, for their part, seem determined to implicitly - or even explicitly - scapegoat the Russian government for the presidential election results. Rather than clearly assess the impacts of Hillary Clinton 's coziness with Wall Street, or even the role of the FBI director just before the election, the Democratic line seems bent on playing an anti-Russia card. ..."
    www.counterpunch.org

    This country went through protracted witch hunts during the McCarthy era. A lot of citizens - including many government workers - had their lives damaged or even destroyed. The chill on the First Amendment became frosty, then icy. Democracy was on the ropes.

    Joe McCarthy rose to corrosive prominence at the midpoint of the 20th century by riding hysteria and spurring it on. The demagoguery was fueled not only by opportunistic politicians but also by media outlets all too eager to damage the First Amendment and other civil liberties in the name of Americanism and anti-communism.

    Today, congressional leaders of both parties seem glad to pretend that Section 501 of the Intelligence Authorization Act is just fine, rather than an odious and dangerous threat to precious constitutional freedoms. On automatic pilot, many senators will vote aye without a second thought.

    Yet by rights, with growing grassroots opposition , this terrible provision should be blocked by legislators in both parties, whether calling themselves progressives, liberals, libertarians, Tea Partyers or whatever, who don't want to chip away at cornerstones of the Bill of Rights.

    Most Democratic leaders, for their part, seem determined to implicitly - or even explicitly - scapegoat the Russian government for the presidential election results. Rather than clearly assess the impacts of Hillary Clinton 's coziness with Wall Street, or even the role of the FBI director just before the election, the Democratic line seems bent on playing an anti-Russia card.

    Perhaps in the mistaken belief that they can gain some kind of competitive advantage over the GOP by charging Russian intervention for Donald Trump 's victory, the Democrats are playing with fire. The likely burn victims are the First Amendment and other precious freedoms.

    [Dec 10, 2016] Whos Behind PropOrNots Blacklist of News Websites

    From Wikipedia article Communist propaganda. "....the term "propaganda" broadly refers to any publication or campaign aimed at promoting a cause and is/was used for official purposes by most communist-oriented governments. Rooted in Marxist thought, the propaganda of communism is viewed by its proponents as the vehicle for spreading the enlightenment of working class people and pulling them away from the propaganda of their oppressors that reinforces their exploitation, such as religion or consumerism. A Bolshevik theoretician, Nikolai Bukharin, in his The ABC of Communism wrote:[1] The State propaganda of communism becomes in the long run a means for the eradication of the last traces of bourgeois propaganda dating from the old régime; and it is a powerful instrument for the creation of a new ideology, of new modes of thought, of a new outlook on the world.
    Similarly neoliberal propaganda is the vehicle of spreading neoliberal ideas and "neoliberal rationality" inside the country and all over the world the reinforces key postulated of neoliberalism -- unlimited "free market" for transnational corporations, deregulation, suppression of wages via "free movement of labor" and outsourcing and offshoring, decimation of labor unions and organized labor in general (atomization of working force"), "greed is good" memo, etc.
    Like Communist propaganda during Brezhnev rule, neoliberal propaganda after 2008 is in crisis, and it is natural to expect that neoliberal propagandists will resort to heavy handed tactic of McCarthyism in a vain attempt to restore its influence.
    wallstreetonparade.com
    Wall Street On Parade closely examined the report issued by PropOrNot, its related Twitter page, and its registration as a business in New Mexico, looking for "tells" as to the individual(s) behind it. We learned quite a number of interesting facts.

    As part of its McCarthyite tactics, PropOrNot has developed a plugin to help readers censor material from the websites it has blacklisted. It calls that its YYYCampaignYYY. In that effort, it lists an official address of 530-B Harkle Road, Suite 100, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505. That's one of those agent addresses that serve as a virtual address for the creation of limited liability corporations that want to keep their actual principals secret. The address has dozens of businesses associated with it. There should also be a corresponding business listed in the online archives of the business registry at the Secretary of State of New Mexico. However, no business with the words Propaganda or PropOrNot or YYY exist in the New Mexico business registry, suggesting PropOrNot is using a double cloaking device to shield its identity by registering under a completely different name.

    PropOrNot's Twitter page provides a "tell" that its report may simply be a hodgepodge compilation of other people's research that was used to arrive at its dangerous assertion that critical thinkers across America are a clandestine network of Russian propaganda experts. Its Tweet on November 7 indicates that the research of Peter Pomerantsev, a Senior Fellow at the Legatum Institute in London, who has also been cooperating on research with the Information Warfare Project of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in Washington, D.C, inspired its efforts.

    According to SourceWatch, the Legatum Institute "is a right-wing think tank promoting 'free markets, free minds, and free peoples.' " SourceWatch adds that the Legatum Institute "is a project founded and funded by the Legatum Group, a private investment group based in Dubai." According to the Internet Archive known as the Wayback Machine, the Center for European Policy Analysis previously indicated it was an affiliate of the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). We can see why they might want to remove that affiliation now that the Koch brothers have been exposed as funders of a very real network of interrelated websites and nonprofits. According to Desmog, NCPA has received millions of dollars in funding from right wing billionaires like the Koch brothers and their related trusts along with the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation (heir to the Mellon fortune) along with corporations like ExxonMobil.

    CEPA's InfoWar Project is currently listed as a "Related Project" at PropOrNot's website. Indeed, there are numerous references within the report issued by PropOrNot that sound a familiar refrain to Pomerantsev and/or CEPA. Both think the U.S. Congress is in denial on the rising dangers of Russian propaganda and want it to take more direct counter measures. Pages 31 and 32 of the PropOrNot report urge the American people to demand answers from the U.S. government about how much it knows about Russian propaganda. The report provides a detailed list of specific questions that should be asked.

    In the August 2016 report released by CEPA (the same month the PropOrNot Twitter account was established) Pomerantsev and his co-author, Edward Lucas, recommend the establishment of "An international commission under the auspices of the Council of Europe on the lines of the Venice Commission" to "act as a broadcasting badge of quality. If an official body cannot be created, then an NGO could play a similar advisory role."

    On its website, PropOrNot recommends a much stronger censorship of independent media websites, writing:

    "We call on the American public to Obtain news from actual reporters, who report to an editor and are professionally accountable for mistakes. We suggest NPR, the BBC, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Buzzfeed News, VICE, etc, and especially your local papers and local TV news channels. Support them by subscribing, if you can!"

    It has been the experience of Wall Street On Parade that the editors of the New York Times are more than willing to ignore brazen misreporting of critical facts, even when the errors are repeatedly brought to their attention; even when those erroneous facts are then repeated by the President of the United States. (See our report: President Obama Repeats the Falsehoods of the New York Times and Andrew Ross Sorkin on Restoring the Glass-Steagall Act.)

    CounterPunch was quick to point out that the Washington Post's former publisher, Philip Graham, supervised a disinformation network for the CIA during the Cold War, known as Mockingbird. Graham was reported to have died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his farm in 1963.

    CEPA's website indicates that on May 10 it hosted Senators Chris Murphy and Rob Portman to discuss "Russia's sophisticated disinformation campaign." CEPA's President, A. Wess Mitchell is quoted as saying: "What's missing is a significant effort on the part of the U.S. government. Not nearly enough has been done."

    Six days after Washington Post reporter Craig Timberg ran his first PropOrNot story, he published another article indicating that "Congressional negotiators on Wednesday approved an initiative to track and combat foreign propaganda amid growing concerns that Russian efforts to spread 'fake news' and disinformation threaten U.S. national security." Quoted in the story was none other than the very Senator who had met with CEPA in May on that very topic, Senator Rob Portman.

    Portman is quoted as follows: "This propaganda and disinformation threat is real, it's growing, and right now the U.S. government is asleep at the wheel." Among Portman's top three donors to his 2016 Senate race were Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, two Wall Street behemoths that would very much like to pivot the national debate to anything other than Wall Street power and corruption.

    [Dec 10, 2016] NBCs Fake News King Brian Williams Launches Crusade Against Fake News

    Notable quotes:
    "... Fake News, the new barrel bombs meme ..."
    "... Sorry, Brian, but you and your ilk sold your credibility for a full investment position in Hillary and Globalism. Your only recourse now is to attack and try to delegitamize those who call you out. ..."
    Dec 10, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com

    Now this is rich. Brian Williams, the disgraced ex-NBC journalist who was literally fired for falsely reporting that he was in a helicopter during the Iraq war that took on combatant fire, is now going on a crusade against "fake news." On his MSNBC show last night, Williams decided to attack retired General Flynn and Donald Trump for spreading "fake news" via their twitter accounts.

    ... ... ...

    nuubee •Dec 9, 2016 11:42 AM

    I'm going to start reading The Onion and taking it seriously now.

    nope-1004 -> Pladizow •Dec 9, 2016 11:48 AM

    At least he wasn't in real harms way, like Hillary, when she landed under sniper fire.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMpqImAjel4

    NoDebt -> Life of Illusion •Dec 9, 2016 12:02 PM

    It's like [neo]Liberals are genetically compelled or something to accuse others of what they themselves are actually doing. I've never seen anything this universally true for an entire group of people suffering the same mental illness ([neo]liberalism).

    nmewn -> MillionDollarBonus_ Dec 9, 2016 1:24 PM ,
    Accredit this you fucking bozo...

    The Iraq RPG Helicopter Hit

    - "A terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG." - NBC Nightly News, January 30, 2015

    - "It was no more than 120 seconds later that the helicopter in front of us was hit." - Brian Williams to Tim Russert on CNBC, March 2005

    - "I was instead following the aircraft" [that was struck by the RPG]. - NBC Nightly News, Wednesday February 5, 2015

    - Williams' original [March 26, 2003, NBC News] report indicated that a helicopter in front of his was hit. - PolitiFact

    - NBC publishes a book [in 2003], "Operation Iraqi Freedom," in which they describe Williams' experience, implying that his helicopter sustained fire. - PolitiFact

    - May 2008: Williams writes another [NBC News] blog, responding to a note from a soldier who he met in Iraq. In this post, Williams indicates that he was in a helicopter that took fire. - PolitiFact

    - "I've done some ridiculously stupid things under that banner, like being in a helicopter I had no business being in Iraq with rounds coming into the airframe," he said [to Alec Baldwin in March 2014] - PolitiFact

    - "We were in some helicopters. What we didn't know was, we were north of the invasion. We were the northernmost Americans in Iraq. We were going to drop some bridge portions across the Euphrates so the Third Infantry could cross on them. Two of the four helicopters were hit, by ground fire, including the one I was in, RPG and AK-47. - Williams to Letterman on March 26, 2013 - PolitiFact.

    - In the initial NBC broadcast where he described his 2003 Iraq reporting mission, embattled NBC anchor Brian Williams falsely claimed that "we saw the guy . . . [who] put a round through the back of a chopper," which he further and incorrectly claimed was "the Chinook [helicopter] in front of us." - Breitbart

    - "We flew over a bridge. He waved to the lead pilot very kindly. With that someone else removed the tarp, stood up, and put a round through the back of a chopper missing the rear rotor by four or five feet." - To Tom Brokaw on March 26, 2003 - Breitbart

    - "[Y]ou go back to Iraq, and I looked down the tube of an RPG that had been fired at us and it hit the chopper in front of ours." - Williams to Fairfield University in 2007 - Ace of Spades

    SEAL Team 6 Tale

    - "We have some idea which of our special operations teams carried this out," Williams said on "The Late Show With David Letterman" the day after the raid [May 2, 2011]. "It happens to be a team I flew into Baghdad with, on the condition that I would never speak of what I saw on the aircraft, what aircraft we were on, what we were carrying, or who we were after." - Huffington Post

    - "Now, people might be hearing about SEAL Team 6," Williams said the next night, May 3, 2011, on "Nightly News." "I happen to have the great honor of flying into Baghdad with them at the start of the war." - Huffington Post

    - "I flew into Baghdad, invasion plus three days, on a blackout mission at night with elements of SEAL Team 6, and I was told not to make any eye contact with them or initiate any conversation," Williams said. (Three days after the U.S. invasion would have been March 22, 2003, not April 9, 2003, which was the day Williams broadcasted from the Baghdad airport.) - To David Letterman in May of 2012 - Huffinton Post

    - In the 2012 "Late Show" appearance, Williams also recalled carrying a box of Wheat Thins, which he said a hungry special operator dug into with a "hand the size of a canned ham." They got to talking, and Williams told the commando how much he admired his knife. "Darned if that knife didn't show up at my office a couple weeks later," Williams told Letterman. - Huffington Post

    - "About six weeks after the Bin Laden raid, I got a white envelope and in it was a thank-you note, unsigned," Williams said on "Letterman" in January 2013. "And in it was a piece of the fuselage of the blown-up Black Hawk in that courtyard. Sent to me by one of my friends." - Huffington Post

    - In February 2014, Williams elaborated on the helicopter gift in another media appearance, this time on the sports talk show hosted by Dan Patrick. "It's one of the toughest things to get," he said, "and the president has a piece of it as well It's made of a material most people haven't seen or held in their hands." - Huffington Post

    Fall of the Berlin Wall

    - "I've been so fortunate," he said during a 2008 forum at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. "I was at the Brandenburg Gate the night the wall came down." - CNN

    - "Here's a fact: 25 years ago tonight, Tom Brokaw and I were at the Berlin Wall," Williams said at a gala held on November 8, 2014. - CNN

    The Pope

    - "I was there during the visit of the pope," Williams said [in 2002]. - CNN

    - While delivering the commencement address at Catholic University that year [2004], Williams said the "highlight" of his time at the school "was in this very doorway, shaking hands with the Holy Father during his visit to this campus." - CNN

    Katyusha Rocket Fire

    - "There were Katyusha rockets passing just beneath the helicopter I was riding in," he told a student interviewer from Fairfield (Conn.) University that year [2007]. - Washington Post

    Katrina

    - "All of us watched [in the Superdome] as one man committed suicide." - Williams to Tom Brokaw, at Columbia University in 2013 .

    –. My week, two weeks there was not helped by the fact that I accidentally ingested some of the floodwater. I became very sick with dysentery." - Williams to Tom Brokaw at Columbia University in 2013.

    - "Our hotel was overrun with gangs. I was rescued in the stairwell of a five-star hotel in New Orleans by a young police officer – we are friends to this day." - Williams to Tom Brokaw at Columbia University in 2013.

    - "When you look out of your hotel window in the French Quarter and watch a man float by face down, when you see bodies that you last saw in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, and swore to yourself that you would never see in your country," Williams told Eisner [in 2006], who suggested in the interview that Williams emerged from former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw's shadow with his Katrina coverage. - USA Today

    - In Williams's telling, the pathos of the scene extended to his crew's access to food. "We were desperate for food and drink. But not like the people we were seeing in the streets," he said in the documentary "In His Own Words: Brian Williams on Hurricane Katrina." - Washington Post

    Puppy Rescue

    - "I remember one such house fire - the structure was fully involved with flames and smoke. I was wearing a breathing apparatus, conducting a search on my hands and knees, when I felt something warm, squishy and furry on the floor of a closet. I instinctively tucked it in my coat." - October 2011, USA Today

    - "All I ever did as a volunteer fireman was once save two puppies." - January 2007, Esquire

    Christmas Tree Robbery

    In a 2005 interview with Esquire magazine, Williams said a thief drew on him in the 1970s - leaving him "looking up at a thug's snub-nosed .38 while selling Christmas trees out of the back of a truck." – NY Post

    Quitting College

    - "One day, I'm at the copy machine in the White House and Walter Mondale comes up behind me and clears his throat. A classic throat-clearing. I thought people only did that in movies, but it turns out vice-presidents do it, too. Anyway, it makes for an exceptionally good morning, and I run from the White House to the GW campus for class. I'm still wearing my West Wing hard pass on a chain, and when my professor sees it, he admits that he's only been to the White House on the public tour. And I thought to myself, This is costing me money that I don't have, and I'm a young man in too much of a hurry. So I left school." - Brian Williams to Esquire , 2005

    - But then a friend invited him to drive to Washington, D.C., for a weekend, and everything changed. Smitten with the city and its youthful energy, Williams decided to move there. He transferred what credits he could from Brookdale to Catholic University and took a job in the public relations department to help pay his expenses. He landed an internship at the White House, and when that ended, he answered an ad for a clerking job at a broadcasting association. - 2009, New Jersey-Star Ledger

    Ms No nmewn Dec 9, 2016 10:08 PM ,
    It's just amazing what a shameless loser this guy has always been. I was surprised that they even fired him for contriving this story, that is after all, what they do. The whole idea behind embedding journalists was to make them part of the team, which prevents subjective journalism (not that there was a risk of that happening with him) and turning the war into a fictionalized patriotic orgy of bullshit reality TV. This was a huge shame to the profession of journalism before you factor in the lies and perpetual fabrication.

    The only reason he was fired was due to the fact that we were in the throws of a giant national masturbation frenzy over military aggression and the military and it's endeavors became untouchable overnight. When they got pissed off during that time frame it definitely mattered, not so much now. Now they are just screwing them and everybody else. These news anchors are absolutely disgusting, just about every one of them. They all look like pumpkins and hookers. They need to lay off the hairspray and man-makeup before throwing themselves into 170 degree acidic geyser (you don't want it too hot).

    Perimetr Ms No Dec 9, 2016 10:44 PM
    These ratfuck pressitutes haven't noticed Clinton lost the election because we stopped buying the MSM lies nothing there that's worthwhile to read based on his stupidity here.
    The Saint NewHugh Dec 9, 2016 10:11 PM ,
    Similar to Brian Williams, here is a short documentary on what makes George Soros such an evil person.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aETpLQ7WcM

    Paul E. Math NoDebt Dec 9, 2016 9:21 PM ,
    Brian Willians has been discredited and should either retire or find another job. But also, and I'm serious about this, Pizzagate is a ridiculous made-up bullshit story that is distracting everyone from the real issues and the way that the Dems have fucked our whole civilization for real, not just a few kids that likely never even happened.

    Even if pizzagate is real it is far less important than the many real ways in which the elites have fucked us all.

    Uzda Farce AllTimeWhys Dec 9, 2016 12:10 PM ,
    Brian Williams is a member of the Rockefeller/CFR along with Mika Brzezinski and Charles "Joe" Scarborough. See member lists at cfr dot org.

    "The fact that we will not reestablish [another] Walter Cronkite, because of technology... does not mean we can't have people who are trusted. Brian Williams is sitting here , Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric..."

    -- CFR media control roundtable , sponsored by Time-Warner, 2009-09

    J S Bach Uzda Farce Dec 9, 2016 12:18 PM ,
    Hubris and hypocrisy... the two things the MSM is best at.
    NotApplicable J S Bach Dec 9, 2016 1:02 PM ,
    With over a century of government schooling to dumb down the population, I'd say their lack of tact is fairly well warranted, given the average length of attention span can likely be measured in hours.
    TeamDepends Uzda Farce Dec 9, 2016 12:20 PM ,
    All we can do is tell the unawake to turn off the idiot box, stop ingesting Kellogg's etc etc. Every day we win a few more battles, and one day come to realize the enemy are all lying on the ground, motionless.
    Bam_Man NoDebt Dec 9, 2016 1:05 PM ,
    It's called PROJECTION.

    A very common symptom of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

    Other symptoms include:

  • Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance
  • Expecting to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it
  • Exaggerating your achievements and talents
  • Being preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate
  • Believing that you are superior and can only be understood by or associate with equally special people
  • Requiring constant admiration
  • Having a sense of entitlement
  • Expecting special favors and unquestioning compliance with your expectations
  • Taking advantage of others to get what you want
  • Having an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others
  • Being envious of others and believing others envy you
  • Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner
  • Dimwit Life of Illusion Dec 9, 2016 1:00 PM ,
    EVIDENTLY NOT,

    Obama orders review of cyber attacks on 2016 election – adviser

    President Barack Obama directed US intelligence agencies to conduct a full review of cyber attacks and foreign intervention into the 2016 election and deliver a report before he leaves office, homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco said on Friday. Monaco told reporters the results of the report would be shared with lawmakers and others. Obama leaves office on January 20. (Reuters)

    EscapeKey LowerSlowerDelaware_LSD Dec 9, 2016 11:54 AM ,
    here's some more fake news from nbc

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgm3_jzcNm4

    Whalley World EscapeKey Dec 9, 2016 12:34 PM ,
    Fake News, the new barrel bombs meme
    Antifaschistische LowerSlowerDelaware_LSD Dec 9, 2016 11:58 AM ,
    remember, this has nothing to do with fake news. This has everything to do with competition. THe MSM is getting too much competition from independent bloggers and opinions that don't follow their narrative. Their goal now......figure out some way to shut them down.
    mary mary Antifaschistische Dec 9, 2016 12:06 PM ,
    Amazing! People find truth more interesting than the MSM pablum of misdirection and misinformation.
    LyLo Antifaschistische Dec 9, 2016 12:29 PM ,
    And that's the entirety of the issue: if McCain had won in 2008, we'd have been hearing about fake news then. It really is just that we had the audacity to disagree with the legacy media--who for the first time in my memory broke every rule they had for themselves in appearing to cover all sides--to try to corral the US public into voting for their candidate of choice. Even Fox News was anti-Trump, for fuck's sake: did they not realize that gave away the game?!

    Ironically, I feel if the media hadn't been so in-the-bag for Clinton from the start, I wouldn't be surprised if she had won. The media lost her A LOT of votes by making it look like, whether true or not, they had been bought off. (Yeah, I know they were. But they aren't supposed to APPEAR it; Clinton should ask for a refund, in my opinion.)

    So yeah; look forward to media licensing being floated, and somehow requiring credentials for journalists (which will end with needing to be 'certified,' which will inevitably require an expensive several year trip to your university daycare of choice.)

    Will it work? Actually, for once, I have hope: I don't think it will. In fact, I suspect fairly soon, someone is going to notice that Thomas Payne was probably the first purveyor of "fake news" in this country, and that's a fucked up thing to be against as an American.

    MANvsMACHINE LyLo Dec 9, 2016 1:03 PM ,
    Fox News was anti-Trump?
    equity_momo LyLo Dec 9, 2016 8:53 PM ,
    BS. If McCain won in 2008 we'd already be in an actual fucking hot war with Russia. 2008 was a wet-dream for Soros and his boys. They got to win big or win FUCKING BIG.
    flaminratzazz LowerSlowerDelaware_LSD Dec 9, 2016 12:06 PM ,
    This is all a distraction from the tribes FULL COURT PRESS

    again, just like I said yesterday about recognizing evil look at their eyes

    The eyes

    equity_momo LowerSlowerDelaware_LSD Dec 9, 2016 8:48 PM ,
    Heres an idea. How about we play the "Fake News Game"

    I say something that could be true or false , you reply with your answer and then its your turn.

    "Hillary Clinton has only been on the Lolita Express 6 times" True or False ?

    equity_momo equity_momo Dec 9, 2016 9:04 PM ,
    Its TRUE!

    The FBI found State Dept emails showing that Hillary Clinton went to "Orgy Island" at least 6 times - and at least once in the company of convicted pedo Jeffrey Epstein. (Bill Clinton went there "at least 20 times" - those pesky progressives!)

    El Oregonian nope-1004 Dec 9, 2016 11:50 AM ,
    Oh yeah, him and pope poopagolio are the "Real" ones... PLEASE! (FLAKE NEWS!: as in snowflakes)
    Chupacabra-322 El Oregonian Dec 9, 2016 12:03 PM ,
    Brian,

    You are the epitome of and exactly exactly the type of vile, disgusting, reprehensible Scum at the bottom of the Swap. A bottom feeder at best.

    The Presstitute Centrailized Media has been exposed for the farce that it is. The obvious denial of it simply exposes the Sociopathic / Psychopathic Nature of you vile Scum Fucks.

    Accept it. The Public has lost all respect for the Centrailzed Industrial Complex Presstitiute Media.

    Son of Loki El Oregonian Dec 9, 2016 12:03 PM ,
    The Libtards are desperate to attack Russia and start WW III, bailout Wall Street again and keep the Swamp parasites in power in DC to keep the gravy train flowing.

    MSM and Dem lies get Yuuuger every day...it's almost laughable but they are actually very dangerous people and thus, we need to protect the 2nd to protect us from them if they get to desperate.

    Miss Expectations nope-1004 Dec 9, 2016 12:03 PM ,
    Part of me is sorry that our military didn't drop Hillary and Chelsea off in Tuzla, Bosnia amid snipper fire.
    sgt_doom Pladizow Dec 9, 2016 1:27 PM ,
    False assumption, my friend!

    There has never been an actual media in America to begin with --- just go back and check out the trash that the Pulitzer fellow wrote, and then realize why that prize is awarded to the riff-raff who usually receive it.

    Yup, I remember Brian . . .

    https://memegenerator.net/instance/59167575

    What a piece of crapola.

    RU4Au Pladizow Dec 9, 2016 1:29 PM ,
    Suicide, indeed!

    Sorry, Brian, but you and your ilk sold your credibility for a full investment position in Hillary and Globalism. Your only recourse now is to attack and try to delegitamize those who call you out.

    EAT ROCKS, PRICK!

    chubbar Pladizow Dec 9, 2016 8:55 PM ,
    The gig is up for these MSM pantywaists and they know it. The only way they maintain viewership is if the gov't shuts down the internet, which it may. These little fucktards like williams are some of the biggest purveyors of bullshit in the history of mankind and they know we are on to their game. No one is going back to believing anything these assholes say except for the most partisan, retarded, misinformed of the US population.
    stocker84 nuubee Dec 9, 2016 11:50 AM ,
    Wait, the onion is not a real news souce?

    Get outta here!

    This is real isn't it?

    http://www.theonion.com/article/cia-realizes-its-been-using-black-highli...

    trumpala Dec 9, 2016 11:43 AM ,
    McCarthyism 2.0 against the independent information
    Rebel yell Dec 9, 2016 12:10 PM ,
    Main Stream news - earning the respect and trust of 6% of Americans!
    Dangerous Fake News Epidemic!
    Yes We Can. But... Dec 9, 2016 12:20 PM ,
    MSM = MainStream Media

    It died and is being reincarnated as:

    FNM - The Fake News Media

    Heretofore, please refer to the former MSM as the FNM. Thank you.

    Squidbilly Dec 9, 2016 12:37 PM ,
    the news organizations are all propped up to keep the global culture industry operational. If they were to be displaced by conscious consumers of worth while real news, like the kind that's now starting to make it's way through the alternative media, they would only exist for viewers who were being groomed for social unrest. Oh wait, that's what their doing now isn't it?
    2muchtax Dec 9, 2016 12:38 PM ,
    This is the opportunity to wake people up that you care about. If nothing else you can show that the news is all coordinated. There is no possibility that in a free competitive market every org would repeat the same message from the same perspective.

    I have taken advantage of the oligarchs sloppiness. People who thought I was crazy two years ago are now acknowledging I was right. I have delivered news to people and two weeks later it was a breaking story. Take the opportunity and bring a few more people over.

    Robert Trip Dec 9, 2016 12:41 PM ,
    Not only has Williams got hot combat experience but he's also rescued countless folks right here at home form car wrecks and burning buildings.

    And this guy is a regular Batman for thwarting armed robberies and terrorist attacks.

    Let's cut the guy some slack on this.

    He sure has the street cred.

    Atomizer Dec 9, 2016 12:48 PM ,
    Brian,

    Ever hear about NYT vs Sullivan? 1964, before I was born.

    http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/commonlaw.htm

    Then you have the 1998 telecommunications Act signed by Bill Clinton. Next,

    Shh! Don't criticize the government or they will send you to the Gulag! HR 6393

    Text of H.R. 6393 : Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 (Received by the Senate version) - GovTrack.us

    Highlights of H.R. 6393 ,

    Driving your own into the Media coffin. Do you honestly think we will be forced to watch your shit? I think not...

    CIA FAKE NEWS Propaganda!! Full Documentary 2015 - YouTube

    Mike Masr Dec 9, 2016 1:51 PM ,
    The only truly fake news is the US MSM. This bullshit that is called "news" is filled with omissions, distortions, half truths, bald faced lies and fabrications. This is the "official narrative" the Kool Aid that we are all supposed to drink. Remember how the MSM colluded with the Bush Administration's neocons to sell the bullshit Iraq WMD story that was presented to the UN by Colin Powell? Total bullshit. How can anyone believe anything that is fed to us from the MSM.

    Ironic but the guy I'm going to tell you about was featured on 60 minutes. You know what I love is when the US State Department or the MSM quotes the UK Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. This is a little old man in a dingy apartment in a slum Arab neighborhood in London. This old fucking guy claims to know whats going on in Syria. Actually this is a neocon propaganda mill for the CIA It's comments, suggestions and conclusions are solely based upon an official narrative created by the CIA and sold to us through the MSM.

    Look at the pre-election coverage and non-stop polling data talked about by all the MSM boneheads including this Brian Williams jack off. Donald Trump was continously slammed, over and over again by *all of them.*The exception was Sean Hannity. Now look at the partial list of donors to crooked Hillary's campaign.

    The list of donors to the Clinton campaign included many of the most powerful media institutions in the country - among the donors: Comcast (which owns NBC, and its cable sister channels, such as MSNBC); James Murdoch of News Corporation (owner of Fox News and its sister stations, among many other media holdings); Time Warner (CNN, HBO, scores of other channels); Bloomberg; Reuters; Viacom; Howard Stringer (of CBS News); AOL (owner of Huffington Post); Google; Twitter; The Washington Post Company; George Stephanopoulos (host of ABC News' flagship Sunday show); PBS; PRI; the Hearst Corporation and others ( http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/37451-the-clinton-foundation-and-the-... ).

    Trump is correct when he says the US media is crooked. It's all fucking fake news!!

    Post election- I now watch local news for traffic and weather in the morning. But fuck them I will not listen to the MSM talking heads or anything else on the crooked MSM. To know whats going on in the world I now watch RT which presents an objective and honest perspective of what's really going on in the world. Of course they call RT fake news, or Russian propaganda. All I can say is they can go fuck themselves! I am sick and tired of the lies and bullshit which is the official US narrative as presented by our 100% crooked MSM!

    The real fake news is presented by the liars in our MSM!

    SirBarksAlot Dec 9, 2016 1:47 PM ,
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EZezBEeRHw

    Spoof on Brian Williams.

    HeyThere Dec 9, 2016 3:21 PM ,
    Brian Williams (known liar) warns against Fake News?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EZezBEeRHw
    GreatUncle Dec 9, 2016 3:31 PM ,
    Lol makes no difference now ... I left the MSM, never read it anymore.

    I am no longer misinformed by them - that's a bonus.

    I now prefer news from other nations because domestically it is all the fucking same from the libtards and progressives of more people murdered because of some shit they created. Still get drug addicts committing crime just like all them illegal immigrants because with no money you have to commit a crime to exist. We all know that domestically your bankers are robbing you and that the politicians are lying pieces of shit.

    So why would I want to read what I already know? Nope don't need it.

    Bye, bye NBC and the rest of you I can predict what the stories you will run with tomorrow because they are the same fucking lies like the past 30 years.

    StreetObserver Dec 9, 2016 9:04 PM ,
    Attack the MSM by attacking their ability to sell advertising.

    "That newspaper you are advertising in has been wrong on everything, from going into Iraq to recommending that loser Hillary Clinton to the final election results. If you are advertising in that dishonest discredited rag, your product or service is being tarnished by association. "

    "Just watch President Elect Trump's Thank You Tour speech. Tens of thousands of people loudly booed the press and the media that were there. You really want to spend your money buying ads from those discredited losers?"

    847328_3527 Dec 9, 2016 9:16 PM ,
    The neocons and fascist Democrat factions are joining forces looks like and as desperate as can be. They've lied since day one, bombed RNC offices, beat innocent people up at Trump rallys, published non-stop fake news, and now pull the "Russian agent" theory out of their closet.

    Most Americans laugh at these nuts but I think they are very scary and serious since they have alot of money invested in Queeb Hillary and war with Russia.

    Rebel yell Dec 9, 2016 10:01 PM ,
    The Washington Post ( fake news organization) is reporting that the CIA secretly informed the senate last week that there was Russian interference in our election and that it was Russia's goal to ensure the election of Donald Trump. Apparently the house was informed in September and was questioned if this should be made public and the Republicams said no, according to the Washington Post - the source identified himself as " DNC in deep shit" . /Sarc.

    Rachel Maddow was gleefully reporting on this tonight, as if it somehow vindicated her and her morally bankrupt colleagues from the fact that they should have been reporting on this rather than the Russians, since it is an American election and it is their job to investigate and report the news.

    Of course Obama has decided to keep this information secret, although, 7 "Democratic " senators were requesting that the Obama administration released PARTS of the findings of the investigation which can only lead one to question which PARTS they would prefer to keep from the American public and why. It also is a concern of national security that national secrets are ending up on the Washington Post- maybe they received this information from Russia.

    Mitch McConell was reported to have been dismissive of the allegations as a result of the lack of agreement over the evidence among the 17 security agencies involved, the lack of any source directly linking the Russian government to releasing DNC hacked emails to the Wikileaks
    This also begs to question Rachel Maddow on her lack of outrage of the behavior of the DNC in colluding with the press and rigging the primary. As if to say, since Russia revealed the information and the wrong doing of the DNC, it is not a question of if the behavior of the DNC was just or unjust.

    Nor does it vindicate any Hillary supporter, it does not legitimize what the DNC, the press, or Hillary Clinton did.

    Leave it to the incompetent Washington Post and MSNBC and Rachel Maddow to completely miss the ball again.

    Is it surprising to anyone that Russia did not wish for world war 3?

    Thanks comrades!

    Kina Dec 9, 2016 10:07 PM ,
    Washington Post CNN Madow DNC credibility approaching zero plus they already did the 'Russians did it' thing.

    The probs them Dems has that THEY were in power when whatever happened ..happened.

    Rjoins Dec 9, 2016 10:19 PM ,
    We don't have to be too concerned about fake news pumped out by Russia and other evil doers. That job is being well handled already by NBC, CNN, the New York Times, and others.

    In this post-truth world, these openly left-biased media organizations can rival Pravada of the old Soviet Union in their laughable news reports, lack of integrity, and willingness to suppress news they don't want known while publishing outright propaganda.

    In a democracy where citizens must make informed decisions about governments, politicians and issues, it seems to me that the people behind these corrupt media outlets are just debasing their country; I imagine they at least get well paid for their treachery.

    Curious how, having destroyed their own credibility and lost so many viewers and readers, these organizations are now attacking their new, smaller divergent rivals on the internet.

    amenlight Riquin Dec 9, 2016 10:56 PM ,
    The Liberal Leftist and the MSM created the terms Alt-Right and Fake News to distort real news and make them fit into their political agenda! They use this to discredit Conservatives in an effort to shut down Alternative and Conservatist News Media, especially on the Internet and Talk Radio to end competition! They want Free Speech for the Left and Censorship for the Right! The truth is that people discovered their plot and it backfired!!!
    Mainstream media lost all credibility with We the People!!!

    [Dec 10, 2016] Site Behind Washington Posts McCarthyite Blacklist Appears To Be Linked to Ukrainian Fascists and CIA Spies

    Notable quotes:
    "... All of the "The Russians are Coming" nonsense is coming from Democrat party organs and mouthpieces. Not Trump and his media allies. ..."
    "... An excellent article from Mark. This Alexandra Chalupa sounds like a real piece of work. These Cold Warriors seem to have red-colored glasses and see commies everywhere they look. ..."
    "... Of course, there was that old experiment ( Kohler et al ) where they had people wearing different colored goggles for some time, then asked participants to take them off. And what happened? The participants continued to see in those hues. ..."
    "... Wait a second, so there was ..."
    "... CIA has been whipping ethnic Ukies into a patriotic frenzy for decades with social clubs that seep revanchist propaganda. ..."
    "... HR 6393: "(Sec. 501) This title establishes an executive branch interagency committee to counter active measures by the Russian Federation to exert covert influence over peoples and governments (with the role of the Russian Federation hidden or not acknowledged publicly) through front groups, covert broadcasting, media manipulation, disinformation or forgeries, funding agents of influence, incitement, offensive counterintelligence, assassinations, or terrorist acts. The committee shall expose falsehoods, agents of influence, corruption, human rights abuses, terrorism, and assassinations carried out by the security services or political elites of the Russian Federation or their proxies." ..."
    "... Plus, that will add $160 million, IIRC, to The Deficit. ..."
    "... Two things this article curiously doesn't seem to mention. The first is Victoria Nuland, who must be a close Hillary confidante, and architect of the coup in Ukraine ..."
    "... So your food for thought is that the Russian state behaves rationally in the face of an aggressive military power? Of course, they are hacking everything. If they weren't before the NSA revelations (where the U.S. vacuums up everything and then has no safeguards on what they grab; Congress has had testimony about NSA employees using their power to stalk people), they were afterwards. ..."
    "... Here's some food for thought. John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Hillary Clinton all tried to make a country of 145 million or so people with numerous internal problems a major campaign platform. Not one of them is President. Could there be a connection? ..."
    "... As one of the people who consistently calls bull hockey about the claims that the wikileaks releases of the DNC and Podesta emails are the results of Russian government hackers, I will hereby agree with the idea that Russia is hacking everything they can get their hands on. Mind you I believe that every major government from the US to China to Germany to India are hacking everything they can get their hands on. And that every government knows that about all the rest. As far as I am concerned anyone who doesn't believe that is beyond naive. ..."
    "... But thinking that every major government had access to Clinton's emails, Boeing's files, and knows what internet videos Obama/May/Merkel/Putin/Castro have accessed more than once is not the same thing as thinking they are stupid enough or have decent strategic reasons to make that public knowledge by releasing damaging but not destroying emails concerning the massive stupidity and arrogance of one candidate for President and her core people. ..."
    "... There is only one reason that the meme about Fake News is being pushed now – the people who have been pushing fake news for awhile to promote their agendas have lost the control they thought they had over the public and now worry about them rebelling. If fake news were important Judith Miller wouldn't have a job or a book deal and the opportunity to promote that book. Hell Murdoch wouldn't have a media empire. ..."
    "... I don't know why so many so-called movers and shakers want war with Russia, but it is clear that anyone getting in the way of that goal is now in the cross hairs. ProporNOT may be more about Ukrainian support, but the people who promoted them are about the reasons it was being used in the first place. ..."
    "... Eastern European fascists running propaganda web sites for the Whappo, indeed. ..."
    "... If you read Matt Stoller's excellent piece from The Atlantic ..."
    "... I don't see "Banana Republican" Trump as a fascist - he is in many ways an exemplar of Caudillismo , a charismatic, populist, but authoritarian oligarch. ..."
    "... Nance used fake news about Clinton speeches to propagate the fake news that the Podesta emails were fake. ..."
    "... Was amused to see that naturalnews (one of the sites listed in propornot – it looks like I guess a right wing alternative medicine type site) is offering a $10k reward for unmasking propornot but I don't think anyone's ever going to be able to collect. ..."
    "... Why? Because they take the site seriously on its claim of being composed of 30 members and will only pay out for the identities of at least ten. I think it's just one, maybe two guys. ..."
    "... There are dots to connect – the WP article, Congressional Section 501 activity, Senators McCain/Graham "leadership"; and most recently, Hillary's comments. Suspect coordination. Connect the dots. And then search for a motive. ..."
    "... The national security state is concerned that Trump will seek mutually beneficial agreements with Russia. For evidence of the power of the national "security" state a tour of the Pentagon is not necessary. Tour Tyson Corner, Virginia, instead, for starters. ..."
    "... And once Trump has established these agreements there will then be no stopping several Eastern European countries + Germany (of course) realizing where their economic interests really lie. Does anyone really believe that Germany is going to let itself be turned into an irradiated wasteland just to please a bunch of neocon paranoids ? ..."
    "... That's what the neocons, the MIC, and all their shills, and enablers truly fear. Paradoxically this ludicrous attempt to revive McCarthyism may well end up actually ending the Cold War for good & all 25 years after it should have ended. ..."
    "... From the article: "It's now been a few days, and the shock and disgust is turning to questions about how to fight back-and who we should be fighting against." ..."
    "... How many people, world-wide, are involved and invested in the whole "taking over everything" machinery of "state security" and espionage and corporate hegemony? And who is this "we" who should be fighting? ..."
    "... This book provides a detailed account of the ways in which the CIA penetrated and influenced a vast array of cultural organizations, through its front groups and via friendly philanthropic organizations like the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. The author, Frances Stonor Saunders, details how and why the CIA ran cultural congresses, mounted exhibits, and organized concerts. The CIA also published and translated well-known authors who toed the Washington line, sponsored abstract art to counteract art with any social content and, throughout the world, subsidized journals that criticized Marxism, communism, and revolutionary politics and apologized for, or ignored, violent and destructive imperialist U.S. policies. ..."
    "... The CIA was able to harness some of the most vocal exponents of intellectual freedom in the West in service of these policies, to the extent that some intellectuals were directly on the CIA payroll. Many were knowingly involved with CIA "projects," and others drifted in and out of its orbit, claiming ignorance of the CIA connection after their CIA sponsors were publicly exposed during the late 1960s and the Vietnam war, after the turn of the political tide to the left. ..."
    "... U.S. and European anticommunist publications receiving direct or indirect funding included Partisan Review, Kenyon Review, New Leader, Encounter and many others. Among the intellectuals who were funded and promoted by the CIA were Irving Kristol, Melvin Lasky, Isaiah Berlin, Stephen Spender, Sidney Hook, Daniel Bell, Dwight MacDonald, Robert Lowell, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, and numerous others in the United States and Europe. In Europe, the CIA was particularly interested in and promoted the "Democratic Left" and ex-leftists, including Ignacio Silone, Stephen Spender, Arthur Koestler, Raymond Aron, Anthony Crosland, Michael Josselson, and George Orwell. The CIA, under the prodding of Sidney Hook and Melvin Lasky, was instrumental in funding the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a kind of cultural NATO that grouped together all sorts of "anti-Stalinist" leftists and rightists. They were completely free to defend Western cultural and political values, attack "Stalinist totalitarianism" and to tiptoe gently around U.S. racism and imperialism. Occasionally, a piece marginally critical of U.S. mass society was printed in the CIA-subsidized journals. What was particularly bizarre about this collection of CIA-funded intellectuals was not only their political partisanship, but their pretense that they were disinterested seekers of truth, iconoclastic humanists, freespirited intellectuals, or artists for art's sake, who counterposed themselves to the corrupted "committed" house "hacks" of the Stalinist apparatus. ..."
    "... It is impossible to believe their claims of ignorance of CIA ties. How could they ignore the absence in the journals of any basic criticism of the numerous lynchings throughout the southern United States during the whole period? How could they ignore the absence, during their cultural congresses, of criticism of U.S. imperialist intervention in Guatemala, Iran, Greece, and Korea that led to millions of deaths? How could they ignore the gross apologies of every imperialist crime of their day in the journals in which they wrote? They were all soldiers: some glib, vitriolic, crude, and polemical, like Hook and Lasky; others elegant essayists like Stephen Spender or self-righteous informers like George Orwell. Saunders portrays the WASP Ivy League elite at the CIA holding the strings, and the vitriolic Jewish ex-leftists snarling at leftist dissidents. When the truth came out in the late 1960s and New York, Paris, and London "intellectuals" feigned indignation at having been used, the CIA retaliated. Tom Braden, who directed the International Organizations Branch of the CIA, blew their cover by detailing how they all had to have known who paid their salaries and stipends (397-404). ..."
    "... I have no answers for "what is to be done." ..."
    "... It seems inevitable that perversion and corruption and greed will always eventually "trump" decency and comity, once a certain size and composition of a human population has been reached. ..."
    "... One may hope that the general principle of eventual incompetence that seems to apply to even the Deep State activities might become more immanent. ..."
    "... Dems didn't lose this elections because of "fake news". Dems lost because they did not prosecute the bankers who caused the 2008 financial crash, who fraudulently foreclosed on homes and are still engaged in fraud (see: Wells Fargo). imo. ..."
    Dec 10, 2016 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
    financial matters December 9, 2016 at 7:00 am

    Great article but I'm unsure about the conclusion. ""This is the world the Washington Post is bringing back to its front pages. And the timing is incredible-as if Bezos' rag has taken upon itself to soften up the American media before Trump moves in for the kill. And it's all being done in the name of fighting "fake news" and fascism.""

    I was much more worried about this happening with Hillary at the helm. She seems more in line with Soros and the Ukrainian extremists. Trump still seems to be interested in working with Putin on things of mutual interest although he will probably find resistance in both US parties.

    craazyboy December 9, 2016 at 9:11 am

    Yup. I'm still thinking "Make Ukraine Great Again" is not on Trump's agenda. But I'm just taking things day by day. Still digesting Soros found some Nazis he likes. [Facebook "Like" gots it covered. No new tweaking of social media required.]

    However, I think it would be interesting if Trump investigated whether treason against Ukraine is punishable by firing squad under US Treason Law. Since they've made it kinda personal.

    Ted December 9, 2016 at 10:30 am

    Yeah, the piece is a bit uneven and the last bit a bit revealing of the author's own biases. All of the "The Russians are Coming" nonsense is coming from Democrat party organs and mouthpieces. Not Trump and his media allies.

    The most effective neo-fascism that we see emerging everywhere is pretty consistently on the erstwhile voices of the "left" affiliated with the Democrat Party which is double speak for the New American Right. Indeed, by going back to the height of the cold war to make connections to these shady organizations rather than modern day plutocrats (Amazonia and Googlie are low hanging fruit), the author is employing misdirection. So, I will take this with a few grains of salt.

    Romancing The Loan December 9, 2016 at 10:49 am

    Yeah. Didn't propornot even mention Trump himself as one of those scurrilously Russian-influenced? That's certainly been a major D talking point.

    cocomaan December 9, 2016 at 7:07 am

    An excellent article from Mark. This Alexandra Chalupa sounds like a real piece of work. These Cold Warriors seem to have red-colored glasses and see commies everywhere they look.

    Of course, there was that old experiment ( Kohler et al ) where they had people wearing different colored goggles for some time, then asked participants to take them off. And what happened? The participants continued to see in those hues.

    Roger Smith December 9, 2016 at 8:11 am

    Wait a second, so there was foreign intervention in this election and there were nefarious racists and eugenicists involved, but they weren't behind Trump, but Clinton!?

    /heavy sarcasm

    Thank you very much for sharing this JLS! What a fasc inating read! The historical context Ames provides is very intriguing and convincing.

    Katharine December 9, 2016 at 10:33 am

    "Convincing" is too strong. I would say rather suggestive, possibly persuasive. There is not enough evidence to convince. More investigation is needed, and this might be a productive line of inquiry, but it is too soon to talk about conclusions.

    Claudia Riche December 9, 2016 at 8:17 am

    I am a huge fan of your website and donate as regularly as i can. I am appalled at what the Washington Post did and its implications for free speech in the US going forward.

    That said, I find this article defamatory in purpose, rather than informative. I do not believe it meets the usual standards of Naked Capitalism: it is not fairly reasoned, nor based only on relevant fact to the issue at hand. In my opinion, it is designed to smear and thus undermines the considerable, unusual credibility of your website. I find it disturbing that it has been amplified by its inclusion as a link. It does damage to the cause, rather than further it.

    Roger Smith December 9, 2016 at 8:44 am

    How so? First off, we know very little and Ames acknowledges that, but he uses historical context to expand on that and build a case behind the PropOrNot / FPRI claims and their potential motives. He fully admits he is working with that we've got. Maybe all these illustrations do just happen to line up well and new information will change perception, but Ames discussion hits a lot of typical looking benchmarks.

    Eureka Springs December 9, 2016 at 9:11 am

    How is Mr Ames experience and the very place in which Chalupa works, what she says, as well as the history of our countries actions upon others around the world and within not reasonable to consider?

    I'm sorry if incorrect but you seem like a troll without explaining yourself in specificity further.

    Kogut December 9, 2016 at 8:33 am

    Disturbed voter, batshit Springtime-for-Hitler Ukies long predate Biden's involvement. CIA has been whipping ethnic Ukies into a patriotic frenzy for decades with social clubs that seep revanchist propaganda. The hapless Ukies were meant to be cannon fodder for hot war on the USSR. When Russia molted and shed the USSR, Ukraine continued its Soviet degeneration but the associations had a life of their own. That's how CIA clowns wound up proud owners of the Exclusion Zone.

    Sluggeaux December 9, 2016 at 9:12 am

    The DNC should have dropped the Chalupa. (I can't help myself this morning )

    MED December 9, 2016 at 9:20 am

    HR 6393: "(Sec. 501) This title establishes an executive branch interagency committee to counter active measures by the Russian Federation to exert covert influence over peoples and governments (with the role of the Russian Federation hidden or not acknowledged publicly) through front groups, covert broadcasting, media manipulation, disinformation or forgeries, funding agents of influence, incitement, offensive counterintelligence, assassinations, or terrorist acts. The committee shall expose falsehoods, agents of influence, corruption, human rights abuses, terrorism, and assassinations carried out by the security services or political elites of the Russian Federation or their proxies."

    craazyboy December 9, 2016 at 9:30 am

    Plus, that will add $160 million, IIRC, to The Deficit.

    Jay December 9, 2016 at 9:38 am

    Two things this article curiously doesn't seem to mention. The first is Victoria Nuland, who must be a close Hillary confidante, and architect of the coup in Ukraine .

    The second thing is not so curious per se, but a common feature of articles about Russian hacking accusations–they gloss over the fact that there is good evidence that the Russians are hacking everything they can get their hands on. To assume otherwise is naive. Much of this evidence is available in a recently-published book, The Plot to Hack America by Malcolm Nance.

    He doesn't identify American news sources of being Russian stooges, but does describe how the hacks on the DNC have FSB (the new KGB) fingerprints all over them. He also describes Trump's ties to the Kremlin, as well as his advisors' business interests there. Food for thought.

    NotTimothyGeithner December 9, 2016 at 10:06 am

    So your food for thought is that the Russian state behaves rationally in the face of an aggressive military power? Of course, they are hacking everything. If they weren't before the NSA revelations (where the U.S. vacuums up everything and then has no safeguards on what they grab; Congress has had testimony about NSA employees using their power to stalk people), they were afterwards.

    Here's some food for thought. John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Hillary Clinton all tried to make a country of 145 million or so people with numerous internal problems a major campaign platform. Not one of them is President. Could there be a connection?

    Pat December 9, 2016 at 10:08 am

    As one of the people who consistently calls bull hockey about the claims that the wikileaks releases of the DNC and Podesta emails are the results of Russian government hackers, I will hereby agree with the idea that Russia is hacking everything they can get their hands on. Mind you I believe that every major government from the US to China to Germany to India are hacking everything they can get their hands on. And that every government knows that about all the rest. As far as I am concerned anyone who doesn't believe that is beyond naive.

    But thinking that every major government had access to Clinton's emails, Boeing's files, and knows what internet videos Obama/May/Merkel/Putin/Castro have accessed more than once is not the same thing as thinking they are stupid enough or have decent strategic reasons to make that public knowledge by releasing damaging but not destroying emails concerning the massive stupidity and arrogance of one candidate for President and her core people.

    There is only one reason that the meme about Fake News is being pushed now – the people who have been pushing fake news for awhile to promote their agendas have lost the control they thought they had over the public and now worry about them rebelling. If fake news were important Judith Miller wouldn't have a job or a book deal and the opportunity to promote that book. Hell Murdoch wouldn't have a media empire.

    I don't know why so many so-called movers and shakers want war with Russia, but it is clear that anyone getting in the way of that goal is now in the cross hairs. ProporNOT may be more about Ukrainian support, but the people who promoted them are about the reasons it was being used in the first place.

    susan the other December 9, 2016 at 12:06 pm

    Because big picture. Eurasia is inevitably coming together and it is the end of an era. Why we thought we could prevent this from happening must be based on pure hubris. Everything has changed so much in one century that even language makes no sense. Eastern European fascists running propaganda web sites for the Whappo, indeed.

    Hillary Clinton taking up the cause against fake news. Jesus. As Liz Warren said, personnel is policy. You hire fascist nut cases, you create fascism. Hillary, you're so very patriotic.

    Sluggeaux December 9, 2016 at 12:33 pm

    If you read Matt Stoller's excellent piece from The Atlantic , "How the Democrats Killed their Populist Soul" you'll see that Clintonism matches the corporatist model of fascism as derided by Franklin Roosevelt in the late '30's, before mass-murder became associated with the brand and when people like Charles Lindbergh were touting it as the "modern" way forward. If you understand Clintonism as corporatist fascism, the DNC's affinity for Ukraine becomes more and more logical.

    I don't see "Banana Republican" Trump as a fascist - he is in many ways an exemplar of Caudillismo , a charismatic, populist, but authoritarian oligarch.

    marym December 9, 2016 at 10:38 am

    Nance used fake news about Clinton speeches to propagate the fake news that the Podesta emails were fake.

    https://theintercept.com/2016/12/09/a-clinton-fan-manufactured-fake-news-that-msnbc-personalities-spread-to-discredit-wikileaks-docs/

    Jay December 9, 2016 at 3:10 pm

    I read that. I don't believe Nance said the Podesta emails were fake, just that there was a possibility that those supplying the documents to Wikileaks could adulterate the documents or introduce fabricated documents into the pipeline. Quite easy to do when leaking, what was it, fifty thousand emails? And I still haven't heard a single persuasive argument to disprove that the Russians hacked the DNC. Quite the contrary. The hacks originated from IP addresses known to originate in the FSA (Fancy Bear) who have led a prodigious list of pro-Russian exploits against targets throughout eastern Europe, including the Baltic states, Ukraine, and the German Bundestag. Real-time adjustments from those IPs also occurred from the Moscow time zone, and some used cyrillic keyboards.

    Don't get me wrong: I disagree with the WaPo piece, and have read, commented, and financially supported Naked Capitalism for quite a while now. And there's no faker news than that Iraq had WMDs, a fact that the press has never quite overcome in the eyes of the public. But just because spooky Intelligence Community people say that Russia hacked the DNC, doesn't make it not so. There are way too many people on the left going off half-cocked. Have you noticed how since the "fake news" imbroglio flamed up, MSM criticism of Trump's swampland cabinet picks have been quite muted?

    marym December 9, 2016 at 3:36 pm

    The Intercept post has a link to the Nance tweet, which is still out there, saying

    Malcolm Nance Retweeted KA Semenova

    Official Warning: #PodestaEmails are already proving to be riddled with obvious forgeries & #blackpropaganda not even professionally done.

    He, Podesta, and the correspondents in the leaked emails never provided a single example and/or proof that any email was forged. Also, I don't understand the technicality, but there is some type of hash value associated with an email such that WL was able provide confirmation of those emails where the hash value was intact. Instructions on how to replicate that confirmation process were published at the time.

    Romancing The Loan December 9, 2016 at 9:40 am

    Was amused to see that naturalnews (one of the sites listed in propornot – it looks like I guess a right wing alternative medicine type site) is offering a $10k reward for unmasking propornot but I don't think anyone's ever going to be able to collect.

    Why? Because they take the site seriously on its claim of being composed of 30 members and will only pay out for the identities of at least ten. I think it's just one, maybe two guys.

    Outis Philalithopoulos December 9, 2016 at 10:28 am

    That's really funny.

    Carolinian December 9, 2016 at 10:48 am

    Or as Trump would say one 400 lb guy in his bedroom.

    Yalt December 9, 2016 at 1:00 pm

    Would Josh Frank's article today at Counterpunch on the BSDetector plugin be a good place to start, or is that unrelated BS?

    Deep Throat December 9, 2016 at 10:57 am

    There are dots to connect – the WP article, Congressional Section 501 activity, Senators McCain/Graham "leadership"; and most recently, Hillary's comments. Suspect coordination. Connect the dots. And then search for a motive.

    The national security state is concerned that Trump will seek mutually beneficial agreements with Russia. For evidence of the power of the national "security" state a tour of the Pentagon is not necessary. Tour Tyson Corner, Virginia, instead, for starters.

    JustAnObserver December 9, 2016 at 3:16 pm

    And once Trump has established these agreements there will then be no stopping several Eastern European countries + Germany (of course) realizing where their economic interests really lie. Does anyone really believe that Germany is going to let itself be turned into an irradiated wasteland just to please a bunch of neocon paranoids ?

    Goodbye sanctions and then, shortly after, its bye, bye NATO bye bye.

    That's what the neocons, the MIC, and all their shills, and enablers truly fear. Paradoxically this ludicrous attempt to revive McCarthyism may well end up actually ending the Cold War for good & all 25 years after it should have ended.

    Grizziz December 9, 2016 at 12:18 pm

    Good article. Great comment thread! Thanks to everyone.

    JTMcPhee December 9, 2016 at 12:34 pm

    From the article: "It's now been a few days, and the shock and disgust is turning to questions about how to fight back-and who we should be fighting against."

    How many people, world-wide, are involved and invested in the whole "taking over everything" machinery of "state security" and espionage and corporate hegemony? And who is this "we" who should be fighting?

    Fundamentals: The human siege of the planet is (it seems sort of clear) driving the biosphere toward collapse as a sustainer of most human life. Ever more of the extractable entities of the planet (mineral and living resources, "money" whatever that is, the day labor of most of us, on and on) are being used, and used up, in service to what? a relatively few masters of manipulation who are playing a game that most of the rest of us, were we able to focus and figure it out, would recognize as murder and attempted murder as part of a war "we" did not enlist (most of us) to participate in. The manipulators, both the ones sitting on extreme piles of wealth and the power it provides, and the senior effectives in the various "agencies" that play out the game, what the heck do they "want?" Other than "MORE"?

    What motivates a Coors or Koch or Bezos or Brock or the various political figures and their handlers and minions and "advisors?" This one little episode shows how completely it appears that the whole species is screwed: "Who do we fight, and how?" Are "we" is the readers of NC? Some few of whom are stooges and operatives for the Ministries of Truth who are tracking and recording what transpires here and no doubt subtly injecting "influencers" into the discourse. Some are just ordinary people, of varying degrees of insight and ability to influence the collective net vector of human activity (for good or ill). Some are hoping to just find some awareness of and comprehension of what-all is shaking on the Big Game Board of Life. In this moment, "we" depend, in this one tiny instance among the great flood of chaos-induction and interest-seeking, on the responses and pressures "our" hosts can bring to bear - threatening letters to the propagators like WaPo and Craig Timberg, just one tumor in the vast cancer that afflicts the species, attempts to link up with other parts of the too-small "good will, comity and deceny" population that is fractioned and atomized and constantly seduced or frightened into going along with the larger trend line, grabbing URLs and stuff I'm not smart enough to understand, all that. But the Big People, the Deep State that "we" are subtly taught NOT to believe exists by various bits of sophistry, is a lot better armed and equipped and always active - its operatives are paid, usually pretty well, to be on the job all the time, operating their various and manifold, multifarious, often ingenious, always disingenous operations, and always thinking up new ways to screw over and loot and debase and oppress and enserf the rest of us.

    Here's just one explication of how the Deep State operates:

    This book provides a detailed account of the ways in which the CIA penetrated and influenced a vast array of cultural organizations, through its front groups and via friendly philanthropic organizations like the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. The author, Frances Stonor Saunders, details how and why the CIA ran cultural congresses, mounted exhibits, and organized concerts. The CIA also published and translated well-known authors who toed the Washington line, sponsored abstract art to counteract art with any social content and, throughout the world, subsidized journals that criticized Marxism, communism, and revolutionary politics and apologized for, or ignored, violent and destructive imperialist U.S. policies.

    The CIA was able to harness some of the most vocal exponents of intellectual freedom in the West in service of these policies, to the extent that some intellectuals were directly on the CIA payroll. Many were knowingly involved with CIA "projects," and others drifted in and out of its orbit, claiming ignorance of the CIA connection after their CIA sponsors were publicly exposed during the late 1960s and the Vietnam war, after the turn of the political tide to the left.

    U.S. and European anticommunist publications receiving direct or indirect funding included Partisan Review, Kenyon Review, New Leader, Encounter and many others. Among the intellectuals who were funded and promoted by the CIA were Irving Kristol, Melvin Lasky, Isaiah Berlin, Stephen Spender, Sidney Hook, Daniel Bell, Dwight MacDonald, Robert Lowell, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, and numerous others in the United States and Europe. In Europe, the CIA was particularly interested in and promoted the "Democratic Left" and ex-leftists, including Ignacio Silone, Stephen Spender, Arthur Koestler, Raymond Aron, Anthony Crosland, Michael Josselson, and George Orwell.

    The CIA, under the prodding of Sidney Hook and Melvin Lasky, was instrumental in funding the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a kind of cultural NATO that grouped together all sorts of "anti-Stalinist" leftists and rightists. They were completely free to defend Western cultural and political values, attack "Stalinist totalitarianism" and to tiptoe gently around U.S. racism and imperialism. Occasionally, a piece marginally critical of U.S. mass society was printed in the CIA-subsidized journals.

    What was particularly bizarre about this collection of CIA-funded intellectuals was not only their political partisanship, but their pretense that they were disinterested seekers of truth, iconoclastic humanists, freespirited intellectuals, or artists for art's sake, who counterposed themselves to the corrupted "committed" house "hacks" of the Stalinist apparatus.

    It is impossible to believe their claims of ignorance of CIA ties. How could they ignore the absence in the journals of any basic criticism of the numerous lynchings throughout the southern United States during the whole period? How could they ignore the absence, during their cultural congresses, of criticism of U.S. imperialist intervention in Guatemala, Iran, Greece, and Korea that led to millions of deaths? How could they ignore the gross apologies of every imperialist crime of their day in the journals in which they wrote? They were all soldiers: some glib, vitriolic, crude, and polemical, like Hook and Lasky; others elegant essayists like Stephen Spender or self-righteous informers like George Orwell. Saunders portrays the WASP Ivy League elite at the CIA holding the strings, and the vitriolic Jewish ex-leftists snarling at leftist dissidents. When the truth came out in the late 1960s and New York, Paris, and London "intellectuals" feigned indignation at having been used, the CIA retaliated. Tom Braden, who directed the International Organizations Branch of the CIA, blew their cover by detailing how they all had to have known who paid their salaries and stipends (397-404). http://monthlyreview.org/1999/11/01/the-cia-and-the-cultural-cold-war-revisited/

    And that is just one part of the "operations" put in motion by just "our" national rulers by ONE of the "seventeen national security agencies" that apparently appear in the organization chart of the US empire.

    These mostly faceless people, from "wet workers" to "economic hit men" to analysts and office workers and Station Chiefs and functionaries at DIA and NIA and NSA and the rest of the acronymists of "state security," are "just doing their jobs," with more or less personal malevolence (William Casey, Dick Cheney, the Dulleses, Kermit Roosevelt, on and on), seem to be working from a central organizing principle: Control of minds and resources, in service to imperial and corporate and personal dominion. What tools and actions and thought processes do ordinary people have, to fight back or even resist against this kind of onslaught? "We" are told we are becoming responsible to do our daily best, in among fulfilling our and our families' basic needs, and to minimize our environmental impacts to at least slow the destruction, and also somehow to become aware, in a world of dis- and dysinformation, of what is being done to us and our children and communities, and "resist." And "fight back." Against who, and against what, and by what means, when you have the "Googolverment," and all those millions of employees and managers and executives thereof, on call and on task 24/7 looking for ever more subtle ways to data mine and monetize and manipulate "us"? And in a feedback loop that has been ongoing since no doubt the earliest of "civilization" cities and tribes and nations, the "arms race" both in straight military terms and in the sneaky-pete realm of espionage and state security and "statecraft," "the Russians" and the Pakistanis and Chinese and Israelites, and probably Brazilians and Zoroastrians, are all growing their own machinery of consumption and dominance and destruction.

    What's the model "we" are supposed to be working from? Some people here are looking for "investment opportunities" to take advantage of the chaos and destruction, and there are many for those who can see the patterns and buy in. But what would a "just and decent world" (at least the human population) even look like, and is there anything in our DNA that moves enough of us toward that inchoate model to even have a prayer of suppressing those darker and deadlier impulses and motivations and goals?

    I have no answers for "what is to be done." It seems inevitable that perversion and corruption and greed will always eventually "trump" decency and comity, once a certain size and composition of a human population has been reached. One may hope that the general principle of eventual incompetence that seems to apply to even the Deep State activities might become more immanent. And try to build little communities that don't depend on killable cyber connections for their interconnectedness. And work on an "organizing principle" of their/our own, that has a chance of surviving the crushing mass of energetic but negative energy that infects the species.

    And thanks to our hosts, for doing their bit to face down the fokkers that would take us all down if they could. It's a constant struggle, and no doubt they are more aware than even a Futilitarian like myself of all the parasites and malignancies that are so increasingly active and invested in looting what's left of "antidotes."

    dk December 9, 2016 at 3:53 pm

    I have no answers for "what is to be done."

    Yes you do, the part about little communities and ad-hoc organizing principles is spot-on; that stuff works, it just grows slowly at first. It is also self-limiting, a valuable feature, given the manifest evidence of how badly things can go wrong when communities are pushed to grow beyond their capacities.

    It seems inevitable that perversion and corruption and greed will always eventually "trump" decency and comity, once a certain size and composition of a human population has been reached.

    Decency and comity have their little flaws, too; both can obscure incidents of gross folly. But yeah, population factors are just ferocious.

    One may hope that the general principle of eventual incompetence that seems to apply to even the Deep State activities might become more immanent.

    Not to worry. Incompetence is on it! Any second now wait for it wait for it excuse me, my timepiece seems to have frozen hmm. Well, it appears that "peak incompetence" has already arrived and done the bulk of its work, we just haven't noticed all of the results yet. We are now in that phase between the giant's stumble and their final impact on the ground.

    All this is normal, predictable, and as it should be (even the unfortunate parts); it's entropy. It would be wiser to abandon bivalent moralities and just evaluate each circumstance on its merits, and do our best.

    Yalt December 9, 2016 at 1:12 pm

    That Ukrainian nationalists are behind propornot seems clear; that they're from the Nazified wing seems implausible. Would the Bandera crowd be likely to think of putting a USS Liberty veterans' website on a list of Russian propaganda outlets?

    integer December 9, 2016 at 5:56 pm

    Ukrainian nationalists = Nazified Ukrainians. Israel is also involved so yes it makes a lot of sense that the USS Liberty veterans' website on "the list". Might be time for Israel (and Genie energy) to kiss the Golan Heights goodbye.

    integer December 9, 2016 at 6:14 pm

    (((Israel))) was almost certainly the "brains" behind YYYpropornotYYY
    Not as clever as they think they are. Free Palestine!

    OIFVet December 9, 2016 at 6:02 pm

    Yats and Porky are Jewish, so are some oligarchs who sponsor various neo-Nazi military formations. Ihor Kolomoyskyi, for example, sponsors the Aidar Battalion. The bottom line is, the neo-Nazis need to please their US government and Ukie oligarch sponsors in order to keep the dough flowing, so Russians are the new Jews in Ukraine. Geopolitics makes for strange bedfellows.

    grizziz December 9, 2016 at 9:11 pm

    Wikipedia has Yats being a member of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic and Porky belonging to the Ukrainian Orthodox church. Not vouching for Wikipedia and knowing that history can produce some interesting heritage, I thought I would point that out. Kolomoyskyi has dual citizenship with Israel and of course infamous Clinton Foundation donor and Maidan supporter Victor Pinchuk was raised by Jewish parents before sacking his own country.

    OIFVet December 9, 2016 at 9:39 pm

    The Forward certainly counts Porky as a Jew, and many Jewish organizations have attacked Yats for concealing his Jewish roots. Given the rampant anti-antisemitism in Ukraine, can't really blame them for concealing their identity. It was shortly before the Maidan that Mila Kunis went back to her native Ukraine to promote her flick, and got called very unsavory names by some rabid anti-Semites in Kiev.

    Kim Kaufman December 9, 2016 at 2:27 pm

    Fake News: How a Partying Macedonian Teen Earns Thousands Publishing Lies

    http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/fake-news-how-partying-macedonian-teen-earns-thousands-publishing-lies-n692451

    " Dimitri - who asked NBC News not to use his real name - is one of dozens of teenagers in the Macedonian town of Veles who got rich during the U.S. presidential election producing fake news for millions on social media. "

    flora December 9, 2016 at 2:40 pm

    heh. Dems didn't lose this elections because of "fake news". Dems lost because they did not prosecute the bankers who caused the 2008 financial crash, who fraudulently foreclosed on homes and are still engaged in fraud (see: Wells Fargo). imo.

    Pat December 9, 2016 at 3:04 pm

    Well that and passed a regressive health insurance bailout that required people to purchase expensive and largely useless insurance; and showed their complete and utter contempt for working Americans by ignoring the real state of the under and unemployment, and continued that contempt by passing several job killing trade bills and attempting three other mega steroid versions of same.

    There are many reasons why the Democrats lost, but mostly it is because they stopped doing little more than barely pretending to represent the interests of anyone outside of the wealthy and corporate 'persons' who fund their campaigns and retirements. Protecting the banks and bankers being only the clearest example.

    Pat December 9, 2016 at 3:06 pm

    Dimitri works cheap. Although I'm sure Brock wasn't paying much more to his minions.

    John Medcalf December 9, 2016 at 2:37 pm

    I still don't see any of my favorite bloggers going after Bezos. I didn't even see him mentioned until today. We are looking pretty timid so far in the face of Trump and Bezos (Trump from another direction). No possibility of winning without fighting the war where it's taking place.

    Kim Kaufman December 9, 2016 at 3:18 pm

    Style
    Mainstream media puts out the call for pro-Trump columnists

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/mainstream-media-puts-out-the-call-for-pro-trump-columnists/2016/12/09/2153fdd2-bca7-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html?postshare=9161481311692262&tid=ss_fb&utm_term=.4161c7dfadd3

    Comments are pretty funny:

    For Hire: Established corporation seeking experienced individuals in need of a challenge. Applicants should have –

    *at least 3 Yrs. experience of having their head head firmly up their backsides.
    * a certificate from a licensed physician confirming applicants
    mental impairment
    * an ability to to obfuscate combined with no understanding of the terms 'cognitive dissonance' 'false moral equivalence' and 'logical fallacy'

    Applicant must be at least 13 years old and show the capacity to convince 45% of America that he or she is 30.

    If this is you contact 1-800-DON TRUMP

    ginnie nyc December 9, 2016 at 4:22 pm

    Earlier in this thread there was a comment from Claudia Riche claiming the Ames article is, essentially, a smear job. I feel compelled to respond as I have direct personal knowledge of one of his two main points, specifically re: the extreme right-wing tenor of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, or FPRI in Philadelphia.

    I worked at FPRI (yes, me the Marxist) in the mid-to-late 1970's, and was in contact with people there through the early 1980's. I can testify that Ames's description of Strausz-Hupe and his ideas are entirely accurate. I didn't know much about S-H when I first started working there, but I figured out his age and original location probably made him a 3-way spook, at the least. I could cite chapter and verse of the various associates and leading personalities that went through there (including Alexander Haig) but I don't have the energy today.

    Ames mentions that FPRI was driven off the Penn campus – well, only in the technical sense. If you spit out the window you'd hit a university building, and many principals there were professors at Penn, including Strausz-Hupe. Also, many Penn grad students passed through there, and undergrads (like me).

    For laughs, here is an interesting, if airbrushed, synopsis of the influence of FPRI by my old friend Alan Luxenberg:

    http://www.fpri.org/news/2013/11/the-impact-of-the-foreign-policy-research-institute/

    So, no Ms. Riche, there is no smearing going on in Mark Ames detailed account in this regard.

    Outis Philalithopoulos December 9, 2016 at 4:56 pm

    Here it is – sorry it didn't post immediately. BTW stuff not posting immediately doesn't necessarily mean either (1) there is anything wrong with your comment, or (2) it got permanently eaten by Skynet. Sometimes the algorithm for finding spam gets false positives for reasons that are not entirely clear.

    ginnie nyc December 9, 2016 at 4:33 pm

    Outis, my comment on FPRI seems to have disappeared. Could you see if it can be extracted from Skynet? Thanks.

    JOHN bougearel December 9, 2016 at 8:22 pm

    that was alot of investigative digging jerri-lynn -- so nice To see u surprise me twice in a week. tremendous effort -thank you a post worth cross posting if it hasn't been already

    Jerri-Lynn Scofield Post author December 9, 2016 at 9:02 pm

    John–

    This is indeed a great post, but I'm not the author. Mark Ames is the author. I just cross-posted his fine work, which was originally published by AlterNet.

    RBHoughton December 9, 2016 at 9:14 pm

    The CIA's apparent involvement reveals the immense danger and probable failure of expecting a few managers to keep the sty clean.

    Its not just in spookery that standards have collapsed. The world of professionals – doctors, lawyers, accountants – has followed the same downward trajectory and it started in 1970 with demonetization and the subsequent expansion of honorable greed.

    It was in early 1970s that creative accounting and its penchant for creating wealth out of nothing appeared.Then we saw these dodgy scorers appearing in court and swearing to the truth of their new view. That infected the legal profession. The prosecutors were still willing to present all their evidence for and against conviction to the Judge but the defense increasingly cheated, led by the lawyer who tells his customers 'we never plead guilty,' and starts the creation of a case beyond a reasonable doubt in place of the defendant's actual evidence.

    It may be that doctors have so far escaped the moral collapse although on a recent visit to hospital I saw the elevator lobbies infested with the army of capitalism in the shape of suited drug salesmen trying to create obligations on the part of doctors.

    We seem to have lost our way and for the time being its the man who cares only for the bottom line who is winning the war of the world. He's the man who owns the newspaper that tells you every bad thing is because of foreigners.

    [Dec 10, 2016] Possible connection between Ukraian Diaspora in the USA and

    Typically Diaspora is more nationalistic the "mainland" population. This is very true about Ukrainian Diaspora, which partially is represented by those who fought on the side of Germany in the WWII. They are adamantly anti-Russian.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Here it also bears mentioning that it has been established that Yanukovych's Party of Regions transferred $200,000 to the far right Svoboda party and about $30,000 to the nationalist UNA-UNSO. This is serious money in Ukraine. ..."
    "... Firstly, most Ukrainians don't give a shit about Bandera and the OUN. So if they're not speaking out against people using those symbols or slogans it's not because they support them, but because they're more concerned with issues of pure survival. ..."
    "... And then these same fascists were whitewashed as noble freedom fighters by Western MSM simply because their interests happen to allign with the interests of the US, for the moment. ..."
    "... Uh, no. I haven't noticed anyone here thinking that Russia is some sort of fighter for social and economic justice. Rather, we as a group are sick of noxious propaganda driven by American Exceptionalism. ..."
    "... And speaking for myself, I find the rise of Russia to be potentially a very good thing for the US itself, if it manages to curtail the MIC-driven hegemonic drive, weakens its relative power, and forces it to focus its money and energies on pressing domestic issues. ..."
    "... The idea of considering Putin to be anticapitalist is risible. Putin represents a limit on a US hegemonized economic order and the greater likelihood that some portion ..."
    "... This is some insidious strawman and dishonest argumentation, speaking of "BS." Nowhere does this article state that the entire Maidan revolution was a "fascist coup"-that's you putting words in the author's mouth to make his article appear to be Russian propaganda. The author specifies names of top figures in power today with seriously disturbing neo-Nazi backgrounds-the speaker of Ukraine's parliament, its Interior Minister, and head of National Police. He never once calls it a "fascist coup". Using strawman to avoid having to answer these specific allegations is bad faith commenting. ..."
    "... The false analogy to Occupy shows how dishonest your comment is. No one disputes that neo-Nazi leader Parubiy was in charge of Maidan's "self-defense"; and that neo-Nazi Right Sektor played a lead role in the confrontations with the Yanukovych authorities. ..."
    "... I suspect that Mr. Kovpak is a member of the Ukrainian diaspora that first infested this country starting around 1945, and has since been trying to justify the belief that the wrong side won WWII. ..."
    "... "The appalling corruption of Yanukovich was replaced by the appalling corruption of Yats and Poroschenko " ..."
    "... Paruiby (Neo Fascist) was in charge before and after the Maidan for security – the trajectory of the bullets came from his peoples positions that shot the cops – analyzed over and over ..."
    "... The Nazi Asov Battalion among other organizations supporting the Regime in Kiev has Nazi symbols, objectives and is one of the main forces armed and trained by American Military. ..."
    "... The entire corrupt Kiev administration is Nazi and now it appears the Clinton Campaign has direct ties well beyond the $13 million she received in her Slush Fund from the Oligarchs in 2013. The driving force behind this entire Fake News Initiative and support for Hillary is becoming more visible each day. ..."
    "... Not to mention the Ukrainian Nazis penchant for shelling civilians. Or will Kovpak (Ukrainian school perhaps? Did his grandfather emigrate with the other Ukrainian SS?) will repeat the canard that unbeknownst to the locals, the rebels are shelling themselves, using artillery shells that can 180 mid-flight? ..."
    "... What is the liberals' talking point these days? "Not all Trump supporters are racist, but all of them decided that racism isn't a deal-breaker. End of story." Hillary's SoS-designate Nuland and Barry 0 decided that Ukie nazism wasn't a deal breaker. End of story. ..."
    "... Ukrainian neo-fascists were an integral part of the Maidan (trained in Poland, US, and Canada). ..."
    "... Yes, ordinary Ukrainians protested against corruption – but every U. government since 1991 has been corrupt. Yanukovich was no exception – but he was also not the worst one (do some research on J. Timoshenko). ..."
    "... There is enough actual footage from Maidan that shows the presence of neo-nazi members on the square from the beginning. They were also the one who completed the violent overthrow of the government that happened on 2/21-22/14 – after a deal had been signed calling for early elections. The burning of 48 people in Odessa was probably done by angels, according to your likely analysis. ..."
    "... So perhaps in the future instead of repeating a bunch of Russian talking points ..."
    "... I was going to say something about how the CIA made Ukraine's Social Nationalist party change its name to Svoboda (freedom), to obscure the obvious Nazi connection, but instead I will just laugh at you. ..."
    "... What a shocker that Jim Kovpak, the commenter who tries smearing this article as "repeating a bunch of Russian talking points" -- works for CIA-founded Voice of America and is a regular with Ukraine's "StopFake.org" which is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy , the CIA's color revolution "soft" arm - in other words, PropOrNot's folks. Can't make this stuff up. ..."
    "... Wait, so in Kovpak's case our tax dollars are used to fund and disseminate propaganda to America's public, too? I am not shocked or anything, but rather amused that the vaunted American democracy and famously free media is beginning to resemble communist Bulgaria. ..."
    "... Okay, but isn't it the case that many far-right leaders have migrated to parties closer to the center, such as People's Front? Svoboda's leaders have done this. Andriy Parubiy, Tetiana Chornovol, and Oleksandr Turchynov, for example, hold high positions in People's Front, but started out as members or Svoboda. If I'm not mistaken, People's Front also has strong connections to the far-right Volunteer Battalions. I believe People's Front has its own paramilitary branch too. ..."
    "... What this tells me is that much of Ukraine's far-right may be masquerading as right-center. That's kind of like a political Trojan Horse operation. This way the fascists avoid standing out as far-right, but at the same time, move closer to the mechanisms of power within Ukraine's government. ..."
    "... Here's an article by Lev Golinkin commenting on the far-right's strong and dangerous influence on Ukraine today. A fascist presence like this could easily be a powerful element in Ukrainian elections, very suddenly and unpredictably too. https://www.thenation.com/article/the-ukrainian-far-right-and-the-danger-it-poses/ ..."
    "... This is getting darker and darker. As much as I dislike Trump I feel happier that Clinton didn't make it. The TINA party is the most reactionary thing by far! ..."
    "... Sanders might have had a hard time driving as far left on FP as he did on domestic issues. I'm his constituent, and I have a letter from him from mid-'15 reiterating all the mainstream lies about Russia and Ukraine. ..."
    "... and/or incontinence ..."
    Dec 09, 2016 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
    Jim Kovpak December 9, 2016 at 3:45 am

    Hello, I'm the blogger of Russia Without BS, a site you cited once in the stories about PropOrNot. As I have recently written on my blog , I believe PropOrNot is most likely one person who is not linked to any real organization group or intelligence agency. The individual is most likely what I call a cheerleader, which is basically a person with no reasonable connection to some conflict, yet who takes a side and sort of lives vicariously through their imagined "struggle."

    That being said, you're probably not going to do yourself any favors claiming that Maidan was a fascist coup and that fascists are in charge in Ukraine. Euromaidan was not started by right-wingers (quite the opposite, actually), and they were not the majority of people there. Basically you condemning Maidan is like someone condemning Occupy just because of the presence of neo-Nazis and racists who were sometimes involved in certain Occupy chapters (this is well documented).

    Without actually bothering to look at the issues involved, you are basically telling millions of Ukrainians that they should have tolerated a corrupt, increasingly authoritarian government that was literally stealing their future all because some right-wingers happened to latch on to that cause too. Here it also bears mentioning that it has been established that Yanukovych's Party of Regions transferred $200,000 to the far right Svoboda party and about $30,000 to the nationalist UNA-UNSO. This is serious money in Ukraine.

    As for the slogan, yes, Slava Ukraini, Heroiam Slava! has its origins in the OUN, but there are some important things to consider when discussing Ukrainian history.

    Firstly, most Ukrainians don't give a shit about Bandera and the OUN. So if they're not speaking out against people using those symbols or slogans it's not because they support them, but because they're more concerned with issues of pure survival. Look at the average salary in Ukraine and look into some of the instances of corruption (some of which continue to this day), and you'll understand why a lot of people aren't going to get up in arms about someone waving the red and black flag. Most people have become very cynical and see the nationalists as provocateurs or clowns, and thus they don't take them seriously enough.

    ... ... ...

    olga December 9, 2016 at 12:35 pm

    Before you call this good points, please familiarize yourself with the (accurate) history of the Maidan, Ukraine, neo-nazi presence in that country, and Russian history. Please Kovpak seems to be an embodiment of what Ames tries to convey.

    dk December 9, 2016 at 2:30 pm

    "You're a poseur!"
    "No, you're poser!"

    The more experienced observer listens to all sides; and all sides lie at least a little, if only for their own comfort. Beyond that, subjectivity is inescapable, and any pair of subjectives will inevitably diverge. This is not a malign intent, it's existential circumstance, the burden of identity, of individual life.

    My own (admittedly cursory) analysis happens to coincide with Jim Kovpak's first para (PropOrNot being primarily a lone "cheerleader"). And I can see merit, and the call for dispassionate assessment, in some of his other points. This does not mean I endorse Kovpak over Ames, or Ames over Kovpak; both contribute to the searching discussion with cogent observation (and the inevitable measure of subjective evaluation).

    I thank both for their remarks, and also thank our gracious hosts ;).

    hemeantwell December 9, 2016 at 9:23 am

    Euromaidan was not started by right-wingers

    No, but it was hijacked by fascists. It is sad that more democratic/progressive forces lost out, but that's what happened. You seem to be trying to avoid recognizing this fact by affirming the rightfulness of those who began the revolt. Their agency was removed not by Naked Capitalism or Mark Ames, but by fascists who out maneuvered, spent, and gunned them. It's time to mourn, not to defend a parasitic Frankenstein that is trying to develop a European fascist movement. Goons from that movement assaulted and injured May Day demonstrators in Sweden this year and then fled back to the Ukraine. They are dangerous and should not be protected with illusions.

    OIFVet December 9, 2016 at 10:08 am

    Their agency was removed not by Naked Capitalism or Mark Ames, but by fascists who out maneuvered, spent, and gunned them

    And then these same fascists were whitewashed as noble freedom fighters by Western MSM simply because their interests happen to allign with the interests of the US, for the moment. Thus we have the ridiculous situation where supposedly reputable media like NYT and WaPoo cheer on the Azov battalion and its brethren, and deny the very symbolism of the various Nazi insignia and regalia featured on their uniforms. Jim makes some very good points, but he fell way short in ignoring the role of the US MSM in this travesty.

    And just in case someone tries to claim that we all make mistakes at times and that the MSM made an honest mistake in regards to these neo-Nazi formations, the same thing has been happening in Syria, where the US and its Gulf allies have armed extremists and have whitewashed their extremism by claiming even Al Qaeda and its offshoots are noble freedom fighters.

    hemeantwell December 9, 2016 at 12:05 pm

    Good on the parallel with Syria. The evolution, or distortion, of revolutionary movements as they struggle to gain support and offensive power and then either are modified or jacked by "supporting" external powers is not a cheering subject. The tendency to ignore that this has happened takes two forms. One is what we are here discussing. The other is its opposite, as seen in, for example, the way some writers try to maintain that there never was a significant democratic/progressive/humane etc. element to the Syrian opposition.

    flora December 9, 2016 at 9:57 am

    Ukraine, as I understand it, is not monolith but has roughly 2 interest areas – western and eastern – divided by the River Dnieper. The Western half is more pro-European and EU, the Eastern half is more pro-Russia. The word "fascist" in Ukraine means something slightly different than in means in the US and the EU. So I take your comment with a grain of salt, even though it is interesting.

    Ukraine's geographical location as the land "highway" between Europe and Asia has created a long and embattled history there.

    OIFVet December 9, 2016 at 10:17 am

    So perhaps in the future instead of repeating a bunch of Russian talking points because you mistakenly think Russia is somehow opposed to US capitalism,

    Uh, no. I haven't noticed anyone here thinking that Russia is some sort of fighter for social and economic justice. Rather, we as a group are sick of noxious propaganda driven by American Exceptionalism.

    And speaking for myself, I find the rise of Russia to be potentially a very good thing for the US itself, if it manages to curtail the MIC-driven hegemonic drive, weakens its relative power, and forces it to focus its money and energies on pressing domestic issues.

    Soulipsis December 9, 2016 at 11:48 am

    Seconded.

    hemeantwell December 9, 2016 at 12:15 pm

    Thirded. The idea of considering Putin to be anticapitalist is risible. Putin represents a limit on a US hegemonized economic order and the greater likelihood that some portion of the fruits of the Russian oligarchic capitalist effort will benefit Russians, not elites tied to the US, because of his self-interested nationalism. Not much to cheer about but better than where things were headed when Yeltsin was in power.

    KRB December 9, 2016 at 10:49 am

    This is some insidious strawman and dishonest argumentation, speaking of "BS." Nowhere does this article state that the entire Maidan revolution was a "fascist coup"-that's you putting words in the author's mouth to make his article appear to be Russian propaganda. The author specifies names of top figures in power today with seriously disturbing neo-Nazi backgrounds-the speaker of Ukraine's parliament, its Interior Minister, and head of National Police. He never once calls it a "fascist coup". Using strawman to avoid having to answer these specific allegations is bad faith commenting.

    The false analogy to Occupy shows how dishonest your comment is. No one disputes that neo-Nazi leader Parubiy was in charge of Maidan's "self-defense"; and that neo-Nazi Right Sektor played a lead role in the confrontations with the Yanukovych authorities. There is absolutely no equivalent to this with Occupy at all. Where does this false analogy even come from? No where does the author state that Maidan was ONLY fascists, that is again your strawman response. Maidan had a lot of support from pro-western, pro-european, pro-liberal forces. But to deny the key and often lead roles played by neo-fascists in the actual organization, "self defense" and violent confrontations with the Yanukovych goons is gross whitewashing.

    Much worse is the way you rationalize the fascist OUN salute by arguing that it means something else now, or it's become normalized, etc. These are all the same bullshit arguments made by defenders of the Confederate flag. "It means something different now." "it's about heritage/being a rebel!/individualism!" There is no "but" to this, and anyone who claims so is an asshole of the first order. The salute descends directly from collaborators in the Holocaust and mass-murder of Jews and Poles and collaboration with Nazis. If people claim they don't understand its origins, then educate them on why it's so fucked up, don't make excuses for them. Really disgusting that you'd try to rationalize this away. There is no "but" and no excuse, period.

    "Russia Without BS" is one hell of an ironic name for someone bs-ing like this. Your failure to actually engage the article, setting up and knocking down strawmen instead, and evading, using false analogies-reveal your own intellectual pathologies. Try responding to the actual text here, and maybe you'll be taken seriously.

    Martin Finnucane December 9, 2016 at 2:47 pm

    +1

    My thought was that this post was an example of the strawman fallacy. Yet certainly Mr. Kovpak wasn't just shooting from the hip. That is, he thought about this thing, wrote it, looked it over, and said "well enough" and posted it. Poor logic, or bad faith?

    I think the tell was his characterization of the article as "repeating a bunch of Russian talking points." What the hell is a "Russian talking point"? How do Ames' contentions follow said talking points? Are he saying, perhaps, that Ames is another one of those Kremlin agents we've been hearing about, or perhaps another "useful idiot"? Perhaps Ames – of all people – is a dupe for Putin, right?

    Hasbara, Ukrainian style. Bringing this junk onto NS, either this guy is alot of dumber than he gives himself credit for, or he actually has no familiarity with NS, outside of the now- and rightly-notorious WP/ProporNot blacklist. Probably the latter, since it looks like his comment was a pre-masticated one-and-done.

    sid_finster December 9, 2016 at 3:03 pm

    I suspect that Mr. Kovpak is a member of the Ukrainian diaspora that first infested this country starting around 1945, and has since been trying to justify the belief that the wrong side won WWII.

    AD December 9, 2016 at 10:55 am

    I'm glad Jim Kovpak provided this background. I was very troubled to see Ames breezily smear the Ukrainian uprising as "fascist," essentially writing off the protesters as U.S. proxies and dismissing their grievances as either non-existent or irrelevant. Something similar has happened in Syria, of course. Yes, the U.S. ruling blocs try to advance their interests in such places, but if you ignore the people on the ground or dismiss them as irrelevant, you're just playing into the hands of other tyrannical interests (in Syria: Assad, Putin, Hezbollah, etc.).

    OIFVet December 9, 2016 at 12:06 pm

    $5 billion spent over the past 25 years by the US in Ukraine (per Nuland). Yeah, they ain't US proxies. Gla that you straightened that out for us.

    The grievances in Ukraine are many and are legitimate. But that the people's anger was hijacked by US-financed proxies is a fact. Nuland was caught dictating that Yats would be the new PM, and darned if he didn't become just that. The appalling corruption of Yanukovich was replaced by the appalling corruption of Yats and Poroschenko, and the country was plunged into a civil war. But Yats and Porky are freedom-loving democrats! The old saying remains true: "They may be corrupt SOBs, but they are our corrupt SOBs!"

    Heck, for all the crocodile tears shed by the West about corruption and democracy, it has nurtured corruption in Eastern Europe and looked the other way as democracy has been trampled. Including in my native Bulgaria, where millions of dollars spent by the US and allied NGOs on promoting and financing "free press" have seen Bulgaria's freedom of media ranking slip to third world levels. But Bulgaria is a "democracy" because it is a member of the EU and NATO, and as such its elites have done the bidding of its Western masters at the expense of Bulgaria's national interests and the interests of its people. Ukraine is headed down that road, and all I can say to regular Ukrainians is that they are in for an even bigger screwing down the road, cheer-led by the Western "democracies" and "free" media.

    Meddling by US hyperpower in the internal affairs and the replacement of one set of bastahds with another set of bastahds that is beholden to the US is not progress, which is why we call it out. After all the spilled blood and destruction sponsored by the US, can you honestly say that Ukraine and Syria and Libya and Iraq are now better off, and that their futures are bright? I can't, and I can't say that for my native country either. That's because this new version of neocolonialism is the most destructive and virulent yet. And it is particularly insidious because it fools well-meaning people, like yourself, into believing that it actually helps improve the lives of the natives. It does not.

    lyman alpha blob December 9, 2016 at 12:39 pm

    "The appalling corruption of Yanukovich was replaced by the appalling corruption of Yats and Poroschenko "

    That pretty much sums it up. Jim Kovpak does make some excellent points which help to understand what the Ukranians are thinking. The discussion regarding the poor education system and potential lack of knowledge of what certain symbolism refers to was really good. Sort of reminds me of the Southerners in the US who still claim that the Stars and Bars is just about Southern heritage and pride without bothering to consider the other ramifications and what the symbol means for those who were persecuted at one time (and continuing to today). But yeah, I'm sure there are those who think that that flag was just something the Duke boys used on the General Lee when trying to outrun Roscoe.

    All that being said, I don't believe anybody here thinks that Yanukovich was some paragon of virtue ruling a modern utopia. The problem is that the new boss looks surprisingly familiar to the old boss with the main difference being that the fruits of corruption are being funneled to different parties with the people likely still getting the shaft.

    If your a(just as many in the US are), it's quite possible they are also unaware of the current US influence in their country, just as most US citizens are unaware of what the US has done in other countries.

    I'd be very interested in Jim Kovpak's thoughts on this.

    RMcHewn December 9, 2016 at 4:37 pm

    $5 billion spent over the past 25 years by the US in Ukraine (per Nuland). Yeah, they ain't US proxies. Gla[d] that you straightened that out for us.

    Yes, it doesn't get any more blatant than that, and if anyone believes otherwise they are obviously hooked on the officially sanctioned fake news, aka the MSM.

    Damian December 9, 2016 at 10:56 am

    "Euromaidan was not started by right-wingers / Ukraine certainly does not have more right-wingers than other Eastern European nations" silly at best!

    Paruiby (Neo Fascist) was in charge before and after the Maidan for security – the trajectory of the bullets came from his peoples positions that shot the cops – analyzed over and over

    The Nazi Asov Battalion among other organizations supporting the Regime in Kiev has Nazi symbols, objectives and is one of the main forces armed and trained by American Military.

    The entire corrupt Kiev administration is Nazi and now it appears the Clinton Campaign has direct ties well beyond the $13 million she received in her Slush Fund from the Oligarchs in 2013. The driving force behind this entire Fake News Initiative and support for Hillary is becoming more visible each day.

    Your statements are pure propaganda and I would assume you work indirectly for Alexandra Chalupa!

    sid_finster December 9, 2016 at 11:35 am

    Not to mention the Ukrainian Nazis penchant for shelling civilians. Or will Kovpak (Ukrainian school perhaps? Did his grandfather emigrate with the other Ukrainian SS?) will repeat the canard that unbeknownst to the locals, the rebels are shelling themselves, using artillery shells that can 180 mid-flight?

    Young Ex-Pat December 9, 2016 at 11:28 am

    "Basically you condemning Maidan is like someone condemning Occupy just because of the presence of neo-Nazis and racists who were sometimes involved in certain Occupy chapters (this is well documented)."

    You must be kidding. Where to begin? Can we start with the simple fact that the Russian Foreign Ministry wasn't handing out baked goods to Occupy protesters in NYC, egging them on as they tossed molotov cocktails at police, who, strangely enough, refrained from shooting protesters until right after a peaceful political settlement was reached? Coincidence or fate? Or maybe there is strong evidence that right wing fanatics were the ones who started the shooting on that fateful day? http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31359021

    And sorry, no matter how much Kovpak denies it, the muscle behind the "glorious revolution" was a bunch of far-right thugs that make our American alt-right look like girl scouts. Andrei Biletsky, leader of Azov Battalion and head of Ukraine's creatively named Social-National Assembly, says he's committed to "punishing severely sexual perversions and any interracial contacts that lead to the extinction of the white man." http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28329329 - Just like those hippies at Zuccotti Park, right?! Oh,and this guy received a medal from Poroshenko.

    I can keep going, but your "Maidan was just like Occupy!" argument pretty much speaks for itself. Glory to the heroes indeed.

    p.s. "Russia Without the BS" is awful.

    sid_finster December 9, 2016 at 11:30 am

    As someone who lived many years in Ukraine, speaks Ukrainian and Russian and knows personally many of the people involved, yes, Ukrainians know full well the origin of the Nazi slogans that the local Nazis spout.

    That doesn't mean that the average frustrated euromaidan supporter is a Nazi, but Nazis bussed in from Galicia did eventually provide the muscle, as it were, and the rest of the country were willing to get in bed with them, appoint them to run ministries, and let them have independent military units.

    Those Nazis are perfectly happy to call themselves Nazis.

    OIFVet December 9, 2016 at 12:11 pm

    What is the liberals' talking point these days? "Not all Trump supporters are racist, but all of them decided that racism isn't a deal-breaker. End of story." Hillary's SoS-designate Nuland and Barry 0 decided that Ukie nazism wasn't a deal breaker. End of story.

    Foppe December 9, 2016 at 2:41 pm

    To be fair, there is a fairly wide gap between 'racist' and 'violent racist of the KKK/Nazi variety'.

    Also (yes, partly preaching to the choir, but with a purpose), liberals are perfectly happy to stay quiet about enormous income/prosecution/incarceration/kill rate differences, so long as those targeted/affected can (bureau-/meritocratically) be described as 'druggies/criminals/"extremists"/uneducated-thus- undeserving '. And to ignore drone bombing of brown people. Etc. So all the pearl-clutching/virtue-signaling concerning racism is pretty easy to shrug off as concerning little more than a plea to express one's support for racist policy in a PC fashion.

    (Highly recommend The New Jim Crow , which I've only recently started reading, for no good reason. Bizarre to realize that all of the stuff that's being reported on a little bit now has been going on for 30 years now (30y of silence / wir-haben-es-nicht-gewusst wrt the structural nature; note that any/all reporting that im/explicitly describes these issues as "scandals"/"excesses" is part of the problem.)

    Gareth December 9, 2016 at 12:24 pm

    The whole Fake News world is a house of mirrors:

    http://www.stopfake.org/en/stopfakenews-98-eng-with-jim-kovpak/

    olga December 9, 2016 at 12:31 pm

    WOW I guess we have democracy, so your comment got through. In a way, your post confirms the existence of rabidly anti-Russian entities – the very point that Mark Ames makes. But you know, there are people who know a thing or two about Russia and Ukraine, and can easily refute much of your diatribe. (1) Ukrainian neo-fascists were an integral part of the Maidan (trained in Poland, US, and Canada).

    Yes, ordinary Ukrainians protested against corruption – but every U. government since 1991 has been corrupt. Yanukovich was no exception – but he was also not the worst one (do some research on J. Timoshenko).

    Corruption persists in U. today – and based on the now-required property disclosures by U. politicians – may be even worse. It is likely correct that most U. don't give a damn about Bandera – but most U. also do not have any power to do anything about the neo-nazis, as they are (at least in the western part of the country) numerous, vocal, and prone to violence.

    There is enough actual footage from Maidan that shows the presence of neo-nazi members on the square from the beginning. They were also the one who completed the violent overthrow of the government that happened on 2/21-22/14 – after a deal had been signed calling for early elections. The burning of 48 people in Odessa was probably done by angels, according to your likely analysis.

    (2) But it is your comments about the U. neo-nazi participation in the war that seem to clarify who you really represent. This participation was not much discussed during the soviet times – I only found out that they continued to fight against the soviet state long after the war ended recently – from family members who witnessed it (in Belorussia, west. Ukr., and eastern Czechoslovakia). Some of them witnessed the unspeakable cruelty of these Ukr. "troops" against villagers and any partisans they could find. White-washing this period (or smearing soviet educational system) will not help – there is plenty of historical evidence for those who are interested in the subject.

    (3) What you say about the Russian state promoting this or that is just a scurrilous attack, with no proof. Not even worth exploring. On the other hand, there are plenty of documented murders of Ukr. journalists (google Buzina – a highly intelligent and eloquent Ukr. journalist, who was gunned down in front of his home; there are quite a few others).

    Ukr. in 2014 may have been protesting inept government, but what they ended up with is far worse – by any measure, Ukr. standard of living has gone way down. But now, the industrial base of the country has been destroyed, and the neo-nazi genie will not go back into the bottle any time soon. Ukr. as a unified place did not exist until after WWI, and the great divisions – brought starkly into contrast by the 2014 destruction of the state – cannot be papered over anytime soon.

    lyman alpha blob December 9, 2016 at 12:48 pm

    Appreciate the points you bring up but if the Ukranians truly want an end to an exploitative system, they probably are not going to get it by allying themselves with Uncle Sugar. The US provided billions of dollars to foment the coup and our oligarchs expect a return on that investment – they aren't going to suddenly start trust funds for all Ukranians out of the goodness of their hearts. You are aware of that aren't you?

    integer December 9, 2016 at 4:04 pm

    So perhaps in the future instead of repeating a bunch of Russian talking points

    I was going to say something about how the CIA made Ukraine's Social Nationalist party change its name to Svoboda (freedom), to obscure the obvious Nazi connection, but instead I will just laugh at you.
    Hahahahahaha!

    Reply
    KRB December 9, 2016 at 4:33 pm

    What a shocker that Jim Kovpak, the commenter who tries smearing this article as "repeating a bunch of Russian talking points" -- works for CIA-founded Voice of America and is a regular with Ukraine's "StopFake.org" which is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy , the CIA's color revolution "soft" arm - in other words, PropOrNot's folks. Can't make this stuff up.

    Rhondda December 9, 2016 at 5:22 pm

    It was patently obvious from his comment that he's a pro shill but very good to have the proof. Thanks, KRB.

    OIFVet December 9, 2016 at 5:54 pm

    Wait, so in Kovpak's case our tax dollars are used to fund and disseminate propaganda to America's public, too? I am not shocked or anything, but rather amused that the vaunted American democracy and famously free media is beginning to resemble communist Bulgaria. The good news is that by the 80's nobody believed the state and its propagandists, even on the rare occasion they were telling the truth, and America's people seem to be a bit ahead of the curve already, which may explain the "fake news" hysteria from the creators and disseminators of fake news.

    Eddie Anderson December 9, 2016 at 8:34 pm

    Ukraine certainly does not have more right-wingers than other Eastern European nations, but if you look at their polls and elections you see that the far-right in Ukraine does far worse than it does in other Eastern and even Western European countries

    Okay, but isn't it the case that many far-right leaders have migrated to parties closer to the center, such as People's Front? Svoboda's leaders have done this. Andriy Parubiy, Tetiana Chornovol, and Oleksandr Turchynov, for example, hold high positions in People's Front, but started out as members or Svoboda. If I'm not mistaken, People's Front also has strong connections to the far-right Volunteer Battalions. I believe People's Front has its own paramilitary branch too.

    What this tells me is that much of Ukraine's far-right may be masquerading as right-center. That's kind of like a political Trojan Horse operation. This way the fascists avoid standing out as far-right, but at the same time, move closer to the mechanisms of power within Ukraine's government.

    Here in America we saw something like that in the early 1990s, when KKK leader David Duke migrated to the political mainstream by running for office as a Republican in Louisiana. Of course Duke never changed his views, he just learned to dissemble himself in the way he sold his politics to the public.

    Here's an article by Lev Golinkin commenting on the far-right's strong and dangerous influence on Ukraine today. A fascist presence like this could easily be a powerful element in Ukrainian elections, very suddenly and unpredictably too. https://www.thenation.com/article/the-ukrainian-far-right-and-the-danger-it-poses/

    Ignacio December 9, 2016 at 4:22 am

    This is getting darker and darker. As much as I dislike Trump I feel happier that Clinton didn't make it. The TINA party is the most reactionary thing by far!

    Benedict@Large December 9, 2016 at 7:32 am

    Yes, these are dangerous people, as are most "true believers". I'm also becoming even more disappointed at Ms, Clinton. For a while, she seemed to be keeping a little distance from her dead-enders, but now that her and Bill are out back on the money trail (How much is enough?), it doesn't look good.

    Selling fear? Really? Isn't there a shelf life on that?

    notabanker December 9, 2016 at 7:56 am

    Ahhh, but it's not money they accumulate, its power. And time is their only constraint. This is what they do.

    Jim Haygood December 9, 2016 at 8:03 am

    William Banzai7 on "Prop or Nuts." Hillary's "Childen of the Rainbow" button (look carefully) is to die for.

    https://c8.staticflickr.com/1/601/30710973103_365b8e0b4d_b.jpg

    Clive December 9, 2016 at 9:00 am

    There's a crock of something at the end of that rainbow, but I doubt very much that it contains any gold.

    ambrit December 9, 2016 at 11:07 am

    I'm not certain about the contents of that crock, good sir. We now live in a "culture" where s–t IS gold. Otherwise, why are we now enduring a "popular press" full of "wardrobe malfunctions," new amazing bikini bodies, salacious gossip, and equally salacious "news?" (The Page Three was shut down really because there was too much competition.)

    Oh tempura, oh s'mores! (Latinate for "We're crisped!")

    Carolinian December 9, 2016 at 9:30 am

    Indeed. The above article is great, great stuff and shows why some of us found Hillary more disturbing than Trump. Therefore Ames' final assumption

    And the timing is incredible-as if Bezos' rag has taken upon itself to soften up the American media before Trump moves in for the kill.

    seems a bit off. It's certainly true that Trump said news organizations should face greater exposure to libel laws but one suspects this has more to do with his personal peevishness and inability to take criticism than the Deep State-y motives described above. Clearly the "public versus private" Hillary–Nixon in a pant suit–would have been just the person to embrace this sort of censorship by smear and her connection with various shadowy exiles and in her own campaign no less shows why Sanders' failure to make FP the center of his opposition was, if not a political mistake, at least evidence of his limited point of view.

    It's unlikely that anyone running this time would be able to change our domestic trajectory but this fascism from abroad is a real danger IMO. In Reagan times some of us thought that Reagan supported reactionary governments abroad because that's what he and his rogue's gallery including Casey and North wished they could do here. The people getting hysterical over Trump while pining for Hillary don't seem to know fascism when it's right in front of them. Or perhaps it's just a matter of whose ox is going to be gored.

    Soulipsis December 9, 2016 at 11:59 am

    Sanders might have had a hard time driving as far left on FP as he did on domestic issues. I'm his constituent, and I have a letter from him from mid-'15 reiterating all the mainstream lies about Russia and Ukraine.

    Disturbed Voter December 9, 2016 at 6:45 am

    No surprise, ever since the US, and Biden, got involved in Ukraine. And it is even probable, that people like that were behind the Kennedy assassination, that the US has admitted was a conspiracy, that is still protected from "journalistic sunshine" under lock and key by the US government.

    integer December 9, 2016 at 6:49 am

    Thanks for giving this article its own post, and thanks to dcblogger for providing the link in yesterday's Water Cooler.

    Seems to me that this little bout of D-party/CIA incompetence, and/or incontinence, will finally sound the death knell for the Operation Paperclip gang's plan. Good riddance.

    integer December 9, 2016 at 7:01 am

    and/or incontinence

    I'm looking at you, Soros!

    [Dec 10, 2016] We Demand That PropOrNot Remove Its Blacklist, Report, and Browser Tool Defaming Naked Capitalism and Issue an Apology naked

    Notable quotes:
    "... merely reporting what PropOrNot said ..."
    "... the first in a series ..."
    "... The MSM has lost control of the narrative. The big dailies continue to hemorrhage ad revenue, month in and month out, year in and year out. Their existence going forward will be even more dependent on government assistance. Fake News is the pathetic death rattle of the neoliberal order. ..."
    Dec 10, 2016 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
    As the Columbia Journalism Review stated (emphasis original):

    More importantly, the editor's note vaults into verbal gymnastics in an attempt to simultaneously rationalize and distance itself from an obviously flawed primary source. Any data analysis is only as good as the sum of its parts, and it's clear that PropOrNot's methodology was lacking.

    The Post, of course, was merely reporting what PropOrNot said . Yet it used declarative language throughout, sans caveat, lending credence to a largely unknown organization that lumps together independent left-wing publications and legitimately Russian-backed news services. The Post diminished its credibility at a time when media credibility is in short supply, and the non-apologetic editor's note doesn't help.

    And from FAIR (emphasis original):

    Almost two weeks after its article ran, the Post ran a sort of correction in the form of an editorial comment in italics pasted on top of the online edition of Timberg's November 24 piece (where only those looking for the by then old original story would find it). In that note, the editors say that the paper

    did not name any of the sites [on PropOrNot's blacklist], does not itself vouch for the validity of PropOrNot's findings regarding any individual media outlet, nor did the article purport to do so. Since publication of the Post 's story, PropOrNot has removed some of those sites from its list.

    Of course, the damage was already done, as the original article achieved widespread circulation via the Post 's wire service; it would be up to all those news organizations that bought and ran the story, or reported their own versions of it, to make any correction.

    Meanwhile, the facile dodge of "we didn't name the sites" ignores the reality that the Post had prominently showcased PropOrNot and let its name vouch for the heretofore unknown group's credibility. The paper didn't have to run the list; anyone with a smartphone could do a Google search, find PropOrNot's website as the first listing, go to the homepage and find a link button headed "The List."

    And apparently plenty of readers did that. While thanks to the Post 's grant of anonymity, PropOrNot's hidden principals remained safe from inquiring reporters and Russian hackers alike, editors of sites named on its McCarthyite hit list quickly found themselves deluged with venomous calls and emails. As Jeffrey St. Clair, a co-founder and editor of CounterPunch.org , another site listed prominently as a propaganda tool, recalls, "The morning after the Post published its article, I found 1,000 emails in my inbox, mostly hate mail and death threats."

    readerOfTeaLeaves December 10, 2016 at 2:40 am

    Expert media commentators criticized the Post's handwave in the form of an editor's note that it placed at the top of a story that is now history, as opposed to news. The mild concession is likely to be read only by fans of the 199 sites that were defamed by the Post, and journalists who've taken interest in the row and not the vast public that read the story through the post and other major outlets, like USA Today, that re-reported or syndicated Timberg's piece.

    It all depends upon who you follow on Twitter, but from my check-in's today, the WaPo is not coming off well.

    This whole 'fake news' mess is downright weird.
    I have trouble understanding how anyone can govern, given the growing legitimacy problems.

    It seems as if there are (very well greased) wheels within (extravagantly funded) wheels moving behind the scenes.
    Meanwhile, apparently Obama has formally requested that the Intel Community develop a 'consensus report' about the role of the Russians in this most recent election (per Emptywheel). "Senior officials' in Congress have already been briefed, and some are apparently leaking: this much smoke signals a battle royale behind the scenes.

    The worst possible outcome, IMVHO, is failing to investigate and come clean.

    Every time our government is too gutless to deal with reality - whether WMD, or the Financial Crisis - the legitimacy of government is further eroded. It would be helpful if Hillary renounced the Presidency, and agreed that even if the election should be overturned, that she would defer to some other person. The investigation should not be used as a recount, nor as a re-do. It should function only to restore credibility to the US federal government, and for no other reason.

    Unfortunately for Trump, if he blocks this kind of investigation, it will only diminish his credibility, and weaken the very power he seeks to hold.
    Life is full of paradoxes and mysteries; this one takes the cake.

    Yves Smith Post author December 10, 2016 at 3:16 am

    I agree with your comment re Twitter, but Twitter is heavy with journalists who love the story of a media fight. This is catnip to them.

    The Washington Post story was tweeted far more heavily when it first ran than the follow-on criticism was. The story proper got 14,800 comments. It was picked up by USA Today, CNN, and I haven't even begun to track how many different other publishers. The original reach was at least an order of magnitude, and probably two orders of magnitude, bigger than the discussion of the itty bitty walkback.

    Presumptuous Insect December 10, 2016 at 6:16 am

    Yves,

    Do you have a website set up for donations, like GoFundMe or Paypal? If you do, I am sure lots of us can help you to get the word out on twitter, etc.

    PI

    Yves Smith Post author December 10, 2016 at 6:19 am

    Thanks so much!

    Please see our Tip Jar in the right column. It tells you how to donate using a debit or credit card, or send a check.

    We had a recent emergency fundraiser, and some of that has already been allocated to extra site coverage (to have others do more site-minding and content generation so as to free me up to spend time on this stuff) and the other part (a bit more than half the total) is to fund expenses for litigation.

    Generalfeldmarschall Von Hindenburg December 10, 2016 at 3:05 am

    Is this episode really Bezos carrying water for a faction of the deep state? They had to have known that if you malign the entirety of the alt media-left and right that they'd show their teeny little teeth.
    I bet they feed this chump Timberg to the crocodiles ultimately. Meanwhile Mark Ames will ferret out the weird nexus of Ukrainian Nazi types. But since the WaPo will take the heat and the public will lose interest, nobody will care. But in the end the 4 or 5 folks who came up with this scheme will have achieved their goals:

    *Throw mud on non corporate news reportage.
    *Fire a warning shot over Trumps bow
    *Plant seeds with the population for the future when some ginned up provocation will again put Russia in the crosshairs of a black propaganda campaign.

    These archonic m_fers are relentless. Russia represents an independent power which absolutely cannot be permitted by Empire. This is part of a long term strategy to box Russia in. They are seen as the weaker of the Sino Russian partnership and are being targeted first.

    rusti December 10, 2016 at 6:13 am

    Not having witnessed anything like this before I'm having trouble understanding the strategy here. What potential end game is there in dealing directly with PropOrNot? Jim Moody's time is valuable, Yves' time is valuable, but they seem likely to be a few nobodies who no one would have paid any attention to if the Washington Post hadn't amplified the reach of their amateurish operation by factor of a million.

    Clive December 10, 2016 at 6:24 am

    I think you said it all there without maybe realizing it - PropOrNot may seem like harmless nobodies and, left to their own devices and not given the oxygen of publicity that is what they'd have remained.

    But there are no accidents in life. The Washington Post (and do keep in mind its owner) picked up on their output and played their tune on the Mighty Media Wurlitzer thereby amplifying it. That alone is suggestive that PropOrNot may not be the two guys working out of their Mom's basement which it is easy to think they might be.

    Add in the fact that - worldwide now, I can tell you that even outside the U.S. this whole "fake news" meme is still getting lots of airtime, the BBC in England is running 'Russia Hacked the U.S. Election' stories right now as I watch and the Japanese language media has similar too - what the Washington Post is seeking to do looks very well orchestrated and coordinated it means that you must not take anything at face value here.

    allan December 10, 2016 at 6:47 am

    The MSM is all in. Last night the PBS Newshour ran the first in a series of stories on FakeNews™, with favorably framed clips of Clinton and Sheryl Sandberg, and an extended
    interview with Marc Fisher of the WaPo. Oddly, no mention of the PropOrNot fiasco.

    craazyboy December 10, 2016 at 8:08 am

    It doesn't take a tin foil hat to believe the globalist-neocon-neolib-blob_thing feels it necessary to delegitimize Trump and Trump's election in order to reassure its merry band of practitioners that it's still biz as usual in the One World.

    And tho it may seem a challenge to re-paint "Lying Hillary" as the beacon of truth, challenges are what keep one motivated and ever stronger. No pain no gain.

    P.S. Irony Of The Year Award goes to Russia for hacking and releasing real news. If we are giving them the credit for DNC hacks and Hillary's secret private server discovery.

    barefoot charley December 10, 2016 at 10:24 am

    All in: (Yes, the Russians did it and no, we don't have to prove it)

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-orders-review-of-russian-hacking-during-presidential-campaign/2016/12/09/31d6b300-be2a-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html?tid=sm_fb&utm_term=.3de053262ddc

    lyman alpha blob December 10, 2016 at 9:42 am

    I went to a fundraiser last night where the very politically involved crowd was largely liberal and one of the award presenters brought up 'fake news' during her speech. If I'm not mistaken a member of this woman's family was one of Clinton's superdelegates. This 'fake news' meme is definitely being spread far and wide.

    Nuke it from orbit.

    Yves Smith Post author December 10, 2016 at 6:33 am

    We need to pursue the source of the defamation. See the BuzzFeed story yesterday, which is generally very sympathetic to our position. Yet even that reporter says, Why have you gone after the Post and not ProOrNot too?

    I think this is at the very most six guys and probably more like two or three, for reasons not worth taking the time to explain. And do not forget that the New Yorker said not only they but other major pubs were shown the story and passed on it.

    So the question is more: why did the Post pick up on obvious rubbish and treat it as newsworthy? This may have less to do with grand conspiracy as much as a bad intersection of events, such as: the Post under Bezos explicitly placing much more pressure on reporters to churn out stories quickly, which means less fact checking; hysteria over Russia and fake news; and individual reporters and editors seeing it as to their advantage to be in front of a hot area, no matter at what risk. Recall the Post has run such nutty stories as one saying that Hillary's 9/11 collapse was due to Putin poisoning her.

    Jack December 10, 2016 at 9:07 am

    I think WAPO picked it up because they were obviously all in for Clinton during the election. Whether Bezos was the hand behind this or not, WAPO has certainly focused on Trump. They even admitted they were doing it as Bob Woodward disclosed in a Zero Hedge article. And of course, WAPO assisted Clinton against Sanders with their coverage which has been documented many times. Now Clinton is on the bandwagon of the fake news fiasco. She just gave a speech about it Thursday.

    rusti December 10, 2016 at 9:14 am

    Thanks Yves (and Clive) for the responses. My concern is that if a shoddy three-man operation, paired with a useful idiot MSM amplifier, can provoke a response that puts sites like NC on the defensive and takes time from original reporting, it could be a template for quick-and-dirty future attacks against independent media outlets. It seems like the amplifier is the only part of the chain that can't just change domain names and set up shop somewhere else.

    But I can see how ignoring them entirely isn't an optimal solution either. I'll keep throwing my change in the tip jar and seeing how it all unfolds.

    craazyboy December 10, 2016 at 8:47 am

    The PorN site is a dark site. We don't know who the principals are or where its funding comes from. YYYYvesYYY also said NC needs to know what jurisdiction to file in in order to pursue PorN, but that is not even known at this point. But in the Wapo response to TruthDig, Wapo stated they did have "numerous" discussions with some persons at PorN before running the story.

    So you got to shake the tree by the branches you can grab. The ball is now in Wapo's court to state, "Journalistic integrity demands we do not reveal our sources in order to protect their safety."

    Meanwhile PorN is calling upon the entire USG security apparatus to investigate 200 websites for Treason, but we are unsure about which country[government] Treason is being committed against in One World. This doesn't sound like a very safe situation for simple minded provincial US citizen homebodies.

    Mike December 10, 2016 at 6:25 am

    Hello,

    I have been browsing your links for many years now – I find them well balanced, genuine, thought provoking, and usually quite deep. And it is not just me – your quality is well recognized among financial online community and punditry.

    It is important you treat this thing with the right kind of attention. This is not mccarthian. If it would be, you would be locked down in some hole in a secret location. This is somebody claiming you have silicone tits and an extramarital affair with Michael Moore. Nobody gives a shit about this, or their software, or WaPo and thir article – even if it gets 10 million retweets. Twitter attention span is 1 minute.

    Sure, sue everybody. But never give them an aureola of some dark sinister power. Ridicule them every way of the step. Ridicule "newspapers of record". Ridicule retweets. Have fun with it. Find new cases of such crap, where you personally are not affected. Help Melania Trump in her great fight against online violence :-)

    Just never concede to this as a "media fight" or "two versions of reality". This has nothing to do with news or reality. Do not give them that ground. This is some insignificant ass claiming you have fake tits, and it was picked up by an obsolete marketing tool called WaPo. A claim of an extramarital affair with Michael Moore would probably get even more coverage and more retweets and I bet some cable news discussions about public health consequences of missionary position with such a voluptuous man.

    Make the most out of this opportunity.

    Yves Smith Post author December 10, 2016 at 6:44 am

    We are fighting a legal battle and a political battle. The need to do both somewhat restricts our degrees of freedom. The political battle is ultimately the far more important one, since the "fake news" scare is part of a major push to restrict content on the web, by de facto rather than de jure means.

    tegnost December 10, 2016 at 10:22 am

    you're kidding yourself, every time lately that I look at mainstream headlines the fake news story is there near the top, can no longer stomach the news hour but another commenter says they're doing a series think about all those proper folks demanding their kids not read alternative views? The only consolation I can think of is that hillary lost because clearly this story was put out in advance of her losing and would still be amplified had she won, .the outcome looks bleak either way from here might as well fight it

    Hoi Polloi December 10, 2016 at 7:04 am

    I can tell you these fake news websites articles were heavily promoted here in Europe, so the consequences are wide spread world wide.

    I tried to explain the reasons and people behind ProporNot, but my comments were censored on 3 of the biggest digital newspapers in The Netherlands, some of them are in close contact with Soros.

    We have national elections in March 2017 and I can tell you the majority of the people are mad as hell and they know the news presented to them in the MSM are/were heavily biased towards Clinton. The MSM are sh*t scared what will happen in March 2017, an earthquake in the political landscape. All the liberal political leaders are now suddenly promoting political stuff that was unimaginable 2 years ago.

    I have followed your website on and off the last 5 years and the idea that you are guided by the Ruskies is absolutely preposterous even insane.

    I just wonder, was Wapo so blinded by the total unexpected loss of Clinton that they keep on publicing this nonsense or is it the trench war by Trump through his tweets. Wapo must have been aware of the amateurish drivel from Propornot and took a big risk of being exposed as havily biased and unprofessional with a heavy backlash.

    Anyways, I would like to donate to you in this battle, do you accept Paypal as well.

    I wish you and your team lots of success, Yves in this battle for truth.

    Cheers
    Fred from Holland

    Yves Smith Post author December 10, 2016 at 7:37 am

    Thanks for the intel and your willingness to help. Yes, we accept PayPal. Please visit our Tip Jar (the snow leopards in the right column).

    Itamar Turner-Trauring December 10, 2016 at 7:54 am

    It's not clear who own the domain since they use a Whois privacy provider ( https://whois.icann.org/en/lookup?name=propornot.com ).

    However, if PropOrNot doesn't respond you might be able to get their Whois privacy provider to get you the real owner's details – click on "File a Claim" at https://www.domainsbyproxy.com/default.aspx to see their process.

    Peter December 10, 2016 at 9:37 am

    Check this: http://wallstreetonparade.com/2016/12/whos-behind-propornots-blacklist-of-news-websites/

    And follow the money. Always.

    FluffytheObeseCat December 10, 2016 at 7:58 am

    I realize that there were a number of right wing news outlets included in this de facto censorship effort. But, they seem to be in a much stronger position than the left wing ones. Wider distribution, less choosy about what they'll run, favored by the incoming power elite, etc. Except, perhaps for a few paleocons-turned-libertarian-contrarians like Paul Craig Roberts. The Drudge Report types seem less vulnerable.

    I haven't been paying as much attention as I should to post a comment. But, first order, it looks like this imbalance may pertain to targeting. No one could expect to dull the impact of the Drudge Report by including it in an app of this kind. It is simply too prominent. Therefore, dampening the influence of the Drudge Report (and similar sites) was not the point of this little exercise.

    Slurring the actual targets by including Drudge & company in the app seems . more the point.

    Carolinian December 10, 2016 at 8:32 am

    Last night the PBS Newshour did a segment on "fake news." They are also participating in the current PBS pledge drive. Perhaps they are hoping that George Soros will send them a big check.

    One had hoped that the show would improve now that the election is over. One was wrong.

    Local8 December 10, 2016 at 9:34 am

    The MSM has lost control of the narrative. The big dailies continue to hemorrhage ad revenue, month in and month out, year in and year out. Their existence going forward will be even more dependent on government assistance. Fake News is the pathetic death rattle of the neoliberal order.

    [Dec 10, 2016] Shiny object distruction from the real issues

    Short-termism is a real problem for the US politicians. It is only now the "teeth of dragon" sowed during domination of neoliberalism since 80th start to show up in unexpected places. And reaction is pretty predictable. As one commenter said: "Looks like the CIA's latest candidate for regime change is the USA."
    Notable quotes:
    "... Divide and Control is being brilliantly employed once again against 'us'. The same tactics used against foreign countries are being used here at home on 'us'. ..."
    "... Divide and Conquer, yes indeed, watch McCain and Graham push this Russian hacking angle hard. ..."
    "... i regard this 'secret' CIA report, following on from the 'fake news' meme, to be another of what will become a never-ending series of attempts to deligitemize Trump, so that later on this year the coming economic collapse (and shootings, street violence, markets etc) can be more successfully blamed not only on Trump and his policies, but by extension, on the Russians. (a two-fer for the globalist statists) ..."
    "... Nevermind that many states voting machines are on private networks and are not even connected to the internet. ..."
    "... The Russians 'might' have influenced the election..... The American Government DID subvert and remove a democratically elected leader (Ukraine).Anyone see the difference there? ..."
    "... Voted for Trump, but the Oligarcy picked him too. Check the connection between Ross and Trump and Wilburs former employer. TPTB laughs at all of us ..."
    "... The sad facts are the CIA itself and it's massive propaganda arm has its gummy fingers all over this election and elections all over the planet. ..."
    "... The Russians, my ass. ................. The CIA are famous for doing nefarious crap and blaming their handy work on someone else. Crap that usually causes thousands of deaths. ... Even in the KGB days the CIA was the king of causing chaos. ..... the KGB would kill a dissident or spy or two and the CIA in the same time frame would start a couple of wars killing thousands or millions. ..."
    "... What makes people think the Post is believable? The truth has been hijacked by their self annihilating ideology. Honestly one would have to be dumb as a fence 'Post' (pun intended) to believe ANYTHING coming from this rag and the rest of these 'Fake News' MSM propaganda machines, good lord! ..."
    "... As for the CIA, it was reported at the time to be largely purged under the Dubya administration, of consitutionalists and other dissidents to the 9-11 -->> total-war program. Stacked to the brim with with neocon cadres. ..."
    "... Out of the 3,153 counties in this country, Hillary Clinton won only 480. A dismal and pathetic 15% of this country. The worst showing EVER for a presidential candidate. ..."
    "... The much vaunted 2 million vote lead in the popular vote can be attributed to exactly 4 boroughs in NYC; Bronx, Queens, Manhattan, & Brooklyn ..."
    "... 96 MILLION Americans were either too disgusted, too lazy, or too apathetic to even bother to go out and cast a vote for ANYONE in this election. ..."
    "... Looks like the CIA's latest candidate for regime change is the USA. ..."
    "... Clapper sat in front of congress and perjured himself. When confronted with his perjury he defended himself saying he told them the "least untruthful thing" he could - admitting he had not problem whatsoever about lying to Congress. ..."
    "... There certainly is foreign meddling in US government policy but it is not coming from Russia. The countries that have much greater influence than Russia on 'our' government are the Sunni-dominated Persian Gulf oil states including the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and, of course, that bastion of human rights, Saudi Arabia. ..."
    "... Oil money from these states has found its way into influentual think tanks including the Brookings Institution, the Atlantic Council, the Middle East Institute and the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies and others. ..."
    "... And also, there are arms sales. Arm sales to Saudi/Gulf States come with training. With training comes military ties, foreign policy ties and even intelligence ties. Saudi Arabia, with other Gulf oil states as partners, practically owns the CIA now. ..."
    "... Reverse Blockade: emphatically insisting upon something which is the opposite of the truth blocks the average person's mind from perceiving the truth. In accordance with the dictates of healthy common sense, he starts searching for meaning in the "golden mean" between truth and its opposite, winding up with some satisfactory counterfeit. People who think like this do not realize that this effect is precisely the intent of the person who subjects them to this method. ..."
    "... I recall lots of "consensus views" that were outright lies, bullshit and/or stupidity: "The Sun circles the Earth. The Earth is flat. Global cooling / next ice age (1970s). Global warming (no polar ice) 1990s-00's. Weapons of mass destruction." You can keep your doctor. ..."
    "... The CIA, Pentagon and "intelligence" agencies need both a cleaning and culling ..."
    "... Blacklist Promoted by the Washington Post Has Apparent Ties to Ukrainian Fascism and CIA Spying. ..."
    "... This whopper of a story from the CIA makes the one fabricated about WMD's in Iraq that fooled Bush Jr. and convinced him to almost take this country down by violating the sage advice on war strategy from Sun-Tzu and Clausewitz and opening up a second front in Iraq almost child's play. ..."
    "... At least with the WMD story they had false witnesses and some made up evidence! With this story, there is no "HUMINT (human intelligence) sources" and no physical evidence, just some alleged traces that could have been actually produced from the ether or if they knew ahead of time of Trump's possible win sent someone to Russia and had them actually run the IP routes for show. ..."
    "... Bush was misled because the CIA management was scared of some of his budgetary saber rattles and his chasing after some CIA management. In this case, someone is really scared of what the people will find when the swam gets drained, if ever it gets done. This includes so-called "false flag conservatives" like Lindsey Graham and top Democrats "Cambridge 5 Admirers" salted in over the years into the CIA ..."
    "... Trump has already signaled he is going hand them nearly unlimited power by appointing Pompeo in the first place. I would think they would be very happy to welcome the incoming administration with open arms. ..."
    "... I could see it if they were really that pissed about Trumps proposed Russian re-set and maybe they are but even that has to be in doubt because of the rate at which Trump is militarizing his cabinet. ..."
    "... In all reality Trump is a MIC, intelligence cabal dream come true, so why would they even consider biting the hand that feeds so well? Perhaps their is more going on here under the surface, maybe all the various agencies and bureaucracies are not playing nice, or together for that matter. ..."
    "... after all the CIA and the Pentagon's proxy armies are already killing each other in Syria so one has to wonder in what other arenas are they clashing? ..."
    "... The neocons are desperate. Their war monger Hitlery lost by a landslide now they fabricate all sorts of irrational BS. ..."
    "... 'CIA Team B' ..."
    "... 'Committee on the Present Danger' ..."
    "... 'Office of Special Plans' ..."
    "... Trump is a curious fellow. I've thought about this quite a bit and tried to put myself in his shoes. He has no friends in .gov, no real close "mates" he can depend on, especially in his own party, so he had to start from scratch to put his cabinet together. ..."
    "... It could very well be that this was Trump & the establishment plan to con the American public from the start of course. I kind of doubt it, since the efforts of the establishment to destroy Trump was genuinely full retard from the outset and still continues. ..."
    "... He would have done better to ignore the political divide to choose those who have spent their lives challenging the Deep State. My ignorance of US politics does not supply me with a complete picture, but Ron Paul, David Kucinich, Trey Gowdy, Tulsi Gabard and even turncoat Bernie Sanders would have been better to drain the swamp than the neocon zionists he has installed in power. ..."
    www.zerohedge.com

    MEFOBILLS -> Keyser , Dec 10, 2016 1:01 PM

    It is worse than "shiny object." Human brains have a latency issue - the first time they hear something, it sticks. To unstick something, takes a lot of counter evidence.

    So, a Goebbels-like big lie, or shiny object can be told, and then it can take on a life of its own. False flags operate under this premise. There is an action (false flag), and then false narrative is issued into press mouthpieces immediately. This then plants a shiny object in sheeple brains. It then takes too much mental effort for average sheeple to undo this narrative, so "crowds" can be herded.

    Six million dead is a good example of this technique.

    Fortunately, with the internet, "supposed fake news sites like ZH" are spreading truth so fast - that shiny stories issued by our Oligarch overlords are being shot down quickly.

    Bezo's, who owns Washington Post, is taking rents by avoiding sales taxes; not that I'm a fan of sales taxes. But, ultimately, Bezos is taking rental thefts, and he is afraid of Trump - who may change the law, hence collapse the profit scheme of Amazon.

    Cognitive Dissonance -> Oldwood •Dec 10, 2016 10:49 AM

    Oldwood. I have a great deal of respect for you and your intelligent opinions.

    My only concern is our constant and directed attention towards the 'liberals' and 'progressives'. When we do so we are thinking it is 'them' that are the problem.

    In fact it is the force behind 'them' that is the problem. If we oppose 'them', we are wasting our energy upon ghosts and boogeymen.

    Divide and Control is being brilliantly employed once again against 'us'. The same tactics used against foreign countries are being used here at home on 'us'.

    chunga -> Cognitive Dissonance •Dec 10, 2016 11:33 AM

    I've been reading what the blue-teamers are saying over on the "Democratic Underground" site and for a while they've been expressing it's their "duty" to disrupt this thing. They are now calling Trump a "Puppet Regime".

    Divide and Conquer, yes indeed, watch McCain and Graham push this Russian hacking angle hard. Also watch for moar of the Suprun elector frauds pop out of the woodwork. The Russian people must be absolutely galvanized by what's happening, USSA...torn into many opposing directions.

    dark pools of soros -> chunga •Dec 10, 2016 1:38 PM
    First tell them to change their name to the Progressive Party of Globalists. Then remind them that many democrats left them and voted for Trump.. Remind them again and again that if they really want to see blue states again, they have to actually act like democrats again

    I assure you that you'll be banned within an hour from any of their sites

    American Gorbachev -> Oldwood •Dec 10, 2016 10:12 AM

    not an argument to the contrary, but one of elongating the timing

    i regard this 'secret' CIA report, following on from the 'fake news' meme, to be another of what will become a never-ending series of attempts to deligitemize Trump, so that later on this year the coming economic collapse (and shootings, street violence, markets etc) can be more successfully blamed not only on Trump and his policies, but by extension, on the Russians. (a two-fer for the globalist statists)

    with a political timetable operative as well, whereby some (pardon the pun :) trumped up excuse for impeachment investigations/proceedings can consume the daily news during the run-up to the mid-term elections (with the intent of flipping the Senate and possibly House)

    these are very powerful, patient, and deliberate bastards (globalist statists) who may very well have engineered Trump's election for the very purpose of marginalizing, near the point of eliminating, the rural, christian, middle-class, nationalist voices from subsequent public debate

    Oldwood -> American Gorbachev •Dec 10, 2016 10:21 AM

    The problem is that once Trump becomes president, he will have much more power to direct the message as well as the many factions of government agencies that would otherwise be used to substantiate so called Trump failures. This is a calculated risk scenario for them, but to deny Trump the presidency by far produces more positives for them than any other.

    They will have control of the message and will likely shut down much of alternate media news. It is imperative that Trump be stopped BEFORE taking the presidency.

    sleigher -> overbet •Dec 10, 2016 10:00 AM

    "I read one morons comment that the IP address was traced back to a Russian IP. Are people really that dumb? I can post this comment from dozens of country IPs right now."

    Nevermind that many states voting machines are on private networks and are not even connected to the internet. IP addresses from Russia mean nothing.

    kellys_eye -> Nemontel •Dec 10, 2016 9:40 AM

    The Russians 'might' have influenced the election..... The American Government DID subvert and remove a democratically elected leader (Ukraine).Anyone see the difference there?

    Paul Kersey -> Nemontel •Dec 10, 2016 9:40 AM

    "Most of our politicians are chosen by the Oligarchy."

    And most of our politicians choose the Oligarchy. Trump's choices:

    Wilbur Ross, Rothschild, Inc

    The working man's choices.....very limited.

    Paul Kersey -> Paul Kersey •Dec 10, 2016 10:27 AM

    "Barack Obama received more money from Goldman Sachs employees than any other corporation. Tim Geithner, Obama's first treasury secretary, was the protege of one-time Goldman CEO Robert Rubin. "

    "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

    Nameshavebeench... -> Nemontel •Dec 10, 2016 11:53 AM

    If Trump gets hit, the 'official story' of who did it will be a lie.

    There needs to be a lot of online discussion about this ahead of time in preparation. If/when the incident happens, there needs to be a successful counter-offensive that puts an end to the Deep State. (take from that what you will)

    We've seen the MO many times now;

    The patterns are well established & if Trump gets hit it should be no surprise, now the 'jackals' need to be exterminated.

    Also, keep in mind that everything we're hearing in all media just might be psyops/counter-intel/planted 'news' etc.

    sgt_doom -> Nemontel •Dec 10, 2016 1:25 PM

    Although I have little hope for this happening, ideally Trump should initiate full forensic audits of the CIA, NSA, DIA and FBI. The last time a sitting president undertook an actual audit of the CIA, he had his brains blown out (President John F. Kennedy) and the Fake News (CBS, NBC, ABC, etc.) reported that a fellow who couldn't even qualify as marksman, the lowest category (he was pencilled in) was the sniper.

    Then, on the 50th anniversary of that horrible coup d'etat, another Fake News show (NPR) claimed that a woman in the military who worked at the rifle range at Atsuga saw Oswald practicing weekly - - absurd on the fact of it, since women weren't allowed at military rifle ranges until the late 1970s or 1980s (and I doublechecked and there was never a woman assigned there in the late 1950s).

    Just be sure he has trustworthy bodyguards, unlike the last batch of phony Secret Service agents (and never employ anyone named Elmer Moore).

    2rigged2fail -> Nemontel •Dec 10, 2016 4:04 PM

    Voted for Trump, but the Oligarcy picked him too. Check the connection between Ross and Trump and Wilburs former employer. TPTB laughs at all of us

    Arnold -> Arnold •Dec 10, 2016 9:15 AM

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

    jmack -> boattrash •Dec 10, 2016 11:08 AM

    All these Russian interference claims require one to believe that the MSM and democrat machine got out played and out cheated by a bunch of ruskies. This is the level of desperation the democrats have fallen too. To pretend to be so incompetent that the Russians outplayed and overpowered their machine. But I guess they have to fall on that narrative vs the fact that a "crazy" real estate billionaire with a twitter account whipped their asses.

    Democrats, you are morally and credulously bankrupt. all your schemes, agenda's and machinations cannot put humpty dumpty back together again. So now it is another period of scorched earth. The Federal Bureaucracy will fight Trump tooth and nail, joined by the democrats in the judiciary, and probably not a few rino's too.

    It is going to get ugly, like a machete fight. W. got a taste of it with his Plame affair, the brouhaha over the AGA firings, the regime of Porter Goss as DCI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter_Goss

    DuneCreature -> cherry picker •Dec 10, 2016 10:30 AM

    The sad facts are the CIA itself and it's massive propaganda arm has its gummy fingers all over this election and elections all over the planet.

    The Russians, my ass. ................. The CIA are famous for doing nefarious crap and blaming their handy work on someone else. Crap that usually causes thousands of deaths. ... Even in the KGB days the CIA was the king of causing chaos. ..... the KGB would kill a dissident or spy or two and the CIA in the same time frame would start a couple of wars killing thousands or millions.

    You said a mouth full, cherry picker. ..... Until the US Intel community goes 'bye bye' the world will HATE the US. ... People aren't stupid. They know who is behind the evil shit.

    ... ... ..

    G-R-U-N-T •Dec 10, 2016 9:39 AM

    What makes people think the Post is believable? The truth has been hijacked by their self annihilating ideology. Honestly one would have to be dumb as a fence 'Post' (pun intended) to believe ANYTHING coming from this rag and the rest of these 'Fake News' MSM propaganda machines, good lord!

    Colborne •Dec 10, 2016 9:37 AM

    As for the CIA, it was reported at the time to be largely purged under the Dubya administration, of consitutionalists and other dissidents to the 9-11 -->> total-war program. Stacked to the brim with with neocon cadres. So, that's the lay of the terrain there now, that's who's running the place. And they aren't going without a fight apparently.

    Interesting times , more and more so.

    66Mustanggirl •Dec 10, 2016 9:40 AM

    For those of us who still have a grip on reality, here are the facts of this election:

    But given this is a story from WaPo, I think will just give a few days until it is thoroughly discredited.

    max2205 -> 66Mustanggirl •Dec 10, 2016 11:04 AM

    And she won CA by 4 million. She hates she only gets a limited amount of electoral votes.. tough shit rules are rules bitch. Suck it

    HalEPeno •Dec 10, 2016 9:43 AM

    Looks like the CIA's latest candidate for regime change is the USA.

    Clara Tardis •Dec 10, 2016 9:45 AM

    This is a vid from the 1950's, "How to spot a Communist" all you have to do is swap out commie for: liberal, neocon, SJW and democrat and figure out they've about won....

    https://youtu.be/w86QhV7whjs

    dogismycopilot •Dec 10, 2016 9:51 AM

    This is the same CIA that let Pakistan build up the Taliban in Afganistan during the 1990s and gave Pakistan ISI (Pakistan spy agency) hundreds of millions of USD which the ISI channeled to the Taliban and Arab freedom fighters including a very charming chap named Usama Bin Laden.

    The CIA is as worthless as HRC.

    Fuck them and their failed intelligence. I hope Trump guts the CIA like a fish. They need a reboot.

    Yes We Can. But... -> venturen •Dec 10, 2016 10:08 AM

    Why might the Russians want Trump? If there is anything to the stuff I've been reading about the Clintons, they are like cornered animals. Putin just may think the world is a safer, more stable place w/o the Clintons in power.

    TRM -> atthelake •Dec 10, 2016 10:44 AM

    If it is "on" then those doing the "collections" should be aware that a lot of people they will be "collecting" have read Solzhenitsyn.

    "And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family?"

    Those doing the "collections" will have to choose and choose wisely the side they are on. How much easier would it be for them to report back "Sorry, couldn't find them" than to face the wrath of a well armed population?

    Abaco •Dec 10, 2016 9:53 AM

    The clowns running the intelligence agencies for the US have ZERO credibility. Clapper sat in front of congress and perjured himself. When confronted with his perjury he defended himself saying he told them the "least untruthful thing" he could - admitting he had not problem whatsoever about lying to Congress. He was not fired or reprimanded in any way. He retired with a generous pension. He is a treasonous basrtard who should be swinging from a lamppost. These people serve their political masters - not the people - and deserve nothing but mockery and and a noose.

    mendigo •Dec 10, 2016 9:56 AM

    As reported on infowars:
    On Dec 9 0bomber issued executive order providing exemption to Arms Export Control Act to permit supplying weapons (ie sams etc) to rebel groups in Syria as a matter "essential to national security "interests"".

    Be careful in viewing this report as is posted from RT - perhaps best to wait for corraboaration on front page of rededicated nyt to be sure and avoid fratrenizing with Vlad.

    Separately Gabard has introduced bill : Stop Arming Terrorists Act.

    David Wooten •Dec 10, 2016 9:56 AM

    There certainly is foreign meddling in US government policy but it is not coming from Russia. The countries that have much greater influence than Russia on 'our' government are the Sunni-dominated Persian Gulf oil states including the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and, of course, that bastion of human rights, Saudi Arabia.

    Oil money from these states has found its way into influentual think tanks including the Brookings Institution, the Atlantic Council, the Middle East Institute and the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies and others. All of these institutions should be registered as foriegn agents and any cleared US citizen should have his or her clearance revoked if they do any work for these organizations, either as a contractor or employee. And these Gulf states have all been donating oil money to UK and US universities so lets include the foreign studies branches of universities in the registry of foreign agents, too.

    And also, there are arms sales. Arm sales to Saudi/Gulf States come with training. With training comes military ties, foreign policy ties and even intelligence ties. Saudi Arabia, with other Gulf oil states as partners, practically owns the CIA now. Arms companies who sell deadly weapons to the Gulf States, in turn, donate money to Congressmen and now own politicians such as Senators Graham and McCain. It's no wonder Graham wants to help his pals - er owners. So what we have here ('our' government) is institutionalized influence, if not outright control, of US foreign policy by some of the most vicious states on the planet,
    especially Saudi Arabia - whose religious police have been known to beat school girls fleeing from burning buildings because they didn't have their headscarves on.

    As Hillary's 2014 emails have revealed, Qatar and Saudi Arabia support ISIS and were doing so about the same time as ISIS was sweeping through Syria and Iraq, cutting off the heads of Christians, non-Sunnis and just about anyone else they thought was in the way. The Saudi/Gulf States are the driving force to get rid of Assad and that is dangerous as nuclear-armed Russia protects him. If something isn't done about this, the Gulf oil states may get US into a nuclear war with Russia - and won't care in the least.

    Richard Whitney •Dec 10, 2016 10:10 AM

    So...somehow, Putin was able to affect the election one way, and the endorsements for HRC and the slander of Trump by and from Washington Post, New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, practically every big-city newspaper, practically every newspaper in Europe, every EU mandarin, B Streisand, Keith Olberman, Comedy Central, MSNBC, CNN, Lady Gaga, Lena Dunham and a wad of other media outlets and PR-driven-celebs couldn't affect that election the other way.

    Sounds unlikely on the face of it, but hats off to Vlad. U.S. print and broadcast media, Hollywood, Europe...you lost.

    seataka •Dec 10, 2016 10:11 AM

    The Reverse Blockade

    "Reverse Blockade: emphatically insisting upon something which is the opposite of the truth blocks the average person's mind from perceiving the truth. In accordance with the dictates of healthy common sense, he starts searching for meaning in the "golden mean" between truth and its opposite, winding up with some satisfactory counterfeit. People who think like this do not realize that this effect is precisely the intent of the person who subjects them to this method. " page 104, Political Ponerology by Andrew M. Lobaczewski more

    just the tip -> northern vigor •Dec 10, 2016 11:51 AM

    that car ride for the WH to the capital is going to be fun.

    Arnold -> just the tip •Dec 10, 2016 12:12 PM

    Your comment ticked one of my remaining Brain Cells.

    The final scene of "The Gauntlet".

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076070/

    Pigeon •Dec 10, 2016 10:29 AM

    I recall lots of "consensus views" that were outright lies, bullshit and/or stupidity: "The Sun circles the Earth. The Earth is flat. Global cooling / next ice age (1970s). Global warming (no polar ice) 1990s-00's. Weapons of mass destruction." You can keep your doctor.

    The CIA, Pentagon and "intelligence" agencies need both a cleaning and culling. 50% of the Federal govt needs to go.....now.

    What is BEYOND my comprehension is how anyone would think that in Putin's mind, Trump would be preferable to Hillary. She and her cronies are so corrupt, he would either be able to blackmail or destroy her (through espionage and REAL leaks) any time he wanted to during her presidency.

    Do TPTB think we are this fucking stupid?

    madashellron •Dec 10, 2016 10:31 AM

    Blacklist Promoted by the Washington Post Has Apparent Ties to Ukrainian Fascism and CIA Spying.

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46006.htm

    jfb •Dec 10, 2016 10:31 AM

    I love this. Trump is not eager to "drain the swamp" and to collide with the establishment, anyway he has no viable economic plan and promised way too much. However if they want to lead a coup for Hilary with the full backing of most republican and democrat politicians just to get their war against Russia, something tells me that the swamp will be drained for real when the country falls apart in chaos.

    northern vigor •Dec 10, 2016 10:36 AM

    Fuckin' Obama interfered in the Canadian election last year by sending advisers up north to corrupt our laws. He has a lot of nerve pointing fingers at the Russians.

    I notice liberals love to point fingers at others, when they are the guilty ones. It must be in the Alinsky handbook.

    Pigeon -> northern vigor •Dec 10, 2016 10:38 AM

    Called "projection". Everything they accuse others of doing badly, illegally, immorally, etc. - means that is EXACTLY what they are up to.

    just the tip -> northern vigor •Dec 10, 2016 11:35 AM

    It is in the Alinsky handbook.

    Arnold -> just the tip •Dec 10, 2016 4:41 PM

    http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2012/04/13/12_ways_to_use_sau...

    jerry_theking_lawler •Dec 10, 2016 10:45 AM

    CIA = Deep State.

    Trump should not only 'defund' them but should end all other 'programs' that are providing funds to them. Drug trade, bribery, embezzelment, etc. End the CIA terror organization.

    Skiprrrdog •Dec 10, 2016 10:49 AM

    Putin for Secretary of State... :-)

    brianshell •Dec 10, 2016 10:50 AM

    Section 8, The congress shall have the power to...declare war...raise armies...navies...militia.
    The National Security Act charged the CIA with coordinating the nation's intelligence activities and correlating, evaluating and disseminating intelligence affecting national security.

    Rogue members of the executive branch have overstepped their authority by ordering the CIA to make war without congressional approval or oversight.

    A good deal of the problems created by the United States, including repercussions such as terrorism have been initiated by the CIA

    Under "make America great", include demanding congress assume their responsibility regarding war.

    Rein in the executive and the CIA

    DarthVaderMentor •Dec 10, 2016 10:59 AM

    This whopper of a story from the CIA makes the one fabricated about WMD's in Iraq that fooled Bush Jr. and convinced him to almost take this country down by violating the sage advice on war strategy from Sun-Tzu and Clausewitz and opening up a second front in Iraq almost child's play.

    At least with the WMD story they had false witnesses and some made up evidence! With this story, there is no "HUMINT (human intelligence) sources" and no physical evidence, just some alleged traces that could have been actually produced from the ether or if they knew ahead of time of Trump's possible win sent someone to Russia and had them actually run the IP routes for show.

    Bush was misled because the CIA management was scared of some of his budgetary saber rattles and his chasing after some CIA management. In this case, someone is really scared of what the people will find when the swam gets drained, if ever it gets done. This includes so-called "false flag conservatives" like Lindsey Graham and top Democrats "Cambridge 5 Admirers" salted in over the years into the CIA

    The fact that's forgotten about this is that if the story was even slightly true, it shows how incompetent the Democrats are in running a country, how Barak Obama was an intentional incompetent trying to drive the country into the ground and hurting its people, how even with top technologies, coerced corrupted vendors and trillions in funding the NSA, CIA and FBI they were outflanked by the FSB and others and why Hillary's server was more incompetent and dangerous a decision than we think.

    Maybe Hillary and Bill had their server not to hide information from the people, but maybe to actually promote the Russian hacking?

    Why should Trump believe the CIA? What kind of record and leadership do they have that anyone other than a fool should listen to them?

    small axe •Dec 10, 2016 10:55 AM

    At some point Americans will need to wake up to the fact that the CIA has and does interfere in domestic affairs, just as it has long sought to counter "subversion" overseas. The agency is very likely completely outside the control of any administration at this point and is probably best seen as the enforcement arm of the Deep State.

    As the US loses its empire and gains Third World status, it is (sadly) fitting that the CIA war to maintain docile populations becomes more apparent domestically.

    Welcome to Zimbabwe USA.

    marcusfenix •Dec 10, 2016 11:10 AM

    what I don't understand is why the CIA is even getting tangled up in this three ring circus freak show.

    Trump has already signaled he is going hand them nearly unlimited power by appointing Pompeo in the first place. I would think they would be very happy to welcome the incoming administration with open arms.

    I could see it if they were really that pissed about Trumps proposed Russian re-set and maybe they are but even that has to be in doubt because of the rate at which Trump is militarizing his cabinet. All these stars are not exactly going to support their president going belly up to the bar with Putin. and since Trump has no military or civilian leadership experience (which is why I believe he has loaded up on so much brass in the first place, to compensate) I have no doubt they will have tremendous influence on policy.

    In all reality Trump is a MIC, intelligence cabal dream come true, so why would they even consider biting the hand that feeds so well? Perhaps their is more going on here under the surface, maybe all the various agencies and bureaucracies are not playing nice, or together for that matter. perhaps some have grown so large and so powerful that they have their own agendas? it's not as if our federal government has ever really been one big happy family there have been many times when the right hand did not know what the left hand was doing. and congress is week so oversight of this monolithic military and intelligence entities may not be as extensive as we would like to think.

    after all the CIA and the Pentagon's proxy armies are already killing each other in Syria so one has to wonder in what other arenas are they clashing?

    and is this really all just a small glimpse of some secret war within, which every once in a while bubbles up to the surface?

    CheapBastard •Dec 10, 2016 11:34 AM

    The neocons are desperate. Their war monger Hitlery lost by a landslide now they fabricate all sorts of irrational BS.

    However, there is no doubt the Russians stole my TV remote last week.

    Kagemusho Dec 10, 2016 11:38 AM

    The Intel agencies have been politicized since the late 1970's; look up 'CIA Team B' and the 'Committee on the Present Danger' and their BS 'minority report' used by the original NeoCons to sway public opinion in favor of Ronald Reagan and the arms buildup of the 1980's, which led to the first sky-high deficits. It also led to a confrontational stance against the Soviet Union which almost led to nuclear war in 1983: The 1983 War Scare Declassified and For Real http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb533-The-Able-Archer-War-Scare-Decl...

    The honest spook analysts were forced out, then as now, in favor of NeoCons with political agendas that were dangerously myopic to say the least. The 'Office of Special Plans' in the Pentagon cherry-picked or outright fabricated intel in order to justify the NeoCon/Israeli wet-dream of total control of oil and the 'Securing the (Israeli) Realm' courtesy of invading parts of the Middle East and destabilizing the rest, with the present mess as the wholly predictable outcome. The honest analysts told them it would happen, and now they're gone.

    This kind of organizational warping caused by agency politicization is producing the piss-poor intel leading to asinine decisions creating untold tragedy; that the WaPo is depending upon this intel from historically-proven tainted sources is just one more example of the incestuous nature of the relations between Traditional Media and its handlers in the intel community.

    YHC-FTSE •Dec 10, 2016 11:54 AM

    This isn't a "Soft Coup". It's the groundwork necessary for a rock hard, go-for-broke, above the barricade, tanks in the street coup d'etat. You do not get such a blatant accusation from the CIA and establishment echo vendor, unless they are ready to back it up to the hilt with action. The accusations are serious - treason and election fraud.

    Trump is a curious fellow. I've thought about this quite a bit and tried to put myself in his shoes. He has no friends in .gov, no real close "mates" he can depend on, especially in his own party, so he had to start from scratch to put his cabinet together. His natural "Mistake" is seeking people at his level of business acumen - his version of real, ordinary people - when billionaires/multimillionaires are actually Type A personalities, usually predatory and addicted to money. In his world, and in America in general, money equates to good social standing more than any other facet of personal achievements. It is natural for an American to equate "Good" with money. I'm a Brit and foreigners like me (I have American cousins I've visited since I was a kid) who visit the States are often surprised by the shallow materialism that equates to culture.

    So we have a bunch of dubious Alpha types addicted to money in transition to take charge of government who know little or nothing about the principle of public service. Put them in a room together and without projects they can focus on, they are going to turn on each other for supremacy. I would not be surprised if Trump's own cabinet destroys him or uses leverage from their own power bases to manipulate him.

    Mike Pompeo, for example, is the most fucked up pick as CIA director I could have envisaged. He is establishment to his core, a neocon torture advocate who will defend the worst excesses of the intelligence arm of the MIC no matter what. One word from his mouth could have stopped this bullshit about Russia helping Trump win the election. Nobody in the CIA was going to argue with the new boss. Yet here we are, on the cusp of another attack on mulitple fronts. This is how you manipulate an incumbent president to dial up his paranoia to the max and failing that, launch a coup d'etat.

    It could very well be that this was Trump & the establishment plan to con the American public from the start of course. I kind of doubt it, since the efforts of the establishment to destroy Trump was genuinely full retard from the outset and still continues. I think he was his own man until paranoia and the enormity of his position got the better of him and he chose his cabinet from the establishment swamp dwellers to best protect him from his enemies. Wrong choices, granted, but understandable.

    He would have done better to ignore the political divide to choose those who have spent their lives challenging the Deep State. My ignorance of US politics does not supply me with a complete picture, but Ron Paul, David Kucinich, Trey Gowdy, Tulsi Gabard and even turncoat Bernie Sanders would have been better to drain the swamp than the neocon zionists he has installed in power.

    flaminratzazz ->YHC-FTSE •Dec 10, 2016 12:03 PM
    I think he was his own man until paranoia and the enormity of his position got the better of him,,
    +1 I think he was just dickin around with throwin his hat in the ring, was going to go have fun calling everyone names with outlandish attacks and lo and behold he won.. NOW he is shitting himself on the enormity of his GREATEST fvkup in his life.
    jomama ->YHC-FTSE •Dec 10, 2016 12:16 PM
    Unless you can show how Trump's close ties to Wall St. (owes banks there around 350M currently
    YHC-FTSE ->jomama •Dec 10, 2016 12:59 PM
    My post is conjecture, obviously. The basis of my musings, as stated above, is the fact that the establishment has tried to destroy Trump from the outset using all of their assets in his own party, the msm, Hollyweird, intelligence and politics. A full retard attack is being perpetrated against him as I type.

    There is some merit to dividing the establishment, the Deep State, into two opposing sides. One that lost power, priestige and funds backing Hillary and one that did not, which would make Trump an alternative establishment candidate. But there is no proof that any establishment (MIC+Banking) entity even likes Trump, let alone supports him. As for Israel, Hillary was their candidate of choice, but their MO is they will always infiltrate and back both sides to ensure compliance.

    blindfaith ->YHC-FTSE •Dec 10, 2016 12:36 PM
    Do not underestimate Trump. I will grant that some of these picks are concerning. However, think in terms of business, AND government is a business from top to bottom. It has been run as a dog and pony show for years and look where we are. To me, I think his picks are strating to look like a very efficient team to get the government efficient again. That alone must make D.C. shake in thier boots.
    YHC-FTSE ->blindfaith •Dec 10, 2016 1:08 PM
    Underestimating Trump is the last thing I would do. I'm just trying to understand his motives in my own clumsy way. Besides, he promised to "Drain the swamp", not run the swamp more efficiently.
    ducksinarow •Dec 10, 2016 12:04 PM
    From a non political angle, this is a divorce in the making. Then democrats have been rejected in totallity but instead of blaming themselves for not being good enough, they are blaming a third party which is the Russians. They are now engaging the Republican Party in a custody battle for the "children". There are lies flying around and the older children know exactly what is going on and sadly the younger children are confused, bewildered, angry and getting angrier by the minute. Soon Papa(Obama) will be leaving which is symbolic of the male father figure in the African American community. The new Papa is a white guy who is going to change the narrative, the rules of engagement and the financial picture. The ones who were the heroes in the Obama narrative are not going to be heroes anymore. New heroes will be formed and revered and during this process some will die for their beliefs.

    Back to reality, Trump needs to cleanse the CIA of the ones who would sell our nation to the highest bidder. If the CIA is not on the side of America the CIA should be abolished. In a world where mercenaries are employed all over the world, bringing together a culturally mixed agency does not make for a very honest agency. It makes for a bunch of self involved countries trying to influence the power of individuals. The reason Castro was never taken down is because it was not in the interest of the CIA to do so. That is why there were some pretty hilarious non-attempts on Castro's life over the years. It is not in the best interest of the CIA that Trump be president. It is in the best interest of America that Trump is our President.

    brane pilot •Dec 10, 2016 12:22 PM

    Even the idea that people would rely on foreign governments for critical information during an election indicates the bankruptcy of the corrupt US media establishment. So now they resort to open sedition and defamation in the absence of factual information. The mainstream media in the USA has become a Fifth Column against America, no different than the so-called 'social science' departments on college campuses. Trump was America's last chance and we took it and no one is going to take it away.

    [Dec 09, 2016] Washington Post Refuses to Retract Article Defaming Naked Capitalism and Other Sites naked capitalism

    Notable quotes:
    "... It appears that the globalists are scared of anything that resembles the truth that counters their incessant propaganda If there was ever a discovery process in a lawsuit against WAPO, I would imagine that all roads would lead to a Contelpro section of the CIA It's interesting that Wall Street on Parade has noted that Propornot has a double blind registration in New Mexico. ..."
    "... Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. ..."
    "... More and more it seems like USA, like the roman empire, needs barbarians at the gates to distract the plebs from internal structural problems. ..."
    "... As long as Yeltsin allowed Wall Street to loot Russia of former soviet holdings, Russia was not "barbaric". Now that Putin has put a solid halt on said looting, Russia is again "barbarians" ..."
    "... And by refusing to address the emails, other than to scream "Russian hackers," the corporate media were able to convince the Clinton cultists and other Third-Way believers that the information they contained was just another right-wing attack on The Anointed because (other than leftist, Russian-loving "fake news" sites), the right-wing media were the only ones paying it any attention. ..."
    "... I am old enough to remember seeing in the news reel at my local theater in 1950 Joseph McCarthy holding up a piece of paper to the cameras and intoning in his inimitable droning voice, "I have here in my hand a list of 205 known members of the Communist Party who are working and shaping policy in the State Department." ..."
    "... People's livelihoods and reputations were thereby smeared for life. Never did McCarthy back his claims with evidence, nor did he retract his scurrilous accusation. Now, tell me how what Jeff Bezos and co. are doing in this instance is in any significant way different from what McCarthy did to these people back in 1956. What finally put it squarely before the American public and finally earned McCarthy Congressional censure was when Boston attorney Joseph Welch asked McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" ..."
    "... Here's the thing. Yes, RT is funded by the Russian government, and thus anything posted thereon needs to be considered with that in mind. Nevertheless, it is also where stories the corporates prefer to ignore are given attention. In other words, there is an irony that the Russians may, indeed, be trying to influence us, but if so, they appear to be doing it by subtly undermining the reliability of the corporate media. ..."
    "... To put it another way, dismissing RT solely because of its funding source is no better than dismissing NC et al. as propaganda sites, and doing so is actually feeding the propaganda machine. After all, we don't know what percentage of the US media currently receives "grants" from US intelligence agencies, now, do we. ..."
    "... In studying communications, there's a distinction between 'white' and 'black' propaganda. White propaganda is publishing truth that supports your cause. Black propaganda is, of course, slanderous lies. RT is white propaganda, so use it for the value it brings. ..."
    "... Exactly. I'm a grown-up. I have a lot of practice reading critically and I'm quite capable of questioning sources and filtering bias. I don't need Jeff Bezos to protect me from Russkie BadThink. ..."
    "... "does not itself vouch " You have to bear in mind this is not the Post talking, this is CIA CIA has blatantly used the Post as a their sockpuppet since they put Woodward in there to oust Nixon, and now they've got Bezos by the contractual balls. CIA has impunity in municipal statute and secret red tape so any answer you get from them means No fuck You. ..."
    "... The NDAA legalized domestic propaganda in 2013 so when the public repudiated their chosen president Hillary Clinton, CIA immediately got to work work attacking Article 19. ..."
    "... [M]aybe we should just lump them [WaPo] in with Breitbart and company. ..."
    Dec 09, 2016 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
    cocomaan December 8, 2016 at 9:07 am

    Right on. When Yves says:

    This is tantamount to an admission that not only did the Washington Post do no fact-checking, but also that it does not consider fact-checking to be part of its job.

    Another way to put it is to say that WaPoo is not in the business of investigation but instead is in the business of regurgitation . WaPoo seems to think that reporting equals repeating.

    We don't need people who repeat other people's words. We need reporters who are digging.

    Eduardo Quince December 8, 2016 at 7:30 am

    Not enough! They need to apologise. They should also fire Timberg.

    Was this mimicry of a Trump tweet intentional or subconscious?

    john bougearel December 8, 2016 at 7:46 am

    "This minimalist walk-back does not remedy the considerable damage [already] done to NC and other sites." No, it certainly does not. Once the "defamatory cat" is out of the bag, you can't exactly stuff the cat back in.

    Proceed, young lady with your case. But as you move forward, do take measures to keep these vampires from stealing your adaptive energies and health.

    p.s. You know, this diminiishes WaPo to a mere "blog aggregator" when allows its "reporters" such as Craig Timberg to merely "scrape and publish" posts from anonymous blogsites (not even scraping from the laughable "gold standard" of truth on the internet: Wiki). These reporters aren't writing, they are scraping. What a bunch of lazy fucks at WaPo!

    And you know what I'd really like to do: kick this Craig Timberg character a new ass in a dark alley. Yves, when you are done shredding WaPo and Timberg, I sincerely hope they won't be able to sit down for a whole year.

    p.s.s. that post (yd) about Wiki becoming the "gold standard" of 'fact-finding" and "truth" on the internet was particularly disturbing. Even citations from academic journals (such as JAMA) posted in Wiki are laden with flawed research suffering from poor design and methodology, draw the wrong conclusions, reveal biases and conflicts of interest, show a lack of references etc. Decades ago, there was a shift in much of the medical literature – a shift from "evidence-based" to "consensus-based." The internet appears to be moving in the same direction, using various tools and methodologies that allow "consensus-based" opinions (valued by the certain parties that be) to be shaped as "facts" and "truth." When in fact, those opinions are anything but a truth.

    Alex December 8, 2016 at 8:53 am

    I suppose they're applying the Amazon retail aggregation model to the WaPo?

    flora December 8, 2016 at 10:11 am

    . a shift from "evidence-based" to "consensus-based."

    Yes. That's what I see as behind the browser flagging extensions, as if facts are subject to majority vote, which would make them opinions, not facts. If wapoo prints an editorial opinion on the editorial page, that's one thing. If wapoo prints editorial opinion masquerading as fact on the front page, that is a different matter.

    Wapoo's arrogant reply, in the form of an editor's note, to NC's letter isn't a surprising first move for them. I trust NC's atty has already thought many, many steps ahead.

    Sally December 8, 2016 at 7:47 am

    "The Post, which did not name any of the sites, does not itself vouch for the validity of PropOrNot's findings regarding any individual media outlet, nor did the article purport to do so."

    You couldn't get a more weassely response. They admit they didn't fact check their sources, they cowadly now hide behind the defence of not actully naming any of the sites, and then finally try to play the "nothing to see here" defence of pretending the article didn't mean what it quite clearly did mean when it was published.

    Increasingly, challenging western govt output is seen as a form of rebellion. As Orwell said . telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

    dk December 8, 2016 at 7:06 pm

    " nor did the article purport to do so."

    Shouldn't that be "nor does"? Since they didn't take it down

    Jim Haygood December 8, 2016 at 7:48 am

    One day I was listening to Bloomberg News on the car radio, when they aired a critical story on a company where I had worked. The criticism was from a third party group. And then the next news story began.

    Stunned, I phoned the reporter and asked, "Where was the company's rebuttal, or refusal to comment?"

    He replied, "It was there, you just didn't hear it."

    But I had listened with full attention, and it wasn't there. Maybe an editor had removed it to shorten the clip.

    This has been my experience with the MSM. They are always right. They make no mistakes. You should believe them, not your lying eyes and ears.

    Ulysses December 8, 2016 at 8:47 am

    "This has been my experience with the MSM. They are always right. They make no mistakes. You should believe them, not your lying eyes and ears."

    We have always been at war with Eurasia.

    The Ministry of Truth hasn't, yet, been given the power to completely silence those of us who don't stay within the confines of The Narrative. So their tactic is to portray us all as dangerous disinformators like Emmanuel Goldstein.

    Andrew December 8, 2016 at 7:52 am

    Accuracy is not part of the job when producing and publishing fake news – Washington Post

    Insta-epic classic

    William Young December 8, 2016 at 7:57 am

    In 1975, I went to the Soviet Union with a group of American tourists. At the time, I was working as a volunteer for Ralph Nader. A few times, some of the people in our group had a chance to talk to Soviet people in our hotels. The other Americans would give civics book explanations about how the US government worked. Some of the Soviet people would question these explanations, saying that they had heard from their government that the American government worked in a way that sounded to me much more accurate and in line with the way Nader portrayed the US. Undemocratic regimes are often fairly accurate in describing the faults of other governments, especially those of their perceived enemies, while ignoring their own failings. I do not know exactly what Russian propaganda the Washington Post is referring to, but I would not be surprised if various Russian sources simply repeat the common criticisms of the toxic activities of the neoliberal establishment – an establishment of which the Washington Post has been a long-time supporter. Why go through all of the trouble of fabricating stories when the reality is as damning as anything you could make up? So rather than the US sources in question spouting Russian propaganda, the Russians might simply be repeating the criticisms they are hearing from the US.

    Arizona Slim December 8, 2016 at 8:07 am

    All right. That did it. I'm sending another check to NC.

    FedUpPleb December 8, 2016 at 8:08 am

    This is tantamount to an admission that not only did the Washington Post do no fact-checking, but that it does not consider fact-checking to be part of its job.

    Ah, the Ratings Agencies "opinions" defense. Blithely ignorant of their own legally and historically protected positions. I suspect this is exactly the defense the WP will run with. Effectively they will assert their constitutional right as propagandists, to broadcast whatever they please in the national interest.

    is a new, private sector-led initiative

    I would say not entirely. True, large private corporations are behind a lot of this, but what is at stake is their authority to speak for, and their connections to, the state and Deep State.

    On a more emotional level, what is at stake is status. Because really that is all the big newspapers have anymore. Social status. Do not underestimate this currency. It is probably the most precious form of capital there is and the Post, et al, will fight with their fingernails to avoid losing it. Things could get pretty nasty. Good luck and give the bastards hell.

    HotFlash December 8, 2016 at 9:19 am

    Long, long time, b/c of their policies. I figure my opinion doesn't count, my vote doesn't count, but by golly, I will make every dollar I spend count. I buy locally when possible (ideally both locally made/grown and locally-owned retail, although there is at least one local company I will not patronize, for policy reasons) and have found alternate sources for things I can't get around here, eg. Powell's for books and Lehman's for tools and kitchen stuff. As a last resort I will comparison shop on Amazon and then ask my local supplier to order the thing in for me (as I did with my water heater). Not one nickel of mine will go to WaPo or Amazon. And I have told rellies, pls no Amazon gifts for our household.

    Vatch December 8, 2016 at 10:37 am

    Long before the current series of events happened, there were excellent reasons to avoid buying from Amazon.com. The horrific working conditions in Amazon.com warehouses should be enough to prevent any person from buying from the company. I suppose many people still aren't aware of how bad it is, so here's an example article:

    http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-in-amazons-massive-warehouses-fulfillment-centers-2014-11/

    Elizabeth Burton December 8, 2016 at 12:24 pm

    As much as I would love to "boycott Amazon," it's not possible for several reasons. First, being old and crippled, I can't run out to the nearest Target to buy stuff, and I definitely don't have time or physical capacity to hop all over town trying to find some specialty item that doesn't sell enough for most bricks-and-mortar retailers to carry. I do buy direct when it's possible, but the fact of life is there's stuff you can only find on Amazon.

    Second, I own and operate a small digitally-based book publishing company, and Amazon is our major source of revenue. For me, boycotting Amazon would mean pulling my authors' work from distribution there, which isn't an option. Likewise, consider Kindle owners with extensive libraries.

    Frankly, I consider these calls to boycott some huge corporation the kind of symbolic action that allows people to feel good about themselves while avoiding doing anything actually effective. Like writing/emailing/phoning the editorial board of the local news media should they be broadcasting/publishing this rubbish-preferably all three and multiple times. Given that many are connected to the same major corporations as the Big Media, that strikes me as what really needs to be done.

    After all, WaPo isn't doing this in an echo chamber. Their fiction was picked up by all the major players and more than a few of the minor. The only way to counter public discourse is publicly.

    On another subject-Yves and Lambert, if you'd like someone to run over your articles pre-publication for a quick copyedit, you know where to find me. It's one of the non-monetary things I can donate.

    Spring Texan December 8, 2016 at 3:45 pm

    Agree on symbolic action. I do buy from Amazon and either go to antiwar.com first (a mixed site, but one I want to see endure) and click so they get a commission or go to smile.amazon.com so my favorite small charity gets it.

    Buying is NOT voting. I'm a citizen and not mainly just a consumer. Not buying from amazon would hurt me more than them (especially as I like buying obscure second-hand books). There are much better things I can do to be politically effective, including letters to the editor and contributions.

    I do buy by preference from a third-party that doesn't distribute from Amazon warehouses if the price is close. And there are many things I do choose to get locally or from others. But I buy a heck of a lot from them especially books.

    JamesG December 8, 2016 at 2:38 pm

    Walmart has recently upgraded its on-line shopping site and its performance.

    You may not like WM but they don't own the Post and they're big enuff to hurt amazon.

    aliteralmind December 8, 2016 at 8:23 am

    There should be a union of sorts, among those defamed. Join forces with some other reputable smallish websites and create a consortium that pools resources to fight this sort of thing going forward.

    millicent December 8, 2016 at 8:24 am

    I think you should take the strongest, most aggressive stance possible given the huge number of very important issues at stake. I will continue to support naked capitalism any way that I can.

    kokuanani December 8, 2016 at 8:35 am

    Yves, have you contacted Bill Moyers? He initially referred to the Post article without adequate critical comment. He could and should remedy this. His voice would carry weight with the book bag-toting NPR folks, who will be among the last to "doubt" the Post.

    Lupemax December 8, 2016 at 11:28 am

    Excellent suggestion. I found NC when Bill Moyers recommended it on his old tv show when he interviewed Yves and it has continued to open my eyes big time and I haven't been the same since. Whenever I encounter a NYTimesbot or a BostonGlobebot or a Wapoobot or NPRbot (Blindly quoting believers) I tell them I don't have time for MSM anymore after Bill Moyers recommended this incredibly informative site and I tell them all about NC. I am so grateful for NC and Yves and Lambert and all the other contributors for what you all do. I would be devastated if this horror damages you (us) all. And Net Neutrality in general – Trump will go after it. WaPoo (love that) should be taken way out to the woodshed, shamed, and publicized for how awful they (and so many others in the MSM) have become. I will help in any way I can. And please stay well Yves and Lambert.

    savedbyirony December 8, 2016 at 11:58 am

    I found NC through Bill Moyers as well. Since he retired, i rarely look at the website and never the FC page anymore since the content significantly decreased in quality and originality imo after he retired. i know his name is still attached to the website and he still occasionally submits articles, but i wonder how much oversight and content involvement he has with the operation these days.

    savedbyirony December 8, 2016 at 1:04 pm

    That should read, "since he retired from the tv show Moyers & Co and it went off the air". The website still lists Bill Moyers as the managing editor. But the quality of the website noticeably changed after the show left PBS in i think 2015.

    andyb December 8, 2016 at 8:36 am

    It appears that the globalists are scared of anything that resembles the truth that counters their incessant propaganda If there was ever a discovery process in a lawsuit against WAPO, I would imagine that all roads would lead to a Contelpro section of the CIA It's interesting that Wall Street on Parade has noted that Propornot has a double blind registration in New Mexico.

    susan the other December 8, 2016 at 1:13 pm

    A propaganda holding company! This is allowed by the Whappo? It's a felony masquerading as a farce and they can't get out of this like little Judy Miller pretending to be dumb. Judy Miller is very sophisticated and so is the Whappo. Journalism isn't journalism if it does this sleazy stuff. Since when does a newspaper "disclaim" its own news? It's totally outrageous. And the nerve to say that PropOrNot insists on being anonymous. PropOrNot might as well be the Whappo itself. Only sleazy purveyors of crap disclaim it. This is just asking for satire. Whappo deserves to be ridiculed into oblivion.

    susan the other December 8, 2016 at 1:40 pm

    just a quick check on the net produced a a site: dab-oracl.com and an atty named Donald Burleson – stating that New Mexico is one of 17 states that enforce criminal libel and that you can file to lift the veil on anonymity for defamation and have the perp arrested cool

    susan the other December 8, 2016 at 1:51 pm

    that's dba-oracle.com for Burleson

    craazyboy December 8, 2016 at 2:00 pm

    craazyman may know these people!

    It's in Santa Fe and the U of Magonia has a channeling portal there. The channeling portal connects to alternate universes and higher order dimensions and all sorts of weird and unusual stuff passes thru the portal. It's where craazyman finds out about lots of stuff and he may have bumped(if that's right word) into these other channelers?

    larry December 8, 2016 at 2:24 pm

    Cointelpro was a section of the FBI, not the CIA

    johnnygl December 8, 2016 at 8:38 am

    If they can't vouch for the validity of their sources and stories, what value are they adding as an organization?

    If we want, we can go direct to prnewswire and govt issued press releases.

    seabos84 December 8, 2016 at 8:49 am

    I'm 56, I was a 9 buck an hour cook in Boston in 1988 when Dukakis came out of Labor Day with a 17 point lead.

    The campaign wizards of Bush Senior came up some kind of 'Dukakis hates America ' baloney, because of some other baloney about The Flag!! or The Pledge!!! For days, GWB Sr. came out in front of a bunch of flags & said the Pledge, and the craven, sycophantic, grovelling media of the day dutifully reported –

    "In order to show '__Dukakis hates America___' Vice President Bush said the pledge of allegiance."

    Anyone from that era remember all the liberal cloak rending and finger waving and furrowed brows? Anyone remember that Fairness Doctrine thing??? Seriously – having some contract mouth piece of the WAPO question NC is a badge of honor.

    rmm.

    But then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,
    Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
    And thus I clothe my naked villany
    With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;
    And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

    Northeaster December 8, 2016 at 9:03 am

    Dukakis infamy was due to the rape question in regard to the death penalty. It also didn't help posing in a tank.

    FluffytheObeseCat December 8, 2016 at 11:25 am

    Dukakis' loss was due to his weak response to a racist smear campaign that assigned him personal responsibility for every poor decision made by the Massachusetts penal system.

    His sin was failing to fight back with sufficient vigor. It's a good choice of anecdote for this comments thread however. An object lesson if you will.

    Science Officer Smirnoff December 8, 2016 at 12:03 pm

    Willie Horton, Swift Boats, . . ., "Fake News" but that's just political campaign agitprop.

    Official or establishment agitprop is far more potent.

    Any submissions for the sweepstakes?

    AnonymousCounselor December 8, 2016 at 8:54 am

    The Washington Post has responded, from the perspective of their own interests, in literally the worst way possible.

    They have essentially gone on record as admitting that publish articles that are defamatory per se in a reckless manner, using a reckless (or non-existent) fact-checking and vetting process.

    It's really unbelievable, and many of us in the legal community are scratching our heads, now, wondering from whom The Washington Post is soliciting legal advice.

    sid_finster December 8, 2016 at 8:58 pm

    I don't think it matters, when you're the WaPo and acting as a mouthpiece for the establishment.

    I expect dismissal or summary judgment.

    Yves Smith Post author December 8, 2016 at 9:27 pm

    They wouldn't have deigned to respond at all if they weren't nervous about our attorney. But I agree, this response is incredibly lame and not helpful to them from a legal or reputational standpoint. They seem to think if they make a minimal gesture, NC and the other wronged sites won't proceed. Bad assumption.

    OIFVet December 8, 2016 at 9:54 pm

    My grandfather was a political refugee. He escaped Bulgaria after being jailed one too many times for having the audacity to disagree with the communist elites and its media organs, and to do so in public. What I see happening here in the US, with dissent on the verge of being suppressed or even criminalized, deeply concerns me because it reminds me of those bad old times. I respect you guys and your willingness to stand up to power, in ways I can not adequately express. Thank you.

    John Wright December 8, 2016 at 9:07 am

    Craig Timberg may be another example of the "son of more successful father" phenomenon who in attempting to exceed their fathers, do great damage to others (other examples: G.W. Bush, Bill Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, John McCain ).

    Timberg's father, Baltimore Sun political reporter Bob Timberg, is described at http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-bob-timberg-20140821-story.html

    " He was nearly 30 years old, borderline ancient for a beginning daily newspaper reporter. Unlike other Capital staffers, he was a Naval Academy graduate with a master's degree in journalism, and he was a Vietnam war combat veteran. And he could not type."

    "I first noticed Bob's reporting talents from his incisive articles on a legal challenge to compulsory chapel attendance at the U.S. service academies, filed by six Annapolis midshipmen and a West Point cadet."

    "The highlight of Bob's reporting was an interview with celebrated evangelist Billy Graham, who shockingly characterized the students' lawsuit as a being "part of a planned attack against all chaplains, to force them completely out of all services," and further suggested that the young men were Communist dupes. Though Bob knew now that he had a good story, he still pressed on, asking Graham if an atheist can become a good naval officer. "I can't comment on that," the preacher answered."

    So Timberg's father questioned a prominent person who was alleging "Communist dupes" against military chaplains.

    But his son does little vetting of the shadowy group PropOrNot as he goes for HIS story alleging "Russian propagandists".

    It may be too late for the son to learn from the father's example.

    Kurt Sperry December 8, 2016 at 10:58 pm

    Good story. The son as a pale shadow of the father is, as you say, not an uncommon thing. Craig, in this current example, doesn't seem to understand even the most basic, fundamental principles of journalistic ethics or professional conduct. It's strange someone in the profession that long could survive lacking that. Or maybe once you get on with a big name paper with a billionaire owner, sucking up to the establishment is a get out of jail free card when it comes to ethics and professional accountability.

    linda amick December 8, 2016 at 9:10 am

    I stopped ordering from Amazon two years ago after reading the stories about labor conditions for warehouse employees. It is nothing more than brutal slave labor.
    I used to at least read the headlines in the NYT and WaPo. Now I can not even stomach them.

    Sluggeaux December 8, 2016 at 9:18 am

    So, the WaPo now admits that "journalism" is dead and stenography is the only purpose their "platform" exists for.

    The quaint institution of "journalism" existed to sort "fact" from "opinion" and made the important distinction between the two. Opinions are like belly-buttons and assholes, everybody has one. Facts are more difficult to discern, but are immutable and objective. As attributed to the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, " Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. "

    This is the death of the First Amendment - The ScAmazon model of purporting to be a "marketplace" but refusing to vouch for the quality, safety, or authenticity of anything that they loudly and slickly shill to profit from the work of others. It is disgusting, hollow, and amoral. It must be brought to heel.

    JTFaraday December 8, 2016 at 10:22 pm

    And the Amazon warehouse of stenography too apparently. (Link from the original post):

    http://www.cjr.org/q_and_a/washington_post_bezos_amazon_revolution.php

    Carolinian December 8, 2016 at 9:20 am

    I suspect the MSM have always seen their ability to shape elections as their true "ring of power." As you say this has been going on for a long time–certainly pre-internet. The fact that Trump won despite their best efforts has likely shaken big media to the core. Which doesn't mean Trump's election was a good thing or a bad thing but simply that they didn't get to pick.

    Television will always be the most important medium when it comes to politics but the print media now see their role as "influencers" under threat from the web. And given their financial problems this may be the final existential threat. It's likely the Post editors knew perfectly well what they were doing and how shoddy that story was. It was a shot across the bow.

    Carolinian December 8, 2016 at 9:25 am

    Reply to seabos84

    Alejandro December 8, 2016 at 10:00 am

    From a sausage factory of "manufacturing consent" to a sausage factory of stifling dissent.

    DJG December 8, 2016 at 9:26 am

    Yves: What is going on here is deeply ingrained. We live in a country in which everyone's opinions are now canonical, as we see with wonder about the candidate for the head of the EPA. Pruitt's opinion counteracts years of research, because lawyers know all about science.

    I was reminded of how ingrained these "narratives" are when I read the lead in the Talk of the Town in the most recent New Yorker: Jeffrey Toobin on voting. He did a drive-by diagnosis of Jill Stein as a narcissist. (But, but, but the New Yorker already declared Trump a narcissist.) Then, in a couple of very curious sentences, he tries to accuse the Russians of tampering with the U.S. election campaign while admitting it unlikely that foreigners hacked the vote count. So you have two or three or four fake-news pieces strung together so as to assert power. That's the long and the short of it. Just as Pruitt is an ignoramus about science, so Toobin as an ignoramus about psychology. As Lambert often writes: Agnotology. I'd add: Agnotology to maintain the structures of power.

    We have been in this intellectual winter for a while: Liberals in denial, peddling psychobabble. Rightwingers in denial, peddling resentment.

    Keep talking to your lawyer.

    olga December 8, 2016 at 10:09 am

    At the end of the 70s, we came to the US, believing western media to be the epitome of honesty and truth (the belief itself based on plentiful pro-western propaganda, which we consumed unquestioningly). The highly misleading anti-Soviet propaganda in the US at that time was a bit of a shock. Not so much its existence, but its vicious nature. And the lies about "Russians are coming." Nothing much has changed – the west still dislikes Russia, and will do all it can to discredit the country (just watch out for the starting effort to ruin the 2018 futbal (soccer) games in Russia – anti-Sochi hysteria was just a preview). The wapoo stunt may be crude, but it is not a demonstration of incompetence. It does seem to be a part of concerted efforts to limit the free flow of information on the Internet. As the "narrative" has gotten away from powers that be, a new way to censor information is needed. Even Merkel said she'd want to address "fake news." Has everybodu forgotten operation Mockingbird ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird )? Nothing new under the sun – but the stakes are much higher now, as the west runs out of options to maintain supremacy.

    tgs December 8, 2016 at 5:36 pm

    Yes, I find it hard to believe that, given the current hysteria, Russia is going to be allowed to host the World Cup in 2018.

    sid_finster December 8, 2016 at 9:01 pm

    Apparently HRC has also jumped on the censorship bandwagon.

    digi_owl December 8, 2016 at 9:54 am

    More and more it seems like USA, like the roman empire, needs barbarians at the gates to distract the plebs from internal structural problems.

    As long as Yeltsin allowed Wall Street to loot Russia of former soviet holdings, Russia was not "barbaric". Now that Putin has put a solid halt on said looting, Russia is again "barbarians"

    Elizabeth Burton December 8, 2016 at 12:29 pm

    Want to have some fun? Next time someone starts ranting about "the Russians hacked our election," try tossing out "Well, we messed with theirs, so it seems only fair."

    Lord Koos December 8, 2016 at 3:08 pm

    It's fitting, since the USA sees no problem in rigging other countries' elections, whether it be the middle East or Latin America.

    LA Mike December 8, 2016 at 10:07 am

    They basically pulled a trump:

    "I'm not saying it's true, but I've heard other people say it's true."

    jake December 8, 2016 at 10:09 am

    Post editorial/management probably doesn't have strong opinions - or any opinions - of the sites impugned by PropOrNot, including Naked Capitalism, since it's unlikely these corporate drones possess enough intellectual curiosity to actually look at them.

    The problem is confirmation bias (in this case, offering an acceptable explanation for why WaPo's Chosen Liberal lost the election, without having to look in the mirror) and shoddy careerist journalism generally, which works so well for so many, and which can't be litigated away.

    Banish Timberg, and you might as well put WaPO out of business.

    craazyboy December 8, 2016 at 10:09 am

    I recall seeing somewhere in the initial flurry of tweets and comments on the subject that someone had contacted Wapo and received a response from the editor or some such stating that "multiple contacts" were made to PorNot for some sort of purpose, perhaps verification, fact checking, or what ever it is newspapers do before breathlessly getting out the bold typeface and running a "story". Wish I could find it again. But now it seems that was fake news.

    The timing and placement of the "clarification" is rich. 14 days later slip in an "editor's comment" buried in the old news pile. Your pet parrot wouldn't even notice.

    drb48 December 8, 2016 at 10:11 am

    Timburg is obviously another tool – like Judith Miller. His "editors" knew full well the story was bullshit – "can't vouch for the validity" (because we can't be bothered to check our sources) – and ran it anyway. So there was/is an agenda. And the media wonder why they are in such low regard.

    Lord Koos December 8, 2016 at 3:09 pm

    I wonder how hands-on Bezos is with the WaPoo?

    amouise December 8, 2016 at 10:57 am

    Yves, in your apology post with your attorney's letter, you stated this

    I also hope, particularly for those of you who don't regularly visit Naked Capitalism, that you'll check out our related pieces that give more color to how the fact the Washington Post was taken for a ride by inept propagandists

    My first reaction to this was "presumes facts not in evidence"

    I don't believe the Post was taken in by anyone. They wanted to have a particular piece written and they did. Why in the world would they back down now?

    You're going to need more fundraisers because I'm guessing they'll be dragging this out. If they can't beat you with fake news then they will drain your resources with a long-drawn out legal process. Yes, I'm very cynical. Watched one of the bloggers I follow spend around $150,000 defending themselves from a defamation case that never went to trail. The blogger was also a lawyer so could help with her defense, had discounted legal assistance from an first amendment expert and an additional attorney. They had a year of depositions with constant delays. $150,000 is not petty cash.

    I know the circumstances are not the same but the Post has deep pockets. If they want to drain NC and other independent news sources, they have the resources to go the distance.

    Also please stop giving the newspapers excuses. The entire industry is pretty much consolidated. I don't think they very much care about whether or not a newspaper makes money after they've leveraged it with so much debt in order to purchase it in the first place. Or used their billions to simply buy it. Either way that would seem to indicate that's about the write-off and controlling the "narrative."

    As an added bonus get rid of your workers due to "costs." Further narrowing the acceptable narrative within the newsroom. Pretty soon, the entire industry is gutted just like other industries in this country. (I'd argue that's most of the way done except for independent media.) That's quite purposeful and just like other industries, it never had to be that way, even with the rise of the Internet and "things" like Google ads and Facebook.

    Stop giving them so much of the benefit of the doubt. They are engaged in a class war.

    Even if somewhere down the line they were to apologize and give you a prominent byline, the damage is already done with a good portion of their readership. Which was entirely the point.

    flora December 8, 2016 at 1:14 pm

    " I don't believe the Post was taken in by anyone. "

    I may wholeheartedly agree with you but there are good reasons for NC to be circumspect and initially offer Wapoo the option of backing away and retracting gracefully; or as gracefully as possible in this situation.

    Yes, I'm in for the long haul wrt donations. Bernie's campaign showed the power of small donations.

    scraping_by December 8, 2016 at 1:20 pm

    You've put your finger on the "stupid, crazy, or evil" question.

    Our esteemed hostess has chosen stupid, for reasons that seem good and sufficient. Crazy would be apparent from past behavior, and we of the tinfoil hat legions can make a good case for evil from the interests of the actors. But if nothing else, stupid is easily proved.

    PlutoniumKun December 8, 2016 at 1:44 pm

    I think the main reason many here are giving the benefit of the doubt to WaPo is that it was done so ineptly. The article reeks of carelessness and non-existent fact-checking and poor (or non-existent) editorial overview. If it was part of a deliberate plot to smear it should have been better written and they would have done a better job in covering themselves legally. Most recent high profile libel claims – such as the Rolling Stones college rape hoax story – originated from a mix of confirmation bias and incompetence, not (so far as we know) from a deliberate malign plot.

    Having said that, their refusal to come straight out and apologise when presented with the facts is just digging themselves a deeper hole. I've no doubt the NC crew will go all the way with this, I hope it proves deeply embarrassing for the WaPo, they are destroying their own reputation and its entirely their fault.

    RUKidding December 8, 2016 at 11:01 am

    I guess, on one level, it's intersting that the PTB saw the websites on the list as having that much power and influence to sway the election to Trump due to telling the truth, frankly. The truth clearly has no place in the US conversation anymore.

    At any rate, most of here saw our main, favored websites on that McCarthyite witch hunt list and thought: WOW. So we told the truth about Clinton and various other issues with this election, and now we must be silenced.

    Of course, it's pretty odd given the DNC hacked emails were really very revealing of many shady (to say the least) things, and I've seen those emails quoted quite a bit by many rightwing sources. And that info was, in fact, disseminated broadly to conservative voters. And I feel that those emails, possibly along with Comey's last minute "reveal," probably swayed some still-on-the-fence voters to either not vote for POTUS at all or to vote for Trump.

    Frankly, it's risable in the extreme that this country has been drowning in rightwingnut propaganda for the past 40+ years (or longer), and that's really what the rise of Trump is all about. As opposed to others here, I frankly despise Trump and all he stands for, but I give him props where due. He's kind of stupid but has this certain rat cunning about reading the moment and grabbing it for his purposes. He saw that those who had lost the most in this country were ripe for the plucking, and he went about using them for his own greedy means accordingly.

    Railing against a handful of truth-telling lefty-ish blogs is amazing on one level. I doubt that, even in the aggragate, many voters were swayed by the information provided. I think most who read these blogs are already determined what we'll do, but we come to these sites for a breath of fresh air, as it were.

    That, for me, is what makes this attack so chilling. The last few small voices of reason and sanity? And they have to be silenced? Brrrrrr . that's bitterly cold.

    Keep up the good fight, Yves and friends. This is gonna be tough row to hoe, but I'm in it to win it.

    Elizabeth Burton December 8, 2016 at 12:33 pm

    And by refusing to address the emails, other than to scream "Russian hackers," the corporate media were able to convince the Clinton cultists and other Third-Way believers that the information they contained was just another right-wing attack on The Anointed because (other than leftist, Russian-loving "fake news" sites), the right-wing media were the only ones paying it any attention.

    You have to give credit where it's due-they have had decades to perfect their method, and it is very hard to counter it.

    aletheia33 December 8, 2016 at 2:19 pm

    ckimball,

    after my own heart, thanks

    silicon valley does not know the meaning of trust. they have extracted it from every situation they can, destroying everything they touch, without realizing what they have unleashed. this will eventually be learned by all, the hard way.

    Ralph Johansen December 8, 2016 at 11:31 am

    I am old enough to remember seeing in the news reel at my local theater in 1950 Joseph McCarthy holding up a piece of paper to the cameras and intoning in his inimitable droning voice, "I have here in my hand a list of 205 known members of the Communist Party who are working and shaping policy in the State Department."

    People's livelihoods and reputations were thereby smeared for life. Never did McCarthy back his claims with evidence, nor did he retract his scurrilous accusation. Now, tell me how what Jeff Bezos and co. are doing in this instance is in any significant way different from what McCarthy did to these people back in 1956. What finally put it squarely before the American public and finally earned McCarthy Congressional censure was when Boston attorney Joseph Welch asked McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency, sir?"

    PQS December 8, 2016 at 11:38 am

    Yikes,Yves! What a lame response from them. We all need to keep up the pressure, by any means. This is one of those MSM errors that they hope will just go away, as evidenced by their hand waving dismissal. We can't let it! I think letters to the editor-an avalanche- might do a world of good.

    paul Tioxon December 8, 2016 at 11:48 am

    https://twitter.com/MazMHussain

    Murtaza HussainVerified account Dec 5
    ‏@MazMHussain
    2003: Rifle-toting Americans barge into Iraq after reading viral Fake News story about weapons of mass destruction.
    ------------------------------
    This fake news story ranks up there with the rifle toting Americans that barge into Viet Nam after the Fake News story about a US Navy warship that was attacked by the North Viet Namese Naval forces in the Gulf of Tonkin.

    Peter VE December 8, 2016 at 12:07 pm

    PolitiFact is running a poll for "Lie of the Year" here . There's a line for write in votes. I wrote in the Post's "Russian Propaganda " story. I suggest you can do the same.

    Propertius December 8, 2016 at 4:00 pm

    Done. Tossing another $50 in for the legal fund, since today is payday.

    Brad December 8, 2016 at 12:15 pm

    A true fake news refusal to retract. Extraordinary that WaPo's editors also claim "not to vouch" for the veracity of whether or not RT.com is a "conduit for Russian propaganda". Really? RT is sponsored by the Russian state, how could it not be such a "conduit"? WaPo has all but admitted that it will print all the fake news it chooses to print. This reply is actually worse than the original offense. Pure confection of arrogance and cowardice as only libertarians can produce.

    But of course it doesn't matter if every last one of the news sources mentioned in the WaPo article were in fact such conduits. The issue is the neo-Cold war, neo-McCarthyite campaign launched over the last 2 years whose center of gravity lies clearly in the Clinton liberal Democrat camp.

    We can only imagine how the campaign would conduct itself if Clinton had won the Presidency. It was predictable they would come after the Left, only now they come on with less swag, but with a pathetic sore loser grudge. A perusal of the Liberal sphere on HuffnPuff, Alternet, Salon and such shows these still lost in a self-induced hysterical psychosis.

    Right NOW is the time to for leftists and progressives to draw a clear line, and distance, from American Liberalism and its blame the victim rhetoric.

    Elizabeth Burton December 8, 2016 at 12:41 pm

    Here's the thing. Yes, RT is funded by the Russian government, and thus anything posted thereon needs to be considered with that in mind. Nevertheless, it is also where stories the corporates prefer to ignore are given attention. In other words, there is an irony that the Russians may, indeed, be trying to influence us, but if so, they appear to be doing it by subtly undermining the reliability of the corporate media.

    To put it another way, dismissing RT solely because of its funding source is no better than dismissing NC et al. as propaganda sites, and doing so is actually feeding the propaganda machine. After all, we don't know what percentage of the US media currently receives "grants" from US intelligence agencies, now, do we.

    scraping_by December 8, 2016 at 1:38 pm

    In studying communications, there's a distinction between 'white' and 'black' propaganda. White propaganda is publishing truth that supports your cause. Black propaganda is, of course, slanderous lies. RT is white propaganda, so use it for the value it brings.

    Propertius December 8, 2016 at 4:13 pm

    Exactly. I'm a grown-up. I have a lot of practice reading critically and I'm quite capable of questioning sources and filtering bias. I don't need Jeff Bezos to protect me from Russkie BadThink.

    Yalt December 8, 2016 at 5:44 pm

    There's a sense in which that's true, of course. But it is a useful characterization? Is there even any point to such a broad statement about a media outlet, other than to discredit work that can't be discredited on more direct grounds?

    State sponsorship of media organizations is not all that unusual. The BBC is primarily funded by a tax levied on any British household that uses a television to receive a broadcast signal, for example. Is the WaPo in the habit of describing the BBC as a "conduit for British propaganda"? Am I acting as a useful idiot for the UK government every time I rehash an old Monty Python joke?

    Child Insemination Action December 8, 2016 at 12:26 pm

    "does not itself vouch " You have to bear in mind this is not the Post talking, this is CIA CIA has blatantly used the Post as a their sockpuppet since they put Woodward in there to oust Nixon, and now they've got Bezos by the contractual balls. CIA has impunity in municipal statute and secret red tape so any answer you get from them means No fuck You.

    The NDAA legalized domestic propaganda in 2013 so when the public repudiated their chosen president Hillary Clinton, CIA immediately got to work work attacking Article 19. CIA is panicking because Hillary was going to get them the war they need to preserve CIA impunity for the crime against humanity of systematic and widespread torture and murder in their global gulag of secret death camps.

    The ICC's investigation of US crimes against humanity has reached the critical point of referral to the pre-trial chamber . The ICC is under intense pressure from Russia and the global south to prove it's not afraid of US criminals. Italian courts have got torturer Sabrina de Souza, and they're going to use her to roll up the command chain. One way or another it's going to be open season on CIA torture cowards, in universal jurisdiction with no statute of limitations. This is a far graver threat to CIA than the family jewels. The international community is investigating CIA crimes, not avuncular Jim Schlesinger or some gelded congressional committee. Like Francis Boyle says, the US government is a criminal enterprise. And since COG was imposed it's got one branch, CIA

    That's the background here. You're the Op in Red Harvest. Poisonville's the USA.

    B1whois December 8, 2016 at 12:34 pm

    May I suggest that this site no longer link to The Wapoo for stories that are available elsewhere. I personally would prefer to not go to their site at all, but they seem to make up a lot of the links here.
    I understand that sometimes this will be unavoidable, as the Wapoo is the only one doing a particular story, but in cases where the story is carried at other sites, can you please link to those other sites instead?

    Epistrophy December 8, 2016 at 12:34 pm

    Yves:

    #FreePressDefenseFund

    And as a number of other commenters on this and other blogs have recently suggested:

    #BoycottBezos
    #BoycottAmazon
    #BoycottWaPo

    Mike December 8, 2016 at 2:09 pm

    I live in New Zealand and start every day with NC because WaPo and it's like runs an agenda. We all know that. I feel for you Yves but the site's strength is bringing together all those speaking truth to power. The courts won't care about that and that route can drain you personally and financially. Stay strong and play to your strengths. You have lots of support – perhaps more than you know.

    Kim Kaufman December 8, 2016 at 2:10 pm

    The Second Phase of the Propaganda Fake News War: Economic Strangulation. What Comes Next?
    by BAR editor and columnist Dr. Marsha Adebayo

    "The public has determined that the corporate media is actually the purveyor of "fake news" and turned to media organizations, such as BAR, Truthout and other outlets for information."

    http://blackagendareport.com/propaganda_fake_news_war

    McCarthy's ghost smiles as Dems point the finger at Russia

    By Norman Solomon, contributor – 12/07/16 07:00 PM EST

    http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/foreign-policy/309249-mccarthys-ghost-smiles-as-dems-point-the-finger-at-russia#.WEi4Q_2C5g0.facebook

    R. Post December 8, 2016 at 2:29 pm

    So, since the W.P. won't bear responsibility for what they publish, maybe we should just lump them in with Breitbart and company. Just out of curiosity, did W.P. contact N.C. for comment before they tried to smear your (and, by extension, our) reputation?

    Outis Philalithopoulos December 8, 2016 at 2:36 pm

    No, they did not. Apparently, they did not contact anyone on the List .

    Propertius December 8, 2016 at 4:16 pm

    [M]aybe we should just lump them [WaPo] in with Breitbart and company.

    I already did. Now I lump them in with Alex Jones.

    Jim Haygood December 8, 2016 at 2:42 pm

    William Banzai7 ups the ante in his Visual Combat with the WaPoo (© cocomaan):

    https://c7.staticflickr.com/1/735/31469075126_eb5fa257d4_b.jpg

    marblex December 8, 2016 at 2:47 pm

    It's libel per se and an avalanche of lawsuits directed at PropOrNot and WaPo should be pretty effective. Because WaPo did not retract there is no defense.

    ChrisAtRU December 8, 2016 at 2:49 pm

    From a legal point of view, I wonder how the Executive Editor's (Marty Baron) tweeting of the article plays against the assertion that "The Post does not itself vouch for the validity of PropOrNot's findings". Is that a case where he was speaking (tweeting) his own opinion, and not necessarily that of his employer?

    #DisclaimersBeDamned

    ChrisPacific December 8, 2016 at 3:02 pm

    So if the WaPo doesn't consider validity checking of sources to be part of its job, then that raises the obvious question in this case: WHY the (insert expletive of your choice) did they take this site with anonymous authors, sweeping allegations and no evidence of any kind, and choose to make a featured story out of it? There are hundreds or thousands of other sites just like it out there. Why PropOrNot, and not any of the others?

    In other words, if (as they claim) the story boils down to "some anonymous people on the Internet made some unsubstantiated claims which may or may not be accurate", why did they decide it was newsworthy at all, let alone worthy of the kind of prominence they gave it?

    Read while you can December 8, 2016 at 3:18 pm

    As bad as the article about propornot is, it will get worse. Wapo is a partner of this dangerous group of "fake-news fighters".

    https://firstdraftnews.com/about/

    What is the purpose of a company like Dataminr to participate in this network financed by google?

    Expect NC and other sites be buried on google page 2 and deeper. Not trending on twitter etc.

    https://firstdraftnews.com/latest/
    Funny enough not a single word about the wapo propornot article.

    Please tell me i am overstating the importance of this network.

    3.14e-9 December 8, 2016 at 4:13 pm

    More evidence of WaPo's distorted idea of "fair and impartial."

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/pr/wp/2016/12/08/the-washington-post-honors-david-fahrenthold-with-inaugural-ben-bradlee-prize/

    They might actually get off the hook for libel on the grounds that the lack of fairness and impartiality wasn't malicious intent but part of their core values.

    MED December 8, 2016 at 5:05 pm

    might look over HR 6393

    "http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-02/house-quietly-passes-bill-targeting-russian-propaganda-websites"

    Fiver December 8, 2016 at 5:39 pm

    Yves/Lambert,

    Am I the only one who remembered an "Andrew Watts" commenting on NC? And wasn't Aug 21 the date ProporCrap started? And isn't the exchange between 'Andrew Watts' and 'timbers' of interest given the WaPo reporter's name is Timberg?

    Check out the comments from Aug 21 on NC:

    http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/08/links-82116.html

    I also wonder if 'Andrew Watts' could be this guy:

    http://andrewwattsauthor.com/

    How hard would it be, really, for two or three people with some know-how to engage in discussion, get replies from comments, trace/track those people. Even one person hacked (and I'm virtually certain I was this summer) could provide a large number of sites visited or 'linked'.

    And it seems to me as well I sent a story to Lambert (and I wrote to Lambert something like "You mean this isn't real?") that I took to be a real WaPo story re a major wrinkle in the Clinton scandals that was part of a story link I got from Global Research, a story which also had a paragraph referenced from Breibart which I didn't notice until my comment wasn't posted, so I went back and looked. I assumed the comment was rejected due to the Breibart (sp?) reference. But what if WaPo/Watts were fishing at NC and saw my follow-up comment to Lambert with only the WaPo link and my question (assuming it was posted, which I do not remember)?

    Anyway, I hope this might prove useful somehow.

    kareninca December 8, 2016 at 8:07 pm

    I wonder if Snopes has asked to be removed from PropOrNot's list of "related projects."

    I contacted them to find out if they were going to ask themselves to be removed from that list, but I have not heard back from them. I guess we'll find out something about their reputability.

    limani December 8, 2016 at 8:10 pm

    NC deserves a huge Wapo-logy to help compensate for your losses, pain & suffering, and exemplary damages, of course.

    [Dec 08, 2016] Washington Post Appends Russian Propaganda Fake News Story, Admits It May Be Fake

    Notable quotes:
    "... One of the sites PropOrNot cited as Russian-influenced was the Drudge Report. ..."
    "... The piece's description of some sharers of bogus news as "useful idiots" could " theoretically include anyone on any social-media platform who shares news based on a click-bait headline ," Mathew Ingram wrote for Fortune. ..."
    "... But the biggest issue was PropOrNot itself. As Adrian Chen wrote for the New Yorker , its methods were themselves suspect, hinting at counter-Russian propaganda - ostensibly with Ukrainian origins - and verification of its work was nearly impossible. Chen wrote "the prospect of legitimate dissenting voices being labeled fake news or Russian propaganda by mysterious groups of ex-government employees, with the help of a national newspaper, is even scarier." ..."
    "... Now, at least, the "national newspaper" has taken some responsibility, however the key question remains: by admitting it never vetted its primary source, whose biased and conflicted "work" smeared hundreds of websites, this one included, just how is the Washington Post any different from the "fake news" it has been deriding on a daily basis ever since its endorsed presidential candidate lost the elections? ..."
    Dec 07, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com
    In the latest example why the "mainstream media" is facing a historic crisis of confidence among its readership, facing unprecedented blowback following Craig Timberg November 24 Washington Post story " Russian propaganda effort helped spread 'fake news' during election, experts say ", on Wednesday a lengthy editor's note appeared on top of the original article in which the editor not only distances the WaPo from the "experts" quoted in the original article whose "work" served as the basis for the entire article (and which became the most read WaPo story the day it was published) but also admits the Post could not " vouch for the validity of PropOrNot's finding regarding any individual media outlet", in effect admitting the entire story may have been, drumroll "fake news" and conceding the Bezos-owned publication may have engaged in defamation by smearing numerous websites - Zero Hedge included - with patently false and unsubstantiated allegations.

    It was the closest the Washington Post would come to formally retracting the story, which has now been thoroughly discredited not only by outside commentators, but by its own editor.

    The apended note in question:

    Editor's Note: The Washington Post on Nov. 24 published a story on the work of four sets of researchers who have examined what they say are Russian propaganda efforts to undermine American democracy and interests. One of them was PropOrNot, a group that insists on public anonymity, which issued a report identifying more than 200 websites that, in its view, wittingly or unwittingly published or echoed Russian propaganda. A number of those sites have objected to being included on PropOrNot's list, and some of the sites, as well as others not on the list, have publicly challenged the group's methodology and conclusions. The Post, which did not name any of the sites, does not itself vouch for the validity of PropOrNot's findings regarding any individual media outlet, nor did the article purport to do so. Since publication of The Post's story, PropOrNot has removed some sites from its list.

    As The Washingtonian notes , the implicit concession follows intense and rising criticism of the article over the past two weeks. It was " rife with obviously reckless and unproven allegations, " Intercept reporters Glenn Greenwald and Ben Norton wrote, noting that PropOrNot, one of the groups whose research was cited in Timberg's piece, "anonymous cowards." One of the sites PropOrNot cited as Russian-influenced was the Drudge Report.

    The piece's description of some sharers of bogus news as "useful idiots" could " theoretically include anyone on any social-media platform who shares news based on a click-bait headline ," Mathew Ingram wrote for Fortune.

    But the biggest issue was PropOrNot itself. As Adrian Chen wrote for the New Yorker , its methods were themselves suspect, hinting at counter-Russian propaganda - ostensibly with Ukrainian origins - and verification of its work was nearly impossible. Chen wrote "the prospect of legitimate dissenting voices being labeled fake news or Russian propaganda by mysterious groups of ex-government employees, with the help of a national newspaper, is even scarier."

    Criticism culminated this week when the " Naked capitalism" blog threatened to sue the Washington Post, demanding a retraction.

    Now, at least, the "national newspaper" has taken some responsibility, however the key question remains: by admitting it never vetted its primary source, whose biased and conflicted "work" smeared hundreds of websites, this one included, just how is the Washington Post any different from the "fake news" it has been deriding on a daily basis ever since its endorsed presidential candidate lost the elections?

    [Dec 07, 2016] Washington Post Disgracefully Promotes a McCarthyite Blacklist From a New, Hidden, and Very Shady Group

    The authors seems to miss the key observation: this is a sign of the crisis of neoliberal propaganda model, which gave rise to Internet rumor mill. Rumor s (aka improvised news) became a prominent news source if and only if official channels of information are not viewed as trustworthy. And blacklisting alternative news sites does not help to return the trust. When it is gone it is gone. The same situation in the past happened in Brezhnev's USSR. People just stopped to trust official newspapers and turned to propaganda sites of Western =government such as BBC and voice of America for news. Soviet authorities tried to jam them, but this did not stop Soviet people from trying to listen to then at nights, trying to find frequencies that were not jammed.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Basically, everyone who isn't comfortably within the centrist Hillary Clinton/Jeb Bush spectrum is guilty. On its Twitter account, the group announced a new "plugin" that automatically alerts the user that a visited website has been designated by the group to be a Russian propaganda outlet. ..."
    "... The group commits outright defamation by slandering obviously legitimate news sites as propaganda tools of the Kremlin. ..."
    "... a big part of the group's definition for "Russian propaganda outlet" is criticizing U.S. foreign policy ..."
    "... In sum: They're not McCarthyite; perish the thought. They just want multiple U.S. media outlets investigated by the FBI for espionage on behalf of Russia. ..."
    "... PropOrNot is by no means a neutral observer. It actively calls on Congress and the White House to work "with our European allies to disconnect Russia from the SWIFT financial transaction system, effective immediately and lasting for at least one year, as an appropriate response to Russian manipulation of the election." ..."
    "... In other words, this blacklisting group of anonymous cowards - putative experts in the pages of the Washington Post - is actively pushing for Western governments to take punitive measures against the Russian government and is speaking and smearing from an extreme ideological framework that the Post concealed from its readers. ..."
    "... The Post itself - now posing as a warrior against "fake news" - published an article in September that treated with great seriousness the claim that Hillary Clinton collapsed on 9/11 Day because she was poisoned by Putin. ..."
    "... Indeed, what happened here is the essence of fake news. The Post story served the agendas of many factions: those who want to believe Putin stole the election from Hillary Clinton; those who want to believe that the internet and social media are a grave menace that needs to be controlled, in contrast to the objective truth that reliable old media outlets once issued; those who want a resurrection of the Cold War. ..."
    "... So those who saw tweets and Facebook posts promoting this Post story instantly clicked and shared and promoted the story without an iota of critical thought or examination of whether the claims were true, because they wanted the claims to be true. That behavior included countless journalists. ..."
    Dec 05, 2016 | theintercept.com

    ... ... ...

    One of the core functions of PropOrNot appears to be its compilation of a lengthy blacklist of news and political websites that it smears as peddlers of "Russian propaganda." Included on this blacklist of supposed propaganda outlets are prominent independent left-wing news sites such as Truthout, Naked Capitalism, Black Agenda Report, Consortium News, and Truthdig.

    Also included are popular libertarian hubs such as Zero Hedge, Antiwar.com, and the Ron Paul Institute, along with the hugely influential right-wing website the Drudge Report and the publishing site WikiLeaks. Far-right, virulently anti-Muslim blogs such as Bare Naked Islam are likewise dubbed Kremlin mouthpieces. Basically, everyone who isn't comfortably within the centrist Hillary Clinton/Jeb Bush spectrum is guilty. On its Twitter account, the group announced a new "plugin" that automatically alerts the user that a visited website has been designated by the group to be a Russian propaganda outlet.

    ... ... ...

    The group commits outright defamation by slandering obviously legitimate news sites as propaganda tools of the Kremlin.

    One of the most egregious examples is the group's inclusion of Naked Capitalism, the widely respected left-wing site run by Wall Street critic Yves Smith. That site was named by Time magazine as one of the best 25 Best Financial Blogs in 2011 and by Wired magazine as a crucial site to follow for finance, and Smith has been featured as a guest on programs such as PBS's Bill Moyers Show. Yet this cowardly group of anonymous smear artists, promoted by the Washington Post, has now placed them on a blacklist of Russian disinformation.

    The group eschews alternative media outlets like these and instead recommends that readers rely solely on establishment-friendly publications like NPR, the BBC, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, BuzzFeed, and VICE. That is because a big part of the group's definition for "Russian propaganda outlet" is criticizing U.S. foreign policy.

    ... ... ...

    While blacklisting left-wing and libertarian journalists, PropOrNot also denies being McCarthyite. Yet it simultaneously calls for the U.S. government to use the FBI and DOJ to carry out "formal investigations" of these accused websites, "because the kind of folks who make propaganda for brutal authoritarian oligarchies are often involved in a wide range of bad business." The shadowy group even goes so far as to claim that people involved in the blacklisted websites may "have violated the Espionage Act, the Foreign Agent Registration Act, and other related laws."

    In sum: They're not McCarthyite; perish the thought. They just want multiple U.S. media outlets investigated by the FBI for espionage on behalf of Russia.

    ... ... ...

    PropOrNot is by no means a neutral observer. It actively calls on Congress and the White House to work "with our European allies to disconnect Russia from the SWIFT financial transaction system, effective immediately and lasting for at least one year, as an appropriate response to Russian manipulation of the election."

    In other words, this blacklisting group of anonymous cowards - putative experts in the pages of the Washington Post - is actively pushing for Western governments to take punitive measures against the Russian government and is speaking and smearing from an extreme ideological framework that the Post concealed from its readers.

    ... ... ...

    The Post itself - now posing as a warrior against "fake news" - published an article in September that treated with great seriousness the claim that Hillary Clinton collapsed on 9/11 Day because she was poisoned by Putin. And that's to say nothing of the paper's disgraceful history of convincing Americans that Saddam was building non-existent nuclear weapons and had cultivated a vibrant alliance with al Qaeda. As is so often the case, those who mostly loudly warn of "fake news" from others are themselves the most aggressive disseminators of it.

    Indeed, what happened here is the essence of fake news. The Post story served the agendas of many factions: those who want to believe Putin stole the election from Hillary Clinton; those who want to believe that the internet and social media are a grave menace that needs to be controlled, in contrast to the objective truth that reliable old media outlets once issued; those who want a resurrection of the Cold War.

    So those who saw tweets and Facebook posts promoting this Post story instantly clicked and shared and promoted the story without an iota of critical thought or examination of whether the claims were true, because they wanted the claims to be true. That behavior included countless journalists.

    [Dec 07, 2016] McCarthyism 2.0 against the independent information

    Notable quotes:
    "... When the narratives will become completely obsolete and incapable to persuade, except only a slightest minority, the fake democracy will become an open, brutal dictatorship. ..."
    "... Many still wonder if the planet indeed slips towards a new Cold War. Despite that there is plenty of evidence that this is, unfortunately, already a fact, another incident came to verify this situation. ..."
    "... The Western neoliberal establishment is exposed, revealing its real agenda: to challenge the alternative bloc driven by the Sino-Russian alliance. The 'democratic' Europe proceeded in a similar, unprecedented move recently. As reported by RT: "In a completely bonkers move this week, the EU Parliament approved a resolution to counter "Russian propaganda" and the "intrusion of Russian media" into the EU. The resolution was adopted with 304 MEPs voting in favor, 179 MEPs voting against it and 208 abstaining. The most bizarre part, however, is that the resolution lumped Russian media in with Islamist propaganda of the kind spread by terror groups like the so-called Islamic State. Thus Russian media is put on the same level with videos of ISIS beheadings and incitements to mass murder." ..."
    "... In Cold War 2.0, the Western neoliberal establishment is forced to create the respective McCarthyism. Therefore, the new dogma has changed accordingly. It doesn't matter if an alternative medium provides a different view, away from the mainstream media propaganda. It doesn't matter if the Whistleblowers are telling the truth about the US dirty wars and mass surveillance of ordinary citizens. As long as the US empire and its allies are exposed by all these elements outside their Matrix control, these elements help Russia, therefore, they are doing 'Russian propaganda'. It's as simple as that. ..."
    "... When the narratives will become completely obsolete and incapable to persuade, except only a slightest minority, the fake democracy will become an open, brutal dictatorship. ..."
    Dec 07, 2016 | failedevolution.blogspot.gr
    Key insight: When the narratives will become completely obsolete and incapable to persuade, except only a slightest minority, the fake democracy will become an open, brutal dictatorship.

    the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

    When the narratives will become completely obsolete and incapable to persuade, except only a slightest minority, the fake democracy will become an open, brutal dictatorship.

    Many still wonder if the planet indeed slips towards a new Cold War. Despite that there is plenty of evidence that this is, unfortunately, already a fact, another incident came to verify this situation.

    The blacklist created by PropOrNot and provided to Washington Post, containing more than 200 websites that are supposedly doing 'Russian propaganda', marks the start of a new McCarthyism era and verifies beyond doubt the fact that we have indeed entered the Cold War 2.0.

    Seeing that it's losing the battle of information, the establishment simply proceeded in one more clumsy move that will only accelerate developments against it.

    It really sounds like a joke to accuse anyone who opposes the US dirty wars and interventions that brought so much chaos and distraction, for doing 'Russian propaganda', when you are the one who supported and justified these wars through the most offensive propaganda, for decades.

    Someone has to tell the mainstream media parrots that their dirty tricks don't work anymore. According to a Gallup latest report, "Americans' trust and confidence in the mass media "to report the news fully, accurately and fairly" has dropped to its lowest level in Gallup polling history, with 32% saying they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media. This is down eight percentage points from last year."

    The mainstream mouthpieces are extremely predictable. They will rush to blame internet and alternative media that flourished over the last fifteen years, for this unprecedented situation. Of course they will. They don't want any alternative to their propaganda monopoly which was extremely effective in guiding the sheeple during the past decades.

    The Western neoliberal establishment is exposed, revealing its real agenda: to challenge the alternative bloc driven by the Sino-Russian alliance. The 'democratic' Europe proceeded in a similar, unprecedented move recently. As reported by RT: "In a completely bonkers move this week, the EU Parliament approved a resolution to counter "Russian propaganda" and the "intrusion of Russian media" into the EU. The resolution was adopted with 304 MEPs voting in favor, 179 MEPs voting against it and 208 abstaining. The most bizarre part, however, is that the resolution lumped Russian media in with Islamist propaganda of the kind spread by terror groups like the so-called Islamic State. Thus Russian media is put on the same level with videos of ISIS beheadings and incitements to mass murder."

    It has been mentioned in previous article that "While the EU and US were occupied with the war against terrorism as well as with the dead-end wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas of the planet, Putin had all the time to build his own mechanism against Western propaganda. Being himself a man who had come to power with the help of media, he built his own media network which includes, for example, the TV network Russia Today, according to the Western standards, and "invaded" in millions of homes in the Western countries using the English language, promoting however the Russian positions as counterweight to the Western propaganda monopoly."

    In Cold War 2.0, the Western neoliberal establishment is forced to create the respective McCarthyism. Therefore, the new dogma has changed accordingly. It doesn't matter if an alternative medium provides a different view, away from the mainstream media propaganda. It doesn't matter if the Whistleblowers are telling the truth about the US dirty wars and mass surveillance of ordinary citizens. As long as the US empire and its allies are exposed by all these elements outside their Matrix control, these elements help Russia, therefore, they are doing 'Russian propaganda'. It's as simple as that.

    This latest desperate move of the establishment should alarm us all. Because it shows that the establishment is in panic and therefore, more dangerous than ever. When the narratives will become completely obsolete and incapable to persuade, except only a slightest minority, the fake democracy will become an open, brutal dictatorship.

    [Dec 06, 2016] WPost woulds not Retract McCarthyistic Smear by Norman Solomon

    Notable quotes:
    "... "Smearing is not reporting," the RootsAction petition says. "The Washington Post 's recent descent into McCarthyism - promoting anonymous and shoddy claims that a vast range of some 200 websites are all accomplices or tools of the Russian government - violates basic journalistic standards and does real harm to democratic discourse in our country. We urge the Washington Post to prominently retract the article and apologize for publishing it." ..."
    "... For one thing, PropOrNot wasn't just another source for the Post 's story. As The New Yorker noted in a devastating article on Dec. 1, the story "prominently cited the PropOrNot research." The Post 's account "had the force of revelation, thanks in large part to the apparent scientific authority of PropOrNot's work: the group released a 32-page report detailing its methodology, and named names with its list of 200 suspect news outlets . But a close look at the report showed that it was a mess." ..."
    "... As The New Yorker pointed out, PropOrNot's criteria for incriminating content were broad enough to include "nearly every news outlet in the world, including the Post itself." Yet "The List" is not a random list by any means - it's a targeted mish-mash, naming websites that are not within shouting distance of the U.S. corporate and foreign policy establishment. ..."
    "... As The New Yorker 's writer Adrian Chen put it: "To PropOrNot, simply exhibiting a pattern of beliefs outside the political mainstream is enough to risk being labeled a Russian propagandist." And he concluded: "Despite the impressive-looking diagrams and figures in its report, PropOrNot's findings rest largely on innuendo and conspiracy thinking." ..."
    "... As much as the Post news management might want to weasel out of the comparison, the parallels to the advent of the McCarthy Era are chilling. For instance, the Red Channels list, with 151 names on it, was successful as a weapon against dissent and free speech in large part because, early on, so many media outlets of the day actively aided and abetted blacklisting, as the Post has done for "The List." ..."
    "... Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wisconsin, who led the "Red Scare" hearings of the 1950s. ..."
    "... So far The New Yorker has been the largest media outlet to directly confront the Post 's egregious story. Cogent assessments can also be found at The Intercept , Consortium News , Common Dreams , AlterNet , Rolling Stone , Fortune , CounterPunch , The Nation and numerous other sites. ..."
    "... But many mainline journalists and outlets jumped at the chance to amplify the Post 's piece of work. A sampling of the cheers from prominent journalists and liberal partisans was published by FAIR.org under the apt headline " Why Are Media Outlets Still Citing Discredited 'Fake News' Blacklist? " ..."
    "... When liberals have green-lighted a witch-hunt, right wingers have been pleased to run with it. President Harry Truman issued an executive order in March 1947 to establish "loyalty" investigations in every agency of the federal government. Joe McCarthy and the era named after him were soon to follow. ..."
    Dec 05, 2016 | consortiumnews.com
    WPost Won't Retract McCarthyistic Smear

    After publishing a McCarthyistic "black list" that smears some 200 Web sites as "Russian propagandists," The Washington Post refuses to apologize - and other mainstream media outlets pile on, writes Norman Solomon.

    We still don't have any sort of apology or retraction from the Washington Post for promoting "The List" - the highly dangerous blacklist that got a huge boost from the newspaper's fawning coverage on Nov. 24. The project of smearing 200 websites with one broad brush wouldn't have gotten far without the avid complicity of high-profile media outlets, starting with the Post .

    On Thursday - a week after the Post published its front-page news article hyping the blacklist that was put out by a group of unidentified people called PropOrNot - I sent a petition statement to the newspaper's executive editor Martin Baron.

    The Washington Post building in downtown Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Washington Post)

    "Smearing is not reporting," the RootsAction petition says. "The Washington Post 's recent descent into McCarthyism - promoting anonymous and shoddy claims that a vast range of some 200 websites are all accomplices or tools of the Russian government - violates basic journalistic standards and does real harm to democratic discourse in our country. We urge the Washington Post to prominently retract the article and apologize for publishing it."

    After mentioning that 6,000 people had signed the petition (the number has doubled since then), my email to Baron added: "If you skim through the comments that many of the signers added to the petition online, I think you might find them to be of interest. I wonder if you see a basis for dialogue on the issues raised by critics of the Post piece in question."

    The reply came from the newspaper's vice president for public relations, Kristine Coratti Kelly, who thanked me "for reaching out to us" before presenting the Post 's response, quoted here in full:

    "The Post reported on the work of four separate sets of researchers, as well as independent experts, who have examined Russian attempts to influence American democracy. PropOrNot was one. The Post did not name any of the sites on PropOrNot's list of organizations that it said had - wittingly or unwittingly - published or echoed Russian propaganda. The Post reviewed PropOrNot's findings and our questions about them were answered satisfactorily during the course of multiple interviews."

    Full of Holes

    But that damage-control response was as full of holes as the news story it tried to defend.

    For one thing, PropOrNot wasn't just another source for the Post 's story. As The New Yorker noted in a devastating article on Dec. 1, the story "prominently cited the PropOrNot research." The Post 's account "had the force of revelation, thanks in large part to the apparent scientific authority of PropOrNot's work: the group released a 32-page report detailing its methodology, and named names with its list of 200 suspect news outlets . But a close look at the report showed that it was a mess."

    Contrary to the PR message from the Post vice president, PropOrNot did not merely say that the sites on its list had "published or echoed Russian propaganda." Without a word of the slightest doubt or skepticism in the entire story, the Post summarized PropOrNot's characterization of all the websites on its list as falling into two categories: "Some players in this online echo chamber were knowingly part of the propaganda campaign, the researchers concluded, while others were 'useful idiots' - a term born of the Cold War to describe people or institutions that unknowingly assisted Soviet Union propaganda efforts."

    As The New Yorker pointed out, PropOrNot's criteria for incriminating content were broad enough to include "nearly every news outlet in the world, including the Post itself." Yet "The List" is not a random list by any means - it's a targeted mish-mash, naming websites that are not within shouting distance of the U.S. corporate and foreign policy establishment.

    And so the list includes a few overtly Russian-funded outlets; some other sites generally aligned with Kremlin outlooks; many pro-Trump sites, often unacquainted with what it means to be factual and sometimes overtly racist; and other websites that are quite different - solid, factual, reasonable - but too progressive or too anti-capitalist or too libertarian or too right-wing or just plain too independent-minded for the evident tastes of whoever is behind PropOrNot.

    As The New Yorker 's writer Adrian Chen put it: "To PropOrNot, simply exhibiting a pattern of beliefs outside the political mainstream is enough to risk being labeled a Russian propagandist." And he concluded: "Despite the impressive-looking diagrams and figures in its report, PropOrNot's findings rest largely on innuendo and conspiracy thinking."

    As for the Post vice president's defensive phrasing that "the Post did not name any of the sites on PropOrNot's list," the fact is that the Post unequivocally promoted PropOrNot, driving web traffic to its site and adding a hotlink to the anonymous group's 32-page report soon after the newspaper's story first appeared. As I mentioned in my reply to her: "Unfortunately, it's kind of like a newspaper saying that it didn't name any of the people on the Red Channels blacklist in 1950 while promoting it in news coverage, so no problem."

    Pushing McCarthyism

    As much as the Post news management might want to weasel out of the comparison, the parallels to the advent of the McCarthy Era are chilling. For instance, the Red Channels list, with 151 names on it, was successful as a weapon against dissent and free speech in large part because, early on, so many media outlets of the day actively aided and abetted blacklisting, as the Post has done for "The List."

    Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wisconsin, who led the "Red Scare" hearings of the 1950s.

    Consider how the Post story described the personnel of PropOrNot in favorable terms even while hiding all of their identities and thus shielding them from any scrutiny - calling them "a nonpartisan collection of researchers with foreign policy, military and technology backgrounds."

    So far The New Yorker has been the largest media outlet to directly confront the Post 's egregious story. Cogent assessments can also be found at The Intercept , Consortium News , Common Dreams , AlterNet , Rolling Stone , Fortune , CounterPunch , The Nation and numerous other sites.

    But many mainline journalists and outlets jumped at the chance to amplify the Post 's piece of work. A sampling of the cheers from prominent journalists and liberal partisans was published by FAIR.org under the apt headline " Why Are Media Outlets Still Citing Discredited 'Fake News' Blacklist? "

    FAIR's media analyst Adam Johnson cited enthusiastic responses to the bogus story from journalists like Bloomberg's Sahil Kupar and MSNBC's Joy Reid - and such outlets as USA Today , Gizmodo , the PBS NewsHour , The Daily Beast , Slate , AP , The Verge and NPR , which "all uncritically wrote up the Post 's most incendiary claims with little or minimal pushback." On the MSNBC site, the Rachel Maddow Show's blog "added another breathless write-up hours later, repeating the catchy talking point that 'it was like Russia was running a super PAC for Trump's campaign.'"

    With so many people understandably upset about Trump's victory, there's an evident attraction to blaming the Kremlin, a convenient scapegoat for Hillary Clinton's loss. But the Post 's blacklisting story and the media's amplification of it - and the overall political environment that it helps to create - are all building blocks for a reactionary order, threatening the First Amendment and a range of civil liberties.

    When liberals have green-lighted a witch-hunt, right wingers have been pleased to run with it. President Harry Truman issued an executive order in March 1947 to establish "loyalty" investigations in every agency of the federal government. Joe McCarthy and the era named after him were soon to follow.

    In media and government, the journalists and officials who enable blacklisting are cravenly siding with conformity instead of democracy.

    Norman Solomon is co-founder of the online activist group RootsAction.org. His books include War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He is the executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

    [Dec 06, 2016] The Western War On Truth by Paul Craig Roberts

    This idea of casting dissidents as Russian Agent is directly from McCarthy play book. And paradoxically resembles the practive of the USSR in which dissdents were demonized as "Agent of the Western powers." The trick is a immanent part of any war propaganda efforts. So it is clear the Cold War II had started...
    Notable quotes:
    "... As George Orwell predicted, telling the truth is now regarded by Western "democratic" governments as a hostile act. A brand new website, propornot.com, has just made its appearance condemning a list of 200 Internet websites that provide news and views at variance with the presstitute media that serves the governments' agendas . Does propornot.com's funding come from the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy, or George Soros? ..."
    "... In the West those who disagree with the murderous and reckless policies of public officials are demonized as "Russian agents." ..."
    "... The presstitute Washington Post played its assigned role in the claim promoted by Washington that the alternative media consists of Russian agents. Craig Timberg, who appears devoid of integrity or intelligence, and perhaps both, is the WaPo stooge who reported the fake news that "two teams of independent researchers" - none of whom are identified - found that the Russians exploited my gullibility, that of CounterPunch, Professor Michel Chossudosky of Global Researh, Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, Justin Raimondo and that of 194 other websites to help "an insurgent candidate" (Trump) "claim the White House." ..."
    "... Note the term applied to Trump - "insurgent candidate." That tells you all you need to know. ..."
    "... Western governments are running out of excuses. Since the Clinton regime, the accumulation of war crimes committed by Western governments exceed those of Nazi Germany. Millions of Muslims have been slaughtered, dislocated, and dispossessed in seven countries. Not a single Western war criminal has been held accountable. ..."
    "... The despicable Washington Post is a prime apologist for these war criminals. The entire Western print and TV media is so heavily implicated in the worst war crimes in human history that, if justice ever happens, the presstitutes will stand in the dock with the Clintons, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, Obama and their neocon operatives or handlers as the case may be. ..."
    Dec 06, 2016 | www.paulcraigroberts.org

    The "war on terror" has simultaneously been a war on truth. For fifteen years-from 9/11 to Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction" and "al Qaeda connections," "Iranian nukes," "Assad's use of chemical weapons," endless lies about Gadaffi, "Russian invasion of Ukraine"-the governments of the so-called Western democracies have found it essential to align themselves firmly with lies in order to pursue their agendas. Now these Western governments are attempting to discredit the truthtellers who challenge their lies.

    Russian news services are under attack from the EU and Western presstitutes as purveyors of "fake news" . Abiding by its Washington master's orders, the EU actually passed a resolution against Russian media for not following Washington's line. Russian President Putin said that the resolution is a "visible sign of degradation of Western society's idea of democracy."

    As George Orwell predicted, telling the truth is now regarded by Western "democratic" governments as a hostile act. A brand new website, propornot.com, has just made its appearance condemning a list of 200 Internet websites that provide news and views at variance with the presstitute media that serves the governments' agendas . Does propornot.com's funding come from the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy, or George Soros?

    I am proud to say that paulcraigroberts.org is on the list.

    What we see here is the West adopting Zionist Israel's way of dealing with critics. Anyone who objects to Israel's cruel and inhuman treatment of Palestinians is demonized as "anti-semitic." In the West those who disagree with the murderous and reckless policies of public officials are demonized as "Russian agents." The president-elect of the United States himself has been designated a "Russian agent."

    This scheme to redefine truthtellers as propagandists has backfired. The effort to discredit truthtellers has instead produced a catalogue of websites where reliable information can be found, and readers are flocking to the sites on the list. Moreover, the effort to discredit truthtellers shows that Western governments and their presstitutes are intolerant of truth and diverse opinion and are committed to forcing people to accept self-serving government lies as truth.

    Clearly, Western governments and Western media have no respect for truth, so how can the West possibly be democratic?

    The presstitute Washington Post played its assigned role in the claim promoted by Washington that the alternative media consists of Russian agents. Craig Timberg, who appears devoid of integrity or intelligence, and perhaps both, is the WaPo stooge who reported the fake news that "two teams of independent researchers" - none of whom are identified - found that the Russians exploited my gullibility, that of CounterPunch, Professor Michel Chossudosky of Global Researh, Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, Justin Raimondo and that of 194 other websites to help "an insurgent candidate" (Trump) "claim the White House."

    Note the term applied to Trump - "insurgent candidate." That tells you all you need to know.

    You can read here what passes as "reliable reporting" in the presstitute Washington Post .

    See also .

    Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept, which somehow escaped inclusion in The 200, unloads on Timberg and the Washington Post here .

    Western governments are running out of excuses. Since the Clinton regime, the accumulation of war crimes committed by Western governments exceed those of Nazi Germany. Millions of Muslims have been slaughtered, dislocated, and dispossessed in seven countries. Not a single Western war criminal has been held accountable.

    The despicable Washington Post is a prime apologist for these war criminals. The entire Western print and TV media is so heavily implicated in the worst war crimes in human history that, if justice ever happens, the presstitutes will stand in the dock with the Clintons, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, Obama and their neocon operatives or handlers as the case may be.

    paulcraigroberts.org

    [Dec 06, 2016] Which purveys more fake news

    www.moonofalabama.org
    micawber | Dec 4, 2016 12:30:10 PM | 78
    Which purveys more "fake news" - RT.com on the one hand, or Fox News, MSNBC and CNN on the other? I asked that question on reddit and my post was deleted.

    [Dec 05, 2016] We Demand That The Washington Post Retract Its Propaganda Story Defaming Naked Capitalism and Other Sites and Issue an Apology

    Notable quotes:
    "... The motive is there (discredit competition), the evidence is there per the above, the legal standing is explicit, the only thing that is technically unquantifiable is the damage done. ..."
    "... Both Firefox and Chrome have added the option to open in a "private" or "incognito" window or tab, which also gets you around the monthly limit. ..."
    "... What NYT/WaPo lose in people not paying to read, they apparently can make up from people willing to pay to have things published. ..."
    "... 'The man' who shot one round into the floor* at Comet Pizza may be an actor, Edgar Maddison Welch, who has done various jobs in media, including playing a "raver/victim". ..."
    "... Yves, I would very much question your description of The Washington Post being " taken for a ride." over this story. ..."
    "... It's worth pointing out that the newspapers owner Jeff Bezos was hired by the Secretary of Defense to a rather sinister sounding organisation called the " Defense Innovation Advisory Board " in July. The Boards mission statement is to .."focus on new technologies and organizational behavior and culture." Also, in addition "identify innovative private-sector practices, and technological solutions that the DoD could employ in the future." ..."
    "... In short, Bezos, and his companies are now part of the MIC. I believe Googles CEO is also on the same board. ..."
    "... Am I supposed to accept then that the Washington Post really thinks that the work of PropOrNot is honestly and objectively carried out? I can't. ..."
    "... Dan Rather was put in an impossible position by supporters of GW Bush, despite the accuracy of the accusation. In this case, instead, the Post intentionally credits accusations for which it can offer no support (or at least declines to do so). I'll conclude that the Post acted maliciously and spitefully, as in slander, until it gives me reason to think otherwise. No person or media outlet can disseminate such shocking and potentially damaging accusations without our demanding accountability. ..."
    "... If you read section 501 of this year's intelligence authorization bill, it directs the President to set up an interagency committee to 'counter active measures by Russia to exert covert influence over peoples and governments.' So that shows you that senators from both parties are clearly concerned about Russian covert influence efforts. ..."
    "... "Never assume malice when incompetence will explain the behavior." unless a lengthy history of errors having the same bias suggests otherwise. ..."
    "... I've been a lifelong journalist, 10 years on a daily newspaper, 20 years freelancing for magazines. The Wapo story so blatantly violated fundamental journalistic standards I cannot believe any experienced editor would not have realized that. My only possible conclusion is that irresistible pressure was placed on editors to publish the story. ..."
    "... You fake a document that contains the truth. When you discredit the document, you discredit the truth. Maneuvers like that show why Karl Rove really was (in his own special way) a genius. ..."
    "... I followed the Bush Texas Air National Guard story in detail at the time, and the Rather story in particular, and posted on it a good deal. So far as I know, nobody ever claimed the $10,000 reward that Gary Trudeau offered for anybody who would come forward as an eye witness to Bush performing his TANG duties. ..."
    "... Your comment is heavy on speculation including the notion that Bezos is directly controlling what goes into the Post. I'd say the tight little club that is mainstream journalism doesn't require government subversion in order to represent a MIC point of view. As Gore Vidal said re the deep state: they don't need to conspire since they all think alike anyway. ..."
    "... With all due respect it isn't speculation that Bezos has been hired by the secretary of defence to the Defence innovation advisory board. I think you have to be very naive if you think he has little input into the editorial running of the paper. Why else buy a newspaper these days? They hardly make much money. ..."
    "... The British Guardian for example has been running articles and pushing a campaign of "The Internet we want." Which seems to consist of all critiscms of what it believes being censored. ..."
    "... As to Yves point about the amateur nature of this list, and the attack on sites like NC in the article, Yves shouldn't assume that all these people are geniuses. It won't be the first or the last time that powerful people who run businesses make complete fools of themselves. ..."
    "... And Bezos is too busy to have much/any input into editorial decisions. Newscycles are far too rapid. Bezos might make clear what the general priorities and tone are, but he's not going to be involved in individual stories save on a very exceptional basis, and news of that would get out to reporters and make the journalism rumor mill in a bad way. Marty Peretz, who unlike Bezos was the publisher and editor in chief of the magazine he bought (the vastly smaller The New Republic) had pet priorities (Israel) and preferences (falling in love with smart young male senior editors and then becoming disenchanted with them in a couple of years and driving them out) that were widely known. ..."
    "... These guys are so ludicrous that folks like Bellingcat are denouncing them. ..."
    "... Carl Bernstein has done some pretty deep reporting on decades of links bw CIA and media: http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php ..."
    "... Even he says there are not really any links bw CIA and WaPo as propaganda channel. As much as it'd be fun to fantasize about Bezos being an evil operator for the MIC, I am inclined toward Yves' narrative of incompetence, and an (unhealthy) dose of confirmation bias-seeking. ..."
    "... Much as I would believe anything about Bezos/WP, the article is so amateurish its very hard to believe it is part of an active top-down conspiracy. I'd be more inclined to think that it 'became known' among WP staff that certain Very Important People believe in the Russian propaganda conspiracy and that any articles highlighting this are more likely to be published than others. ..."
    "... Off the top of my head, some of the worst examples of journalistic libel recently have primarily been driven not by malice or conspiracies, but because of active confirmation bias. The journalist and editor strongly believes X to be true, therefore when a source comes up to provide a potentially juicy story confirming the reality and evil of X, then they leap on the source without any professional scepticism. The Rolling Stone college rape hoax comes to mind, as does a notorious case in Ireland which nearly destroyed investigative journalism in the main TV company. ..."
    "... In this exclusive report, distinguished research psychologist Robert Epstein explains the new study and reviews evidence that Google's search suggestions are biased in favor of Hillary Clinton. He estimates that biased search suggestions might be able to shift as many as 3 million votes in the upcoming presidential election in the US. ..."
    "... Zerohedge was listed as a "fake news" site but, as I'm sure many here know, they do great, hard hitting economic analysis and have had their projections and theories confirmed many times with a far better track record than the mainstream sites covering the same subject. ..."
    "... I'm not sure the guys behind all this mind losing the discussion in the end. As often, even if the smeared news sites, including NC, win the debate, they'll still lose the communication war. ..."
    "... The background to all this, the attempt by the Clintonites to draw on Cold War stink reserves (a National Ideological Reserve, sorta like the National Petroleum Reserve) and, if not its complete failure, than its failure to be decisively effective, makes me think we are witnessing signs of a decisive weakening in elite communication control. PropOrNot advances the process. ..."
    "... We fully endorse Yves Smith's efforts. ..."
    "... Additionally, we note that the only reason we haven't followed up with a similar action is because i) the allegations were beyond laughable – we have rejected all of them on the record, and ii) there are simply too much other events taking place in what should otherwise be a quiet end to the year taking place to focus on what may be a lenghty, if gratifying, legal process. ..."
    Dec 05, 2016 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
    PWC, Raleigh December 5, 2016 at 4:59 pm

    +1 as well.

    The thing with raising money is you have to ask, ask, ask a lot, lot, lot.

    So when you need more money to continue this fight, just publish an updated case-statement with an ask, and the lot of us will turn over our digits to support the fight. Many hands make light work, as my mother always says.

    It's refreshing to have something to support that is worthwhile in both principle and actuality. Plus, the Post is a nasty piece of work. Same for the Times . Disgraceful and distasteful. They are only fun to peruse for the self-parody.

    Just Wondering December 5, 2016 at 1:26 pm

    Class action lawsuit? Would perhaps smoke out any truly fake news alt media sites.

    Tim December 5, 2016 at 2:14 pm

    Class Action libel suit against WaPo and the propornot website seems reasonable. The motive is there (discredit competition), the evidence is there per the above, the legal standing is explicit, the only thing that is technically unquantifiable is the damage done.

    If the damages can be determined by some reasonable methodology then perhaps there is enough to make it worth bringing a suit.

    lyman alpha blob December 5, 2016 at 12:48 pm

    Regarding paying for the news in general, I'm assuming there aren't too many readers who who actually want to pay WaPo or the NYT for anything at this point.

    Those sites and others in recent years have imposed a monthly free article limit and I find that sometimes after clicking on stories linked to from here I run up against the limit.

    I'm sure most people here are already aware of this, but just so you are never tempted to subscribe to their crappy organizations, all you need to do to get around the limit is use a different browser to open the link.

    Peter VE December 5, 2016 at 1:41 pm

    Both Firefox and Chrome have added the option to open in a "private" or "incognito" window or tab, which also gets you around the monthly limit.

    Skip Intro December 5, 2016 at 2:28 pm

    What NYT/WaPo lose in people not paying to read, they apparently can make up from people willing to pay to have things published.

    choung December 5, 2016 at 3:13 am

    My name is Choung, I'm Korean(south Korea).
    Korean have experienced this kind of things many many times under the military dictatorship,
    and now we were suffering from new blacklist.
    Our president is daughter of the past infamous dictator.

    I have visited your site and linked many good pieces. Sometimes translated them.

    Korean mainstream media don't handle this story,
    So, l wrote some pieces about it in public site.

    I strongly express solidarity with you on behalf of many progressive Koreans.

    ambrit December 5, 2016 at 4:12 am

    Of tangential interest is the "news" report, if Yahoo can be so described, of the man charged with various and sundry for threatening the pizzaria "implicated" in the pedophilia allegations swirling around in the overheated miasma that passes for "common wisdom" today.

    Of importance is the framing of the "story." The man is alleged to have gone off on his "adventure" as the result of "fake news site" reporting. The assault on journalism is now switching from a pure smear to a flanking maneuver. Whether real or manufactured, this act will probably be spun to support further crackdowns on dissenting points of view. Guilt by (manufactured) association can hurt just as badly as real guilt. All this plays out in the court of public opinion, a notoriously rickety edifice in the best of times. \

    See: https://www.yahoo.com/news/gunman-charged-threatening-dc-restaurant-hit-fake-news-030914425.html

    Congratulations for adopting the "best defense is a strong offense" strategy.

    Just Wondering December 5, 2016 at 1:41 pm

    'The man' who shot one round into the floor* at Comet Pizza may be an actor, Edgar Maddison Welch, who has done various jobs in media, including playing a "raver/victim". Look him up on IMDB. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2625901/bio

    * http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/04/politics/gun-incident-fake-news/

    ambrit December 5, 2016 at 3:07 pm

    Ah ha! Putting on my "tinfoil hat" I'm tempted to say "False Flag Action."

    Sally December 5, 2016 at 4:27 am

    Yves, I would very much question your description of The Washington Post being " taken for a ride." over this story.

    It's worth pointing out that the newspapers owner Jeff Bezos was hired by the Secretary of Defense to a rather sinister sounding organisation called the " Defense Innovation Advisory Board " in July. The Boards mission statement is to .."focus on new technologies and organizational behavior and culture." Also, in addition "identify innovative private-sector practices, and technological solutions that the DoD could employ in the future."

    In short, Bezos, and his companies are now part of the MIC. I believe Googles CEO is also on the same board. These so called private corporations are now part of the US govt that works in the field of black ops. Remember also that Amazon has major contracts with the govt to provide cloud computing storage. This is fascism in all but name. It remains to be seen how long the new President Mr Trump will want to trust these people as they did so much to try to defeat him.

    Yves Smith Post author December 5, 2016 at 6:19 am

    I beg to differ. No one would want to damage their credibility above all in undermining a narrative (in Beltway-speak) that they are tying to promote.

    Remember the Dan Rather scandal? Unlike this case, the underlying fact set about George Bush was accurate, but Dan Rather falling for bogus evidence not only forced Rather to resign, but

    1. diverted attention from what should have been a scandal if properly reported and
    2. confused any attempts to discuss it (as in the Rather evidence being bad made casual observers think the dirt on Bush was untrue).
    Quentin December 5, 2016 at 6:57 am

    I was also struck by the statement that the Post was 'taken for a ride'. Am I supposed to accept then that the Washington Post really thinks that the work of PropOrNot is honestly and objectively carried out? I can't.

    Dan Rather was put in an impossible position by supporters of GW Bush, despite the accuracy of the accusation. In this case, instead, the Post intentionally credits accusations for which it can offer no support (or at least declines to do so). I'll conclude that the Post acted maliciously and spitefully, as in slander, until it gives me reason to think otherwise. No person or media outlet can disseminate such shocking and potentially damaging accusations without our demanding accountability.

    Yves Smith Post author December 5, 2016 at 7:57 am

    Fact checking at the Washington Post is a joke:

    http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2016/12/httpswwwwashingtonpostcomopinionsglobal-opinionsthe-pros-and-cons-of-a-generals-general20161203f8d6e72c-b8b7-11e6.html

    And if you look at the what the Post said to Consortium News (hat tip UserFriendly), it apparently considers just chatting with a source for a bit an adequate basis for validating a smear against 200 publications. They effectively admit they did no independent verification:

    The reply came from the newspaper's vice president for public relations, Kristine Coratti Kelly, who thanked me "for reaching out to us" before presenting the Post's response, quoted here in full:

    "The Post reported on the work of four separate sets of researchers, as well as independent experts, who have examined Russian attempts to influence American democracy. PropOrNot was one. The Post did not name any of the sites on PropOrNot's list of organizations that it said had - wittingly or unwittingly - published or echoed Russian propaganda. The Post reviewed PropOrNot's findings and our questions about them were answered satisfactorily during the course of multiple interviews."

    Sally December 5, 2016 at 8:50 am

    Yves, just to be clear ..I am in complete support for you, and your site and other sites from these outrageous and slanderous attacks.

    I was just surprised at your generous description of them being "taken for a ride." I think that is way to charitable.

    Yves Smith Post author December 5, 2016 at 9:24 am

    Never assume malice, when incompetence will explain the behavior.

    Gary Headlock December 5, 2016 at 9:56 am

    Speaking of, do you think your inclusion on the initial "PropOrNot" list is an example of malice or incompetence? Could it be some half-assed algorithm scanned the web for sites linking to RT (which I can remember at least one instance popping up in Water Cooler/Links), and called it a day? That seems the most plausible to me, but it also seems plausible that there are many organizations which would want to discredit NC.

    Samuel Conner December 5, 2016 at 1:07 pm

    I haven't seen "The List", but am confident that sites like Moon of Alabama and The Saker are on it. Saker is explicitly pro-Russia (this is not a criticism per se; I found his pieces on the Ukraine/Donbas crisis in 2014-15 to be more illuminating than most of the very little that one could find in the US MSM, for example) and MoA is typically skeptical of US international military adventures.

    Pieces from both of these sites have been, from time to time, linked at the NC daily news links page. Not sure, but there may be a few links over the past couple of years to items at Russia Insider as well. It may be that 2nd order associations were enough to "merit" NC's inclusion on "The List."

    Katharine December 5, 2016 at 12:17 pm

    But last week Timberg was still touting his "independent experts" in an article on a proposed new committee mandated in the 2017 intelligence authorization bill. He quoted Wyden:

    If you read section 501 of this year's intelligence authorization bill, it directs the President to set up an interagency committee to 'counter active measures by Russia to exert covert influence over peoples and governments.' So that shows you that senators from both parties are clearly concerned about Russian covert influence efforts.

    Linking his earlier story with this information may be self-important stupidity on Timberg's part, but stupidity does not actually preclude malice.

    In any case, if senators are treating Russian influence as fact when we have yet to be shown any proof of its existence that is a sign this article, be it folly or malice, needs further discrediting, so thanks and more power to you!

    davidly December 5, 2016 at 12:21 pm

    That's an awful aphorism. Never discount one just because the other is a potential explanation, especially if the pattern indicates they'll abdicate their core responsibilities for access and relish going after those they resent for calling them out on it.

    Having said that, one can see how you personally wouldn't want to risk libel, but I will make no such assumptions about the likes of the beltway press.

    DarkMatters December 5, 2016 at 1:54 pm

    "Never assume malice when incompetence will explain the behavior." unless a lengthy history of errors having the same bias suggests otherwise.

    Best wishes, and success.

    Keith Warren December 5, 2016 at 2:20 pm

    indeed, incompetence and a deep hunger for confirmation bias fodder. Deadly combination.

    Lyle James December 5, 2016 at 2:25 pm

    I've been a lifelong journalist, 10 years on a daily newspaper, 20 years freelancing for magazines. The Wapo story so blatantly violated fundamental journalistic standards I cannot believe any experienced editor would not have realized that. My only possible conclusion is that irresistible pressure was placed on editors to publish the story.

    David Addams December 5, 2016 at 1:55 pm

    "Dan Rather was put in an impossible position by supporters of GW Bush, despite the accuracy of the accusation."

    Excuse me.

    Rather (and CBS) had to admit that the documents used to make those accusations were fake. How do you have "accurate accusations" when those accusations are based on faked documents?

    Rather was not put in a bad positions by supporters of GW Bush.

    He was put in a bad position by Dan Rather.

    BTW, the Rather incident is a perfect illustration on how fake news gets reported. The underlying accusation so matched Rather's world view that he decided to run with them without doing any sort of fact checking. Or checking the reliability of the one source for the story.

    Doing so would have prevented Rather from reporting that story and having to resign in disgrace.

    This is why fact checking and verifying stories via multiple sources is so important when reporting news.

    It prevents reporting fake news.

    The reason we have so much "fake news" is that too many reporters have abandoned basic journalistic practices.

    On both sides of the aisle.

    Lambert Strether December 5, 2016 at 2:48 pm

    > How do you have "accurate accusations" when those accusations are based on faked documents?

    You fake a document that contains the truth. When you discredit the document, you discredit the truth. Maneuvers like that show why Karl Rove really was (in his own special way) a genius.

    I followed the Bush Texas Air National Guard story in detail at the time, and the Rather story in particular, and posted on it a good deal. So far as I know, nobody ever claimed the $10,000 reward that Gary Trudeau offered for anybody who would come forward as an eye witness to Bush performing his TANG duties.

    PWC, Raleigh December 5, 2016 at 5:08 pm

    Exactly. +1,000

    And bingo, bango: the very strange truth becomes fiction.

    Carolinian December 5, 2016 at 7:45 am

    Your comment is heavy on speculation including the notion that Bezos is directly controlling what goes into the Post. I'd say the tight little club that is mainstream journalism doesn't require government subversion in order to represent a MIC point of view. As Gore Vidal said re the deep state: they don't need to conspire since they all think alike anyway.

    More likely the Post article is an example of journo dinosaurs striking out at websites they now regard as their rivals. Print journalism has been brought low, financially, by the internet and television.

    The people who work at the Post don't dare attack television because they all want to be on it. However the web is likely regarded as an easy target and I've long been under the impression that mainstream journalists know practically nothing about the internet other than Twitter and a few favored sites like Politico.

    While it's potentially the greatest communication medium ever devised, of course people visiting the internet have to bring their own truth filter. Which is why some of us have landed here. NC seems serious about getting to the truth, and if you don't like what's written you get to say so. What the MSM really resents is people thinking for themselves.

    Sally December 5, 2016 at 8:43 am

    With all due respect it isn't speculation that Bezos has been hired by the secretary of defence to the Defence innovation advisory board. I think you have to be very naive if you think he has little input into the editorial running of the paper. Why else buy a newspaper these days? They hardly make much money.

    I suspect that this outfit PropOrNot was set up before the election of Trump. They assumed Clinton was going to win and this was the The begining of an onslaught against the so called alternative media that was going to be waged once Hilary was safely inside the White House. Full regulation of the Internet is their aim. This agenda has been pushed in other so called liberal newspapers. The British Guardian for example has been running articles and pushing a campaign of "The Internet we want." Which seems to consist of all critiscms of what it believes being censored.

    As to Yves point about the amateur nature of this list, and the attack on sites like NC in the article, Yves shouldn't assume that all these people are geniuses. It won't be the first or the last time that powerful people who run businesses make complete fools of themselves.

    I doubt they thought they were going to be called out on it, and if Clinton won the election it didn't really matter because they would have the power to come after the alternative media. Trumps election has put a spanner in the works .for now. It remains to be seen if he will try to censor the Internet under pressure from elites.

    Yves Smith Post author December 5, 2016 at 9:33 am

    No it wasn't. They bought the URL only in late August. The first tweet was November 5. The site appears to have been published at the earliest as of November 9, but from what I can tell, it was November 18.

    And Bezos is too busy to have much/any input into editorial decisions. Newscycles are far too rapid. Bezos might make clear what the general priorities and tone are, but he's not going to be involved in individual stories save on a very exceptional basis, and news of that would get out to reporters and make the journalism rumor mill in a bad way. Marty Peretz, who unlike Bezos was the publisher and editor in chief of the magazine he bought (the vastly smaller The New Republic) had pet priorities (Israel) and preferences (falling in love with smart young male senior editors and then becoming disenchanted with them in a couple of years and driving them out) that were widely known.

    andyb December 5, 2016 at 10:09 am

    Agree that Bezos is an unlikely instigator of this farce. More likely, from what we know about the CIA/Mockingbird history, the person responsible is most likely a CIA plant at the senior editor level.

    Yves Smith Post author December 5, 2016 at 10:15 am

    I have to beg to differ re CIA plant. These guys are so ludicrous that folks like Bellingcat are denouncing them. I won't link even here to the original site since that helps them in Google, but just go look at the FAQ on the baddie's site or their Twitter feed. No one who was a pro in any field would see them as serious. I have no idea what the reporter was smoking. But the article reads as if they never did the most basic verification, like a web search. They didn't recognize that the "report" which was The List, was already up and they either double down on or try to cover for their mistake by "updating" the article saying the "report" went up Saturday November 26, when it had been up since at least November 18.

    Keith Warren December 5, 2016 at 2:25 pm

    Carl Bernstein has done some pretty deep reporting on decades of links bw CIA and media: http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php

    Even he says there are not really any links bw CIA and WaPo as propaganda channel. As much as it'd be fun to fantasize about Bezos being an evil operator for the MIC, I am inclined toward Yves' narrative of incompetence, and an (unhealthy) dose of confirmation bias-seeking.

    PlutoniumKun December 5, 2016 at 12:39 pm

    Much as I would believe anything about Bezos/WP, the article is so amateurish its very hard to believe it is part of an active top-down conspiracy. I'd be more inclined to think that it 'became known' among WP staff that certain Very Important People believe in the Russian propaganda conspiracy and that any articles highlighting this are more likely to be published than others.

    Off the top of my head, some of the worst examples of journalistic libel recently have primarily been driven not by malice or conspiracies, but because of active confirmation bias. The journalist and editor strongly believes X to be true, therefore when a source comes up to provide a potentially juicy story confirming the reality and evil of X, then they leap on the source without any professional scepticism. The Rolling Stone college rape hoax comes to mind, as does a notorious case in Ireland which nearly destroyed investigative journalism in the main TV company.

    Having said that, I think it is strongly likely that certain elements in the establishment (probably the Clinton part of it) was actively pushing the Putin is Goebbels line for several months – but I doubt there is any structured conspiracy – these things tend to just become part of received wisdom, and there are plenty of bottom feeding journalists ready to join the parade.

    Ralph Johansen December 5, 2016 at 1:24 pm

    Well, there's negligence, and then there's wanton, feckless, scurrilous, criminal negligence. Recompense accordingly.

    They certainly know or ought to know that, with the entire left field virtually empty, the Bill of Rights in the round hole, and because they've foreclosed global working class solidarity with walls, laws and red tape, (if that's too much of a stretch you don't belong), all they have to do is squirm at us and we crash.

    Ralph Johansen December 5, 2016 at 1:24 pm

    Well, there's negligence, and then there's wanton, feckless, scurrilous, criminal negligence. Recompense accordingly.

    They certainly know or ought to know that, with the entire left field virtually empty, the Bill of Rights in the round hole, and because they've foreclosed global working class solidarity with walls, laws and red tape, (if that's too much of a stretch you don't belong), all they have to do is squirm at us and we crash.

    Winston December 5, 2016 at 10:54 am

    "What the MSM really resents is people thinking for themselves."

    Here are other examples of undoubtedly top-down suppression of anything other than the "kingmaker" and corrupt status quo maintainer narratives owned by the six mega-corporations that control 90% of what we see and hear.

    The stealthy, Eric Schmidt-backed startup that's working to put Hillary Clinton in the White House – October 09, 2015

    http://qz.com/520652/groundwork-eric-schmidt-startup-working-for-hillary-clinton-campaign/

    An under-the-radar startup funded by billionaire Eric Schmidt has become a major technology vendor for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, underscoring the bonds between Silicon Valley and Democratic politics.

    The Groundwork, according to Democratic campaign operatives and technologists, is part of efforts by Schmidt -- the executive chairman of Google parent-company Alphabet -- to ensure that Clinton has the engineering talent needed to win the election. And it is one of a series of quiet investments by Schmidt that recognize how modern political campaigns are run, with data analytics and digital outreach as vital ingredients that allow candidates to find, court, and turn out critical voter blocs.

    Research Proves Google Manipulates Autocomplete Suggestions to Favor Clinton – 12 Sep 2016

    In this exclusive report, distinguished research psychologist Robert Epstein explains the new study and reviews evidence that Google's search suggestions are biased in favor of Hillary Clinton. He estimates that biased search suggestions might be able to shift as many as 3 million votes in the upcoming presidential election in the US.

    https://sputniknews.com/us/20160912/1045214398/google-clinton-manipulation-election.html

    Ironically, Sputnick News IS, I believe, a Russian supported site, but just on a hunch and noticing search autocompletion suggestion disparities myself, I had INDEPENDENTLY confirmed what Epstein proved a month before the topic hit the on-line news.

    I even emailed a few web sites about it, but they didn't run with it AS THEY SHOULD HAVE as they would have scooped Sputnick News. It was easy to prove, BTW. Google Trends data which is what is normally used to create autocomplete suggestions on Google did not match the suggestions made, but the search autocomplete suggestions on every other search engine DID.

    YouTube and Facebook censorship against political conservative video bloggers (Google owns YouTube)

    https://youtu.be/B6PtMcMsqVg?t=50m32s

    Wikileaks Reveals Google's "Strategic Plan" To Help Democrats Win The Election, Track Voters

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-01/wikileaks-reveals-googles-strategic-plan-help-democrats-win-election

    Zerohedge was listed as a "fake news" site but, as I'm sure many here know, they do great, hard hitting economic analysis and have had their projections and theories confirmed many times with a far better track record than the mainstream sites covering the same subject.

    James Miller December 5, 2016 at 5:21 am

    My heartfelt support (and contribution) will be with you as you take on one of the most egregiously insulting to its' readers and rot-riddled collection of hacks and mouthpieces. Now a propaganda outlet but once at least a flaky effort at journalism, today,s Washington Post has earned an encounter of the costly kind with a good lawyer or two, many times over.

    .Illegitemi non carborundum! (Don't let the bastards wear you down!).

    Jim Haygood December 5, 2016 at 8:45 am

    We should start calling it the Whoppo for its absurd fake news. Truth be told, I only ever go there for the "graphic news":

    http://comics.washingtonpost.com/featurepages/11_comics_andy-capp.html

    polecat December 5, 2016 at 12:57 pm

    I prefer the Traitor's Post

    Kokuanani December 5, 2016 at 6:54 am

    As I noted here this weekend, I have cancelled my subscription to the WaPo and will be sending a check to NC in the amount of what I would have paid for it.

    I am embarrassed that it took me so long to do so, but having been a subscriber since 1979 [except for when I lived elsewhere], the Post was rather a habit.

    I specifically mentioned the Timberg story as the reason for my cancellation, and hope this information will work its way up the Post food chain.

    Also, Amazon is as dead to me as Walmart. I refuse to buy from either of them.

    Arizona Slim December 5, 2016 at 8:50 am

    Keep the money in your economy. Shop at local businesses.

    Tom Stone December 5, 2016 at 7:29 am

    The "Fake News" story was vetted by editors at the WaPo before it was published. That they published an article that no reputable High School paper would have touched with a 10 foot pole speaks volumes. Hubris?.

    Did they think that because it was published by the WaPo that no one would question it?

    It was certainly a bold thing to do ( And stupid) unless the person or persons who decided to publish this trash thought they had the kind of powerful backing that would protect them from the consequences.

    I expect the WaPo to try to weasel their way out of this embarassment and urge you not to back down or compromise on your demands, if they don't get their noses rubbed in it they will crap on you again.

    When the National Enquirer has become more respectable than the WaPo ( And it is!) we are living in strange times indeed.

    Reify99 December 5, 2016 at 8:40 am

    Yep. The Wapo story is right up there with the grocery aisle headline,
    "Metal Eating Cockroaches Destroy Car"!

    Reify99 December 5, 2016 at 8:58 am

    If this effort begins to build a stronger alliance between truth telling internet sites -- thus promoting change from the ground up -- perhaps it will lead to quicker consequences for Wapo and others who pull this kind of stunt. If it becomes obvious that, not only will your bogus story increase the traffic to these sites at the very time they are pointing out what an idiot you are, but you also reliably get sued, maybe it won't be as much fun anymore.

    Inode_buddha December 5, 2016 at 10:05 am

    I only read the National Enquirer for the articles. {/rimshot}

    OldLion December 5, 2016 at 7:29 am

    I'm not sure the guys behind all this mind losing the discussion in the end. As often, even if the smeared news sites, including NC, win the debate, they'll still lose the communication war.

    The original revelation is buzzing around, and everybody loves it. If there is a rebuttal, it will be a boring article nobody will comment. What people will remember is : "the russians helped Trump win, and some fake news site like NC were their mouthpieces. I distinctly remember the articles, even if the MSM now tries to hide the truth"

    Not sure how to fight that, except with an even better message like : "There is a conspiracy by the WP to smear independent reporting."

    Sadly, I'm not sure it is possible to do that in all honestly. My opinion is that stupidity and ignorance are at work here (and everywhere), not some well organised effort. And the thoughtful voice is just boring.

    hemeantwell December 5, 2016 at 9:56 am

    I'm not so sure. This scandal might be something of a test of your argument, which predicts that, similar to the horrible fate of Gary Webb, the named sites will forever have a residue of doubt to deal with. Webb's story went the way it did because it was semiforgotten, drifting off into the collective preconscious, vaguely malodorous. Surely that can be avoided here. Opportunities for reminding readers of the farce and the revealed intentions of its promoters are abundant. One thing to consider might be to put the WaPo under steady critical scrutiny. For example, as above, the WaPo Whopper of the week.

    The background to all this, the attempt by the Clintonites to draw on Cold War stink reserves (a National Ideological Reserve, sorta like the National Petroleum Reserve) and, if not its complete failure, than its failure to be decisively effective, makes me think we are witnessing signs of a decisive weakening in elite communication control. PropOrNot advances the process.

    Katharine December 5, 2016 at 11:39 am

    Keep needling outlets that picked up the Post story and demanding a prominent apology for irresponsible reporting. Send them the FAIR link, send them this one. Ask why they haven't reaffirmed their commitment (sic) to basic journalistic principles . Be a damn nuisance. (I've often thought what a pity it is that "public nuisance" has a prior signification.)

    AnonymousCounsel December 5, 2016 at 9:07 am

    I'm relieved to know that James Moody will be representing Naked Capitalism in its authentic quest to right an egregious (and either reckless or intentional, in my opinion) wrong committed by a major newspaper of record that purports to represent the Fourth Estate.

    Mr. Moody is technically competent, deeply experienced and highly ethical.

    It's critical that the establishment-driven & coordinated assault on many credible alternative media outlets be halted if free speech and free criticism (which mainstream media sources have not only failed in protecting, but have willingly attempted to suppress views contrary to establishment-approved concepts) is to survive in the United States and elsewhere.

    There is a coordinated attempt by long-standing establishment media sources and government to discredit and de-legitimize very authentic, well-intentioned and thought-provoking non-mainstream media sources, which, if successful, would amount to nothing less than basic censorship and a wholesale de-democratization of news reporting and editorializing.

    That the Washington Post allowed for and even assisted a highly questionable and anonymous source to cast a wide net of aspersions over so many clearly legitimate alternative media sources (such as Naked Capitalism) is nothing short of shameful McCarthy-era attempts to stifle free political expression of substance, and must be challengers if there's any hope in preserving the very system of a free exchange of ideas and speech.

    Romancing The Loan December 5, 2016 at 1:14 pm

    They've come a long way from Watergate. Would really like to see discovery on how Propornot came to the WaPo's attention.

    craazyboy December 5, 2016 at 9:21 am

    I can't believe the unfairness of this allegation made by this propaganda watchdog website. I mean, if I were a Hillary supporter, I would be in tears over this. But as a Bernie supporter, I have learned to get over my butthurt.

    "You identified and thus denigrated Naked Capitalism, one of the sites targeted in the "study" as one of the "right-wing sites across the Internet as they portrayed Clinton as a criminal hiding potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand control of the nation to a shadowy cabal of global financiers. The effort also sought to heighten the appearance of international tensions and promote fear of looming hostilities with nuclear-armed Russia."

    "shadowy cabal of global financiers" ???? We always use the stock symbols GS and JPM here. WTF is shadowy about that?????????????? You can look the symbols up in Bloomberg!

    Well, I guess maybe some fake news got posted here in the comments section, but I distinctly recall discussing real news, like when Hillary compared Putin to Hitler, or the Cookie Monster thing in Kiev. Or NATO scattering nukes around Eastern Europe. Or Soros and the CIA funding a long term propaganda war in Eastern Europe. Even Fox News would call that fair and balanced fake news. But at any rate, Russia shouldn't view any of this as hostile. That would just be childish.

    Jim Haygood December 5, 2016 at 9:23 am

    Confirming the impression that the Z site monitors NC closely for useful content, Tyler Durden now has a post up titled "Fake News" Site Threatens Washington Post With Defamation Suit, Demands Retraction .

    The post includes the Scribd document of Moody's letter.

    Since the Z site reportedly generates a six-figure annual profit, you'd think this deep-pocketed site would join the suit (should litigation regrettably become necessary). Whaddya say, Tyler(s)?

    frosty zoom December 5, 2016 at 9:45 am

    "moodyjim"*

    yeah!

    *@aol.com?!? ms. yves, may i suggest carrier pigeons?

    Yves Smith Post author December 5, 2016 at 10:25 am

    He's actually quite technically expert (as in he can take apart and analyze software) which is why I don't get the aol.com either. Although he may have been an early aol.com user, and I am told it is a nuisance to extract your contacts from aol.com, and he may have decided it was not worth the fuss.

    Jim Haygood December 5, 2016 at 10:30 am

    Now the post is "gray boxed" (pinned) on the Z site, making it one of two lead articles that apparently are expected to generate a high level of interest and comments.

    Which will send traffic this way. Welcome ZHers.

    MDBill December 5, 2016 at 2:15 pm

    It's not monetary support, however, the story now ends thus,

    We fully endorse Yves Smith's efforts.

    Additionally, we note that the only reason we haven't followed up with a similar action is because i) the allegations were beyond laughable – we have rejected all of them on the record, and ii) there are simply too much other events taking place in what should otherwise be a quiet end to the year taking place to focus on what may be a lenghty, if gratifying, legal process.

    Sluggeaux December 5, 2016 at 9:28 am

    Pass the popcorn! Mr. Moody is a terrific lawyer. I just hope that if Aurora Advisors winds up owning ScAmazon, the workers and suppliers start getting treated decently!

    craazyboy December 5, 2016 at 9:37 am

    It would really be cool if Mr. Moody was doing this "pro bono" – as in give 'em a royal hosing just for the fun of it.

    Jim December 5, 2016 at 10:00 am

    Good for you Yves. Just the dying gasps of an outdated system (MSM news). Anyone with half a brain knows alt news is the place to go these days.

    tiger December 5, 2016 at 10:33 am

    You're too nice to WaPo Yves, maybe this was incompetence but Bezos and WaPo are terrible and they did too many hit pieces on Trump which included false information, so this is not a coincidence. They are the fake news, and that's terrifying. Good luck and may you destroy them.

    RUKidding December 5, 2016 at 11:10 am

    Good luck. I agree with your demands and hope that they are satisfied.

    I gave up a long time ago on either the tv or mainstream print media as a source of credible or factual news. There are some print publications out there that do a rather decent job at reporting the news more accurately, but the ones I know of are mostly smaller local newspapers with very limited budgets.

    All the Bigs are propaganda pure and simple. I gave up reading the NYT and the WaPoo a long long time ago. It would embarress a parrot to have either on the bottom of their cage to catch their sh*t.

    dcblogger December 5, 2016 at 12:12 pm

    RJ Eskow video The Rise of MSNBC McCarthyism

    John Medcalf December 5, 2016 at 12:19 pm

    Where's Bezos? I'm still speculating this is Bezos' answer to Trump's birthing. Annoy the press like hell. Let them whine and sue. Then save the country.

    susan the other December 5, 2016 at 12:26 pm

    Addressing the Whappo's "incompetence" is genius bec. it cannot shake the label. It will stick with them now, whereas if you had gone for the throat with an accusation of malice the Whappo could have escaped all that disgust and resentment because to prove malice you have to prove intent. Like fraud. It's hard to do.

    Be Prepared December 5, 2016 at 12:51 pm

    It has been a difficult to watch these past 8 years under the continued conversion of whatever was left of MSM being turned to merely a propaganda arm for the Executive branch. It is absolutely hilarious that they had the audacity to write the article in the first place since MSM is the only "real" fake news outlet. I do believe it will be a difficult road to achieve a full retraction or even an acknowledgement because they will hide behind the concepts of editorial content. Nothing they write is vetted or researched because they merely conjure articles to fit their preconceptions. If nothing else, pushing back is still the right thing to do . just remember to not let it consume you to the detriment of your continued good work on this site.

    Isolato December 5, 2016 at 12:52 pm

    Just threw some money in the tip jar. Rip their lungs out.

    Kurt Sperry December 5, 2016 at 1:06 pm

    Does the threat of civil litigation even matter to an organization with Bezos' endless resources to draw on? They would probably love the idea of a war of monetary attrition–they can't lose that game. It seems to me the weak link might be the creators of the website itself. Unlike a hardened target like the WaPo, they are unlikely to have such bottomless resources. The first step may be to use investigation or litigation to strip away the anonymity of the publishers of the site, probably by going after the hosting company, then to attack them directly. And if it turns out that filing website whois papers via a proxy privacy service is 100% surefire, ironclad protection from any legal accountability, then there really is no longer anything like accountability for web publishing. If that is the case then there is nothing stopping you from retaliating in kind, creating an anonymous website accusing Bezos of being a child pornographer or whatever and imploring that he and his lawyers negotiate with you to have the accusations retracted at your pleasure. Either filing whois papers for a domain using a privacy proxy is an unbreakable defense against litigation, or it isn't.

    Jess December 5, 2016 at 1:31 pm

    Immediately linked to this post on my FB page. Hope it helps.

    Jess December 5, 2016 at 4:58 pm

    A friend then shared my link on the FB section for former FDL commenters.

    Doly Garcia December 5, 2016 at 1:49 pm

    My experience with journalists (as an organiser of non-profit activities) has convinced me that nowadays they do little to no fact-checking. In one particular case I know of, mainstream UK media including the Independent and the BBC publicized a man that, if they had simply bothered doing a Google search on his name, they'd immediately realize he had zero credibility on the field he was claiming expertise on.

    This should hardly be a surprise to anyone who has followed the story of climate change, with dozens of so-called "climate change" experts being allowed to write opinion pieces on mainstream media, in spite of having no credentials, and sometimes having long credentials of having lobbied for every dubious cause known to mankind, from the health safety of tobacco to the lack of issues with pesticides.

    The real issue is that it's getting damned near impossible for anyone to find out the truth about any controversial issue without spending a long time researching the subject. And most people don't have the time for this, and don't even know that they should regard the news on any controversial issue, from any source, with great suspicion.

    Brad December 5, 2016 at 1:58 pm

    If one is serious about pursuit of a retraction and apology from Wapo, support for NC's cautious approach is in order. It will not help the case being advanced to overstate with inferences about WaPo's motives. Sticking to the already known objective facts will be enough to produce the desired result, public discredit of WaPo by its own hand.

    That's said with full sympathy for the feelings on WaPo, a publication that now ranks with W. R. Hearst's in sheer depths of vileness. And that in general is rightfully laid at the door of its libertardian owner Jeff Bezos, a man whose enterprises mark all that is most evil about US capitalism today. But none of this belongs in the retraction / apology effort. As I see it, the effort is designed to produce a specific effect from specific cause. That effort is best supported by not second-guessing it at this point and over-loading it with meanings that can't be demonstrated within the context of the effort. Let's give it a chance to run and review / critique the result afterward.

    Finally and for the record, this is said as someone with no sympathy for the Putin regime, one that no leftist should have any truck with, "conscious or unconscious", especially from an "anti-imperialist" POV. The Putin regime is right wing, capitalist, neo-nationalist, revanchist, and neo-imperialist (and not at all "wannabe"). It supports with armed force a regime in Damascus that has destroyed "its own country" to save itself. It IS a regime ideologically congruent with Donald Trump's tendencies. IOW Putin's Russia is a lot like the United States in political coloration right now.

    Nevertheless, residents of the USA must first and foremost act against repression conducted by their own government and its political agents such as WaPo. We can agree to disagree on Putin while showing solidarity against domestic repression, especially of this poisonous neo-McCarthyite type. That is only common sense. Our main opponent is always at home.

    stockbrokher December 5, 2016 at 2:21 pm

    This, 100%.

    Claudia December 5, 2016 at 2:16 pm

    After more than a few decades of educational decline and loss of expertise, we have arrived at the Age of Incompetence. That the WaPo would hire such nitwits is all the proof one needs.

    Fiery Hunt December 5, 2016 at 5:08 pm

    Crapification is the Way!

    Thanks, WaPoo!

    DarkMatters December 5, 2016 at 2:27 pm

    The most reasonable hypothesis I can see is that the PropOrNot effort is a response by the MSM to reassert information control, having lost it so spectacularly during the election. The alternative media's counterstory has proven to be more faithful to reality than the picture presented by elite journalists. Elite journalists themselves have been compromised by the Wikileaks revelations. The MSM's reputation is in tatters and SOMETHING MUST BE DONE, at least until enough time has gone by for the public to forget how truly dismally deceptive was their coverage.

    A consistently suspicious pattern of MSM behavior is their incuriousness, and in the present situation, one of the many of the herd of interrogatory elephants in the room is, why isn't the MSM investigating the people who make up PropOrNot? (Or asking any of the questions NS has posed). Would that not be newsworthy?

    Keith Warren December 5, 2016 at 2:43 pm

    I agree with this assessment wholeheartedly. I am afraid that the strategy of the dem establishment and their elite media allies over the next 4 years will be to regain narrative control via censorship, rather than make any attempts at governing like small-d democrats.

    Kim Kaufman December 5, 2016 at 2:37 pm

    The red baiting is popping out from all sides. Last week Amy Goodman interviewed Bernie – the first (she basically ignored him through the primary). She started off with "you were considered a fringe candidate " and he politely reminded her he has been in congress for 25 years. Then she said that he had been red-baited during the primary by Clinton over Castro and the Sandinistas and "could he speak some about Castro and Latin America?" And at every opportunity she reminded the audience he was an independent, not a Democrat, "a socialist."

    I have been told that Sarah Palin blew her chance to be Sec. of Interior, or VA, or whatever it was because she criticized Trump for "crony capitalism" over the Carrier deal.

    I'm totally confused about who our friends are these days.

    Greg Taylor December 5, 2016 at 2:37 pm

    How has "Beall's List" of so-called "predatory" open-access academic research publishers escaped a similar lawsuit? Some of these publishers were shut down as a direct result of being named so the list has undeniably done damage since being published in 2013. There seem to be strong parallels between "Fake News" and "Fake Science" censorship efforts.

    Kim Kaufman December 5, 2016 at 2:39 pm

    I might have called the spoof site: "PoopOrNot." :)

    Daniel December 5, 2016 at 3:12 pm

    I am surprised your attorney has not gone after PropOrNot. I most surely would have

    craazyman December 5, 2016 at 3:14 pm

    It's not unreasonable the Washington Post would confuse Naked Capitalism with a Porn site. But not a Russian porn site, that's just not credible since Naked Capitalism is English.

    They should just admit it they made up fake news. They probably never read anything on the site - or even looked at the pictures of naked animals. Naked pussys. Lots of those. With garish flash photography. It's enough to embarrass anybody with refined aesthetic sensibilities.

    But it isn't Porn and it's not Russian. I've never seen a Russian pussy here. Usually they're American or maybe from England. Sometimes they're even guys. That's kind of confusing, but a cat is a cat to most people. I'm not a veterinarian anyway.

    Fake news is the scourge of the internet. Fake news has been around a long time, as long as there were newspapers in fact. It started in the 1700s and it kept going. Before that it was fake but it was only passed by word of mouth.

    Now there's fake pictures. Fake news with fake pictures can sometimes be art - but only if you see it in the movies, where some drug addled lunatic pretends they're somebody else, then they go into rehab after the movie is made and sometimes before. News should be real, in theory, but in reality it isn't. Somebody makes it up but you don't always know who. That's why jourmalism is so important, because you want the person making it up to be accurate! You don't want them making up Porn and publishing that. Why pay for that? People make that up themselves evidently and don't even need a newspaper.

    So if they fell for the fake Porn angle here - thinking that Naked meant Porn, and from Russia of all places! - that must mean they're either making it up or they don't know what real news is from anywhere. Since it could be from other places besides Russia. If they went to a museum they'd see naked things but not Porn. There's a museum of things but it's not news or porn, it's just whatever. I'm just being honest. It doesn't have to be confusing, even for somebody who writes and takes pictures.

    templar555510 December 5, 2016 at 3:47 pm

    The tendency towards consensus has been apparent in the mainstream media for forty plus years , long before the internet came along and upset things. What has caused mass hysteria in those circles is the sound of these other uncontrolled and uncontrollable voices . Years ago the only comment section of a national newspaper was ' Letters to the Editor ' which the editor had the veto over, never mind editorial responsibility for, and he / she took their job seriously ( in my first hand experience ) . Those days are long gone . Imagine you are a young, or even a seasoned journalist on one of these papers and you think you have the ear of the editor , the temptation to bring forth a story ( ' scoop ' in old – fashioned newspaper speak ) that gives umpteen internet sites a good kicking must be hard to resist. Trouble is the story was trashed before it hit the ground . And so another nail goes in the coffin of the mainstream press .

    SpongeBobSaget December 5, 2016 at 3:50 pm

    The Daily Caller story about this has a survey asking readers if Naked Capitalism is a fake news site or not.

    On my browser it's not possible to check "No: I Never Found A Fake News Story On That Site" Only Yes it's fake can be selected.

    Vichy Chicago December 5, 2016 at 5:09 pm

    Here's a great example of the BBC conducting an unvetted interview.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw4utg42yCI

    /sarc

    [Nov 27, 2016] Washington Post Promotes Shadowy Website That Accuses 200 Publications of Being Russian Propaganda Plants

    This idea of McCarthy style attack turned in promotion with some sites having large flow of donations from outrages readers.
    Notable quotes:
    "... By Max Blumenthal, a senior editor of the Grayzone Project at AlterNet, and the award-winning author of Goliath and Republican Gomorrah. His most recent book is The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza. Follow him on Twitter at @MaxBlumenthal. Originally published at Alternet ..."
    "... it was created about three months ago when the Red baiting was already in full swing in the media. ..."
    "... it now has a wikipedia page as of 15 Nov. ..."
    "... Congratulations! That site is like a who's who of influential critical reporting. I suspect, as with so many of the bubble-dwellers attempts, that this slapdash but probably overpriced effort will drive traffic to those sites while reducing the credibility of its promoters. An instant classic own-goal. I look forward to the inevitable and embarassing revelations about their founders and funding. ..."
    "... Under general tenets of defamation law (statutory and in common law), it is not just the original entity or person defaming (including defamation "per se") another that is liable for such torts, but others who carelessly or recklessly repeat the original defamatory statements/claims (in this case, both The Washington Post & New York Times bear similar potential liability as PropOrNot). ..."
    "... Requires actual malice since it's the media you're suing – but that can be proven by reckless indifference to the truth which this might actually meet the standard of, especially since the site isn't making this claim based on anything other than the content of the views espoused by the sites. ..."
    "... i vaguely thought the actual malice requirement was tied to the target being a public figure; maybe running a blog qualifies. ..."
    "... Propornot is directly accusing NC and the rest of a crime (espionage), which constitutes defamation per se, so I think the only issue before the court would be whether it was done with reckless indifference. ..."
    "... The MSM did such a fine job reporting the news during the campaign. (16 anti-Sanders stories in 16 hours from the WaPo. A new record.) Are small news/opinion sites cutting into their online advertising revenue. ;) ..."
    "... Second, had you bothered to read the actual PropOrNot site, it accuses all of the sites listed as being "propaganda outlets" under the influence of "coordinators abroad" (#11 in its FAQ). ..."
    "... And under #7, PropOrNot asserts that "some" of the sites are guilty of violating the Espionage Act and the Foreign Agent Registration Act, as in accusing them of being spies and calling for investigation (by implication of all, since how do you know which is or isn't) by the FBI and DoJ. ..."
    "... Their MSM propaganda isn't working and they see it. They already heavily censor comments on their MSM sites. Other MSM sights such as Bloomberg closed down comments altogether. Expect more of that. ..."
    "... what weakens people's confidence in their leaders is their not addressing people's issues and lying about their inability to do so. Despite protestations from the likes of much of our 'intelligentsia', mainstream media, and most of our political class, the majority of people are not stupid. There is a reason why terms like 'lame stream media' resonate with a large number of people. ..."
    "... For instance when Obama is out there talking about a recovery and people know that there is no such thing in their lives, their communities then HE has lost their confidence – not someone giving an interview on RT. ..."
    "... Or to put it another way the problem isn't someone going on RT and saying the emperor isn't wearing clothes, the problem is that the emperor isn't wearing clothes. ..."
    "... Steve Keen is great, and I love his work, but it's also obvious that RT invites him on the network because he lambasts the American political establishment and weakens the public's confidence in its leaders. This is clearly a goal of Moscow, and they use people like Steve Keen to do it. I'm sure Steven Keen doesn't think of his role that way, but RT and Russian intelligence certainly do. ..."
    "... How do you know any of this? how would you know would Russian intelligence's goals are, or how they think of Steve Keen? this is all just McCarthyism 2016, accusing the left of being dupes or willing agents of Russia. McCarthy had his 200 communists in the state department, this website and the Washington Post have their 200 Russian propaganda websites. Why are you catapulting this bullshit? ..."
    "... James do you happen to remember when those intelligence agencies reported Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction.? How about when North Korea hacked Sony? Both of which were inaccurate and dare I say it propaganda intended to mislead the American public. ..."
    "... Why does Naval Intelligence have anything to do with this investigation? ..."
    "... Why were 17 agencies watching the DNC? ..."
    "... The immediate claims that Russia hacked the DNC were never credible to any one with even a bit of knowledge about high level hacking. The 17 agency thing was outright laughable once you asked the simple question of what most of them had to do with this investigation. And USA Today was and is the print equivalent of the Yahoo front page. ..."
    "... oh so now you're an intelligence expert, but somehow you still don't have any evidence, because the "17 intelligence agencies" don't have any evidence either. they didn't have evidence of wmd's but i bet you fell for that, too. i think the most dishonest line in your post is this: You should wander out of the alt-left echo chamber once in a while and stop thinking that any criticism of Russia is 'red-baiting' and propaganda ..."
    "... If Russia is actively trying to influence American politics, then they have been far more effective than the US and get a much bigger bang for their buck. For one thing, they didn't have to drop a single bomb to effect a regime change. So assuming you are correct, the noise is just a hysterical regime change envy. ..."
    "... So are RT and Sputnik propaganda outlets? Sometimes they are, but sometimes they report the truth that our MSM, having given up the last shreds of their journalistic integtity in return for access, won't report. ..."
    "... Given the widespread funding of media (including government-owned media) by Western governments, I would say that US and Euro hysteria about Russian propaganda, real and imagined, is yet another off-putting display of noxious American exceptionalism. ..."
    "... I grew up listening to broadcasts of RFE and VOA behind the Iron Curtain, and mixed in with honest reporting was a heavy dose of propaganda aimed at weakening Eastern European governments. Now, it is the America For Bulgaria Foundation that funds several media outlets in the country. What they all have in common is rabid Russophobia-driven editorial stances, and one can easily conclude that it is driven by the almighty dollar rather than by honest, deeply held convictions. So, America can do it but whines like a toddler when it is allegedly done to it?! What a crock. ..."
    "... The worst thing is that regardless of whatever propaganda wars are going on, this list constitutes a full frontal attack on free speech in the alleged "Land of the Free." Besides NC, there are number of sites distinguished by thorough, quality reporting of the kind that WaPo and NYT no longer engage in. Having grown up behind the Iron Curtain, this is chilling to me. Dissident voices speaking against the endless wars for profit and neoliberalism are in effect being intimidated and smeared by anonymous thugs. This, while the militarized local police and federal agencies, closely coordinated by "fusion centers", have ruthlessly put down a number of citizen protests, have engaged in spying on all of us, and have gone after whistleblowers for exposing the reach and scope of the surveillance state. These are the hallmarks of dictatorships, not of the alleged "world's greatest democracy and beacon of freedom." What the eff happened to America, and why are you equating challenging the oppressive and exploitative status quo with being "unwitting Russian dupes?" Seems to me that the useful idi0t here is you, with all due respect. ..."
    "... American intelligence uses exactly the same tactics, and has since at least WW1. Selling the American public on the Iraq war is a classic example. Remember that all news is biased, some much more so than others (we report, you decide.) ..."
    "... The advent of the internet and the subsequent broadening of readily available news of all slants has made it much harder for any intelligence agency of any specific country to control the news( but it has made it extremely easy for them to monitor what we are reading). ..."
    "... . The normal tell for this is being state sponsored, or having a big sugar daddy providing the funding, and Yves doesn't have any of that. ..."
    "... Some of us happen to believe that 'lambast[ing] the American political establishment and weaken[ing] the public's confidence in its leaders' is in the best interests of everyone on the planet, including the American public. If that constitutes propaganda, I'm not about to look that gift horse in the mouth. RT isn't perfect – I personally find their relentless cheerleading for economic growth rather wearying – but it knocks spots off the competition and consistently sends me scurrying to the internet to chase up on new faces and leads. I'm grateful for that. ..."
    "... Steve Keen is great, and I love his work, but it's also obvious ..."
    "... It is obvious that Russia has been trying to influence American politics. The very existence of RT makes that obvious. What is not obvious is why modestly left-of-center Americans' political concerns should be subject to McCarthyite attacks in our most influential news outlets. We've been subject to internally generated far-right propaganda for decades now and have seen minimal, feeble 'mainstream' efforts to counter it. The far right has done tremendous damage to our nation and is poised to do much more now that its doyens control all branches of the federal government. ..."
    "... What I interpret this as is a strike by 'think tank' grifters against those who are most likely to damage their incomes, their prestige and their exceedingly comfortable berths on the Acela corridor. It's a slightly panicky, febrile effort by a bunch of heels who are looking at losing their mid-6-figure incomes . and becoming like so many of the rest of us: over-credentialed, under-paid and unable to afford life in the charming white parts of our coastal metropolises. ..."
    "... You've just libeled me. You have no evidence whatsoever to substantiate your claim. Nor do you have any evidence that Russia has been "aggressively" trying to influence US politics. This is one of many hysterical lines offered by Team Dem over the course of this election, up there with depicting all Trump voters as racist yahoos. ..."
    "... "Russia is aggressively trying to influence American politics" Apparently with the help of Hillz. Was her decision to use a private email server made with the help of Putin? ..."
    "... If you'd like, take a trip in the Wayback Machine to 1959. Then you'll find many criticisms of US society by the Civil Rights movement sharing the same sinister tone as criticisms made by Soviet new outlets. Then you'll also find a gaggle of US pols and their minions claiming on that basis that the Civil Rights movement is communist inspired, funded, and run. Then you'll also find many people who don't bother to distinguish source from story and end up enjoying the official Kool Aid. ..."
    "... It reminds me of a story from Northern Ireland in the 1960's when the leader of a civil rights march was asked by a BBC reporter 'is it true that your organisation has been infiltrated by radicals and communists?' His reply was to sigh and say 'I f**king wish it was true'. ..."
    "... @hemeantwell – This same claim of communist inspiration and connection was also thrown at the anti-war movement. I remember arguing with a friend of my parents in the summer of 1969, after my freshman year at college where I was active in the anti-war and anti-draft movements. After countering all of the arguments made by this gentleman, he was left with nothing to say but "Well, that's the Commie's line " as a final dismissal. ..."
    "... Right up to his death on 4 Apr 1968, Martin Luther King was accused by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI of "knowingly, willingly and regularly cooperating with and taking guidance from communists." Now there's a US national holiday in King's honor. ..."
    "... It's all propaganda of one sort or another. I exhort you to read Plato and understand that the Sophists for which Socrates held so much ire are much the same as anon and administration sources for so much of what drives journalism. ..."
    "... NC separates the wheat from the chaff. ..."
    "... Verdict on PropOrNot: Looks like Prop to me. Getting really sloppy, Oligarchy ..."
    "... This has all the earmarks of an effort by the Nuland Neocons that joined Camp Hillary, and now in defeat constitute a portion Hillary's professional dead enders. ..."
    "... Camp Hillary, as you call it, has decamped and is on the march. It has powerful allies in the intelligence community, the media and actors on the world stage who deem Trump to be an existential threat to America and world. The story of Russian inspired fake news is paving the way for regime change, an HRC specialty. The recount is the tip of the spear. If they can pull this coup off, sites like this will move from the useful idiot category to the enemy of the state category overnight. ..."
    "... Manfred Keeting November 26, 2016 at 4:01 am If you weren't on the Nixon's enemies list, there was something wrong with you ..."
    "... First as tragedy, then as farce. People literally killed themselves because of McCarthyism. No one is going to kill themselves over this farce. ..."
    "... Aha, I have solved the mystery. It is elementary my dear Watson! The PropOrNot site is itself a Russian propaganda ploy on the part of the KGB! What? errr, ok, the FSB then. ..."
    "... But Max himself is an interesting character. I've been scratching my head wondering how a guy one step removed (Sidney Blumenthal) from the Clintons' inner circles is ambitious about exposing the ludicrous claims made by those same people regarding Palestine and Syria. ..."
    "... I like the idea some commenter had (too lazy to find it right now) that all these strategems were long-prepared, and in place for a Clinton victory. Now the Clinton faction in the political class is deploying them anyhow. They'd better hurry, because influence peddling at the Clinton Foundation isn't as lucrative as it once was . ..."
    "... For long time readers this russian(chinese) propaganda should be obvious. And it is ok, get used to it. Great opportunity to learn "how to read between the lines", and when you understand, solidifying into a basic skill. ..."
    "... Be careful NC. MSM are in panic. They see that their propaganda is less and less effective and start targeting those who offer an alternative against their obsolete narratives. Be prepared: when they will realize that these don't work at all, their fake democracy will become an open dictatorship. ..."
    "... The US MSM is all propaganda all the time-every bit as bad as Pravda ever was. RT now is the "anti-propaganda." They were even carrying Jesse Ventura and other Americans who are blacklisted by the MSM. ..."
    "... This is a "hail mary pass." ..."
    "... A hail mary pass that was intercepted by the opposing team and run back for a touchdown. ..."
    "... What exactly is the origin of the Russia bashing that's been going on as of late? I feel like I missed some important public dis somewhere that would explain it all. Condoleeza Rice's general dated anti-Soviet attitude I could understand, but that doesn't explain the escalating bigotry pouring out of Obama and Clinton (and their various surrogates). Is it a case of a bomb in search of a war? ..."
    "... Looks to me like it came out of the HRC campaign. ..."
    "... What exactly is the origin of the Russia bashing that's been going on as of late? I think it can be traced back to this . ..."
    "... I don't think there is an easy answer to your question, but I think it goes around to the failed Ukrainian coup (well, partially failed) and the realisation within a certain element of the neocon establishment that Putin had been inadvertently strengthened by their policy failures in the Ukraine and Syria. I think there was a concerted element within the Blob to refocus on 'the Russian threat' to cover up their failures in the Middle East and the refusal of the Chinese to take the bait in the Pacific. ..."
    "... This rolled naturally into concerns about cyberwar and it was a short step from there to using Russian cyberespionage to cover up the establishments embarrassment over wikileaks and multiple other failures exposed by outsiders. As always, when a narrative suits (for different reasons) the two halves of the establishment, the mainstream media is always happy to run it unquestioningly. ..."
    "... So in short, I think its a mixture of genuine conspiracy, mixed in with political opportunism. ..."
    "... Listen to Gore Vidal (in 1994!) and find out why: https://www.c-span.org/video/?61333-1/state-united-states ..."
    "... That is very good question and it does not have a simple answer. I have been pondering this for 8 years now. The latest bout of Russia-hatred began as Putin began to re-assert their sovereignty after the disastrous Yeltsin years. This intensified after Georgia, Ukraine and Syria. In adddition the US was preprogrammed to hate Russia for historical reasons. Mostly because of the Soviet era but also when the US inherited the global empire from the Brits we also got some of their dislike of the Russian empire dating back to the 19th century. ..."
    "... It all started when Putin arrested the Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, when Putin put a stop to the shock therapy looting of Russia by the Harvard mafia and Jeffrey Sachs. Didn't he know that oligarch's are above the law? They are in the US. Didn't he know that money can buy you immunity from prosecution like it does in Europe and the US? Can't have that, hence the Ukraine, deprive him of his warm water naval base. Then there was the Crimean referendum. Out smarted again! Can't have that! ..."
    "... And so the Democratic Party ends, not with a bang, but with a McCarthyite lynch mob. ..."
    "... Didn't we used to call "fake news" rumors? And when did newspapers stop printing rumors? ..."
    "... Based on the evidence of above mentioned link, this "PropOrNot" can be part of a project of U.S. government to manipulate media to create an anti-Russia climate or more likely another method of attack on what they consider "Left" so status quo in economic policies of U.S. can be maintained. ..."
    "... it scares the pants off me ..."
    "... I'm with you Tom Stone. There is nothing funny about this. The MSM at this point is the greatest purveyor of fake news on the planet, I am talking about not just CNN and Fox, but the BBC, France24 and so on. ..."
    "... Pretty much everything they have said and every video they has shown on east Aleppo is either a lie or a fake. As someone noted the other day (I can't remember who) if the stories about east Aleppo were actually true, then the Russians and Syrians have destroyed approximately 900 hospitals – including the 'last pediatric hospital in east Aleppo' which has been completely demolished on at least three separate occasions in the last few months. The main stream outlets don't even try to be consistent. ..."
    "... It's 90 hospitals not 900, but 90 is just as ridiculous given the whole country of Syria only has 88 hospitals/clinics. ..."
    "... Weapons of Mass Distraction. Another nail in the coffin of credibility of the NYT and WaPo. Recall after the Stupid War and how there were zero weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq that the NYT and Wapo declined to mention or explore their own culpability in beating the drums of war. This will be more of the same. ..."
    "... I suspect that PropOrNot's outburst was developed during the campaign by well heeled and connected Hilary supporters to be unveiled after the election to muzzle increasingly influential web sites including NC. As it stands PropOrNot shot a blank. If Hilary had won the campaign against "fake news" would probably have taken on a more ominous tone. ..."
    "... PropOrNot is asserting that the sites on the 'List", both right and left, were responsible for the Clinton loss by spreading false Russian propaganda. This would make more sense, as a political project, if Clinton had won. Asking the Trump DOJ and Trump's/Comey's FBI to investigate the asserted causes of Trump's win is bizarre. ..."
    "... Excellent observation, preparation for a post Killery election purge of the alternate media. ..."
    "... Lots of panic for the Washington regime. The clownish asshole loser that they carefully groomed proved less repulsive than their chosen Fuehrer Clinton. Now they are distraught to see that their enemy Russia sucks much less than the USA. ..."
    "... Washington Post ..."
    "... Jill Stein has embarrassed herself with this effort. I gave money to her until she made her final vp choice – Baraka called Bernie a white supremacist! I did vote for her and now feel it really was a wasted vote. 1% in the national totals. Ok. Being a useful idiot for the Clintons – no way. ..."
    "... When the rot is complete and the edifice tumbles? Or when TINA wins, and the voices go silent? My bet is on the later. Collectively, the money got all 4 aces (and a few more hidden up their sleaves and a few more hidden in their boots, etc – no end of aces.) ..."
    "... Charles Hugh-Smith's response to the "list": "The Washington Post: Useful-Idiot Shills for a Failed, Frantic Status Quo That Has Lost Control of the Narrative" ..."
    Nov 26, 2016 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
    Yves here. As indicated in Links, we'll have more to say about this in due course. Note, however, that as Blumenthal points out, some of the sites that are listed as PropOrNot allies receive US government funding. As Mark Ames pointed out via e-mail, "The law is still clear that US State Dept money and probably BBG money cannot be used to propagandize American audiences." So if these sites really are "allies" in terms of providing hard dollars or other forms of support (shared staff, research), this site and its allies may be in violation of US statutes.

    By Max Blumenthal, a senior editor of the Grayzone Project at AlterNet, and the award-winning author of Goliath and Republican Gomorrah. His most recent book is The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza. Follow him on Twitter at @MaxBlumenthal. Originally published at Alternet

    A shady website that claims "Russia is Manipulating US Opinion Through Online Propaganda" has compiled a blacklist of websites its anonymous authors accuse of pushing fake news and Russian propaganda. The blacklist includes over 200 outlets, from the right-wing Drudge Report and Russian government-funded Russia Today, to Wikileaks and an array of marginal conspiracy and far-right sites. The blacklist also includes some of the flagship publications of the progressive left, including Truthdig, Counterpunch, Truthout, Naked Capitalism, and the Black Agenda Report, a leftist African-American opinion hub that is critical of the liberal black political establishment.

    Called PropOrNot, the blacklisting organization was described by the Washington Post's Craig Timberg as "a nonpartisan collection of researchers with foreign policy, military and technology backgrounds." The Washington Post agreed to preserve the anonymity of the group's director on the grounds that exposure could result in their being targeted by "Russia's legions of skilled hackers." The Post failed to explain what methods PropOrNot relied on to conclude that "stories planted or promoted by the Russian disinformation campaign were viewed more than 213 million times." (Timberg also cited a report co-authored by Aaron Weisburg, founder of the one-man anti-Palestinian "Internet Haganah" operation, who has been accused of interfering in federal investigations, stealing the personal information of anarchists, online harassment, and fabricating information to smear his targets.)

    Despite the Washington Post's charitable description of PropOrNot as a group of independent-minded researchers dedicated to protecting the integrity of American democracy, the shadowy group bears many of the qualities of the red enemies it claims to be battling. In addition to its blacklist of Russian dupes, it lists a collection of outlets funded by the U.S. State Department, NATO and assorted tech and weapons companies as "allies." PropOrNot's methodology is so shabby it is able to peg widely read outlets like Naked Capitalism, a leading left-wing financial news blog, as Russian propaganda operations.

    Though the supposed experts behind PropOrNot remain unknown, the site has been granted a veneer of credibility thanks to the Washington Post, and journalists from the New York Times, including deputy Washington editor Jonathan Weissman to former Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer , are hailing Timberg's story as Pulitzer-level journalism. "Russia appears to have successfully hacked American democracy," declared Sahil Kapur, the senior political reporter for Bloomberg. The dead-enders of Hillary Clinton's campaign for president have also seized on PropOrNot's claims as proof that the election was rigged, with Clinton confidant and Center For American Progress president Neera Tanden declaring , "Wake up people," as she blasted out the Washington Post article on Russian black ops.

    PropOrNot's malicious agenda is clearly spelled out on its website. While denying McCarthyite intentions, the group is openly attempting to compel "formal investigations by the U.S. government, because the kind of folks who make propaganda for brutal authoritarian oligarchies are often involved in a wide range of bad business." The group also seeks to brand major progressive politics sites (and a number of prominent right-wing opinion outlets) as "'gray' fake-media propaganda outlets" influenced or directly operated by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB). It can then compel Facebook and Google to ban them , denying them the ad revenue they rely on to survive.

    Though PropOrNot's hidden authors claim, "we do not reach our conclusions lightly," the group's methodology leaves more than enough room to smear an outlet on political grounds. Among the criteria PropOrNot identifies as clear signs of Russian propaganda are, "Support for policies like Brexit, and the breakup of the EU and Eurozone" and, "Opposition to Ukrainian resistance to Russia and Syrian resistance to Assad."

    By these standards, any outlet that raises the alarm about the considerable presence of extreme right-wing elements among the post-Maidan Ukrainian government or that questions the Western- and Saudi-funded campaign for regime change in Syria can be designated a Russia dupe or a paid agent of the FSB. Indeed, while admitting that they have no idea whether any of the outlets they blacklisted are being paid by Russian intelligence or are even aware they are spreading Russian propaganda, PropOrNot's authors concluded that any outlets that have met their highly politicized criteria "have effectively become tools of the Russian intelligence services, and are worthy of further investigation."

    Among the most ironic characteristics of PropOrNot is its claim to be defending journalistic integrity, a rigorous adherence to the facts, and most of all, a sense of political levity. In fact, the group's own literature reflects a deeply paranoid view of Russia and the outside world. According to PropOrNot's website , Russia is staging a hostile takeover of America's alternative online media environment "in order to Make Russia Great Again (as a new 'Eurasian' empire stretching from Dublin to Vladisvostok), on the other. That means preserving Russian allies like Bashar al-Assad in Syria, breaking up the 'globalist' EU, NATO, and US-aligned trade and defense organizations, and getting countries to join 'Eurasianist' Russian equivalents Or else."

    The message is clear: Stamp out the websites blacklisted by PropOrNot,or submit to the malevolent influence of Putin's "new global empire."

    Among the websites listed by PropOrNot as "allies" are a number of groups funded by the U.S. government or NATO. They include InterpreterMag, an anti-Russian media monitoring blog funded through Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, an arm of the U.S. government, which is edited by the hardline neoconservative Michael Weiss. Polygraph Fact Check, another project of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty aimed at Russian misinformation, is listed as an "ally." So is Bellingcat, the crowdsourced military analysis blog run by Elliot Higgins through the Atlantic Council, which receives funding from the U.S. State Department, various Gulf monarchies and the weapons industry. (Bellingcat is directly funded by Google, according to Higgins.)

    Unfortunately for PropOrNot's mysterious authors, an alliance requires the consent of all parties involved. Alerted to his designation on the website, Bellingcat's Higgins immediately disavowed it: "Just want to note I hadn't heard of Propornot before the WP piece and never gave permission to them to call Bellingcat 'allies,'" he wrote .

    As scrutiny of PropOrNot increases, its credibility is rapidly unraveling. But that has not stopped Beltway media wiseguys and Democratic political operatives from hyping its claims. Fake news and Russian propaganda have become the great post-election moral panic, a creeping Sharia-style conspiracy theory for shell-shocked liberals. Hoping to punish the dark foreign forces they blame for rigging the election, many of these insiders have latched onto a McCarthyite campaign that calls for government investigations of a wide array of alternative media outlets. In this case, the medicine might be worse than the disease.

    Daryl November 26, 2016 at 1:38 am

    The PropOrNot domain was registered on August 21st. It's hosted on Blogger.

    Seems pretty legit to me.

    Daryl November 27, 2016 at 1:30 am

    What I meant by my sarcastic remark is that there seems to be absolutely no reason to trust anything it says, from its content, to the fact that it was created about three months ago when the Red baiting was already in full swing in the media.

    begob November 27, 2016 at 9:00 am

    And it now has a wikipedia page as of 15 Nov. Plus discussion on non-deletion:

    Skip Intro November 26, 2016 at 1:53 am

    Congratulations! That site is like a who's who of influential critical reporting. I suspect, as with so many of the bubble-dwellers attempts, that this slapdash but probably overpriced effort will drive traffic to those sites while reducing the credibility of its promoters. An instant classic own-goal. I look forward to the inevitable and embarassing revelations about their founders and funding.

    JEHR November 26, 2016 at 1:24 pm

    Yes, now I know where to go to read good critical analyses (the list).

    jrs November 26, 2016 at 2:37 pm

    The full list was a mix of really good sites and the unknown personal blogs of some whack-a -doodles producing "content" of little value. I see the list linked to is smaller.

    "Collectively, this propaganda is undermining our public discourse by providing a warped view of the world, where Russia can do no wrong, and America is a corrupt dystopia that is tearing itself apart."

    Meanwhile publicans even they would deem credible like the L.A. times report there are 63,000 homeless youths in los angeles. Corrupt dystopia? No it can not be.

    "It is vital that this effort be exposed for what it is: A coordinated attempt to deceive U.S. citizens into acting in Russia's interests."

    look idiots, the truth as I understand it is neither Russian interest NOR US government interests are necessarily in my interest

    kimsarah November 26, 2016 at 2:09 am

    Meanwhile, the Clintonoids still trying to twist the arms of electoral college voters. What stage of grief is this?
    http://www.goupstate.com/news/20161125/sc-electors-besieged-by-requests-not-to-cast-votes-for-trump

    Daryl November 26, 2016 at 3:14 am

    I believe it's "bargaining." But don't look out for "acceptance" any time soon or ever.

    wheresOurTeddy November 26, 2016 at 4:05 am

    So much kvetching pre-nov 8 about Trump not accepting results of election.

    Because what kind of person would do that?

    MyLessThanPrimeBeef November 26, 2016 at 11:41 am

    No defeat, no soul-searching.

    So far, she is still undefeated, and the dying working class votes have not repudiated her yet.

    "Let's not be premature."

    AnonymousCounsel November 26, 2016 at 2:22 am

    I am an attorney. I am not soliciting or advising any entity or person, but those identified by PropOrNot, including Naked Capitalism, should consult competent legal counsel, having appropriate and specific experience regarding defamation law (maybe even in a "pooled," co-ordinated effort with others' among the over 200 entities named by PropOrNot) to seek a legal opinion as to whether there exists a viable defamation claim against The Washington Post, and also, via Weisburg, The New York Times, as both publications repeated potentially defamatory claims made by PropOrNot.

    Under general tenets of defamation law (statutory and in common law), it is not just the original entity or person defaming (including defamation "per se") another that is liable for such torts, but others who carelessly or recklessly repeat the original defamatory statements/claims (in this case, both The Washington Post & New York Times bear similar potential liability as PropOrNot).

    hunkerdown November 26, 2016 at 6:14 am

    Understanding the distinction between an attorney, and *my* attorney, and as a matter of general interest, I am curious: What about individual posters in their capacities as employees, contractors, or just rabble?

    Romancing The Loan November 26, 2016 at 9:29 am

    Requires actual malice since it's the media you're suing – but that can be proven by reckless indifference to the truth which this might actually meet the standard of, especially since the site isn't making this claim based on anything other than the content of the views espoused by the sites. /also an attorney but the wrong specialty. I'd be pleased to help if I can though – all of the sites I read regularly are on the list and whoever's propaganda op the site is the whole concept of what it represents scares the pants off me.

    pretzelattack November 26, 2016 at 11:48 am

    i vaguely thought the actual malice requirement was tied to the target being a public figure; maybe running a blog qualifies.

    Romancing The Loan November 26, 2016 at 2:48 pm

    All private individual gets you is compensatory damages – and everyone's readership and donations have increased.

    "We hold that, so long as they do not impose liability without fault, the States may define for themselves the appropriate standard of liability for a publisher or broadcaster of defamatory falsehood injurious to a private individual. But this countervailing state interest extends no further than compensation for actual injury. For the reasons stated below, we hold that the States may not permit recovery of presumed or punitive damages, at least when liability is not based on a showing of knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth."

    Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 347-349 (1974).

    Propornot is directly accusing NC and the rest of a crime (espionage), which constitutes defamation per se, so I think the only issue before the court would be whether it was done with reckless indifference.

    Seriously, Yves, please feel free to contact me offlist – I would be delighted to pro bono the heck out of this including at the direction of whoever you hire.

    pretzelattack November 26, 2016 at 10:44 pm

    thanks for enlightening me. it's such an obvious smear, and the post as far as i can see didn't vet the organization or its claims at all.

    skippy November 26, 2016 at 2:54 am

    Kudos

    flora November 26, 2016 at 3:31 am

    The MSM did such a fine job reporting the news during the campaign. (16 anti-Sanders stories in 16 hours from the WaPo. A new record.) Are small news/opinion sites cutting into their online advertising revenue. ;)

    James November 26, 2016 at 3:32 am

    I like you and your blog, but I'm almost positive your site has been guilty of accidently publishing Russian propaganda at some point. You've probably linked to stories that sound legit but can be traced all the way back to some Russian operation like RT, even though the third party source you got the story from seemed ok.

    The creator of the app never said all the sites on the list knowingly did it.

    Yves Smith Post author November 26, 2016 at 4:37 am

    First the fact that a story appeared on RT does not make it propaganda. We featured videos from Ed Harrison on the RT program Boom/Bust, which is about the US economy and has featured respected US and foreign academics, like Steve Keen.

    What Steve Keen has to say is not suddenly propaganda by virtue of appearing on RT.

    If you read Eddy Bernay's book Propaganda, he defines it as an entity or cause promoting its case. Thus when a news organization that is government-affiliated, like Voice of America or RT, presents a news story that is straight up reporting, that does not qualify as propaganda either (like "Marine Le Pen Gains in French Polls"). In fact, for a government site to be seen as credible when it does present propaganda, it has to do a fair bit of reasonably unbiased reporting.

    Second, had you bothered to read the actual PropOrNot site, it accuses all of the sites listed as being "propaganda outlets" under the influence of "coordinators abroad" (#11 in its FAQ).

    Several individuals on Twitter called this out as libel with respect to NC. And under #7, PropOrNot asserts that "some" of the sites are guilty of violating the Espionage Act and the Foreign Agent Registration Act, as in accusing them of being spies and calling for investigation (by implication of all, since how do you know which is or isn't) by the FBI and DoJ.

    And you defend this witch hunt? Seriously? Do you have any idea of what propaganda consists of? Hint: it is not reporting accurately and skeptically.

    John November 26, 2016 at 9:07 am

    Their MSM propaganda isn't working and they see it. They already heavily censor comments on their MSM sites. Other MSM sights such as Bloomberg closed down comments altogether. Expect more of that.

    And they will take every measure to close down any other independent sites people have turned to get some truth which millions of us know we aren't getting from the MSM.

    Those of us who have a grasp on what is going on in this country will find #7 is very disturbing.
    As it tells us what they have in mind to discredit and close down independent sites.

    James November 26, 2016 at 10:51 am

    As you know, propaganda doesn't have to [be] false. It can be more about selectively reporting certain facts or emphasizing certain facts over others to smear your target and mislead people. Steve Keen is great, and I love his work, but it's also obvious that RT invites him on the network because he lambasts the American political establishment and weakens the public's confidence in its leaders. This is clearly a goal of Moscow, and they use people like Steve Keen to do it. I'm sure Steven Keen doesn't think of his role that way, but RT and Russian intelligence certainly do.

    And the site clearly states that some sites are knowingly coordinating with Russian agents (like RT) and some are likely unaware that they are being influenced. They likely think NC falls into the unaware category.

    I think they should be more specific as to what sites they believe fall into the 'knowingly' and 'unknowingly' categories, but I also don't believe the app is an entirely crazy idea. Russia is aggressively trying to influence American politics as we saw in the most recent US election and coming up with a response is a good idea even if this particular one should be improved.

    Pat November 26, 2016 at 11:07 am

    Um, James what weakens people's confidence in their leaders is their not addressing people's issues and lying about their inability to do so. Despite protestations from the likes of much of our 'intelligentsia', mainstream media, and most of our political class, the majority of people are not stupid. There is a reason why terms like 'lame stream media' resonate with a large number of people.

    For instance when Obama is out there talking about a recovery and people know that there is no such thing in their lives, their communities then HE has lost their confidence – not someone giving an interview on RT.

    Or to put it another way the problem isn't someone going on RT and saying the emperor isn't wearing clothes, the problem is that the emperor isn't wearing clothes.

    Pretending not to notice doesn't mean that no one has noticed. Considering the Washington/NY/California bubble, most people probably have and have been screaming at their television that he needs to get dressed.

    pretzelattack November 26, 2016 at 11:12 am

    what did we see in "the most recent election"? what is your evidence that Russia is "aggressively trying to influence American politics?"

    Steve Keen is great, and I love his work, but it's also obvious that RT invites him on the network because he lambasts the American political establishment and weakens the public's confidence in its leaders. This is clearly a goal of Moscow, and they use people like Steve Keen to do it. I'm sure Steven Keen doesn't think of his role that way, but RT and Russian intelligence certainly do.

    How do you know any of this? how would you know would Russian intelligence's goals are, or how they think of Steve Keen? this is all just McCarthyism 2016, accusing the left of being dupes or willing agents of Russia. McCarthy had his 200 communists in the state department, this website and the Washington Post have their 200 Russian propaganda websites. Why are you catapulting this bullshit?

    http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mccarthy-says-communists-are-in-state-department

    pebird November 26, 2016 at 1:24 pm

    But it's obvious, clearly. If you think otherwise, you are an unobvious.

    ChrisPacific November 26, 2016 at 6:31 pm

    Well put. I could equally well argue that it's in Russia's interests that American leadership not be questioned, if it's following policies that are clearly stupid and likely to weaken America's position in the world. So the PropOrNot site might actually be a double blind backed by Russia, using fear of Russian influence to manipulate people into uncritical acceptance of their leaders and prevent questioning of poor decisions, thereby weakening America. (ALERT: If it's not obvious to readers, this is sarcasm).

    If your methodology is gazing into the tea leaves to figure out what Russia's position is, then smearing anybody that advocates a similar position, then that's such a ridiculously flimsy veneer of logic that it can be used to reach pretty much any conclusion you like (as my example above demonstrates). Tell me again who is guilty of propaganda in this scenario?

    James November 26, 2016 at 8:46 pm

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/10/21/17-intelligence-agencies-russia-behind-hacking/92514592/

    I suppose all 17 intelligence agencies could be wrong.

    And RT has a pattern of inviting dissidents that have extremely negative views of American leadership. You can say this negative view justified but that doesn't negate the fact that Russia wants to amplify that discontent as much as possible.

    pretzelattack November 26, 2016 at 10:35 pm

    i suppose they still haven't provided any evidence whatsoever. just like you. What 17 agencies? what evidence are they relying on? Why does Obama say the election was not fixed by Russia, that there was no ramping up of cyber attacks?

    You could be working for David Brock at correct the record. the way you blindly accept the talking points of the Clinton campaign indicates that. you just keep repeating them, and don't respond to the criticisms of propornot as a source, or the reporter who uncritically accepted their little mccarthyite hit list. linking to a usa today article that blindly repeats the same talking points, again sans evidence, does not support your argument.

    James November 27, 2016 at 3:44 am

    I was not claiming Russia fixed the election results. I was referring to the email hacking directed at the Clinton camp during the election campaign.

    And my claim that Russia was likely involved in the email hacking is backed up by 17 intelligence agencies and reporting from various independent news outlets. If you had bothered to read the article, which you apparently didn't, you would know that the 17 agencies are the 'Office of the Director of National Intelligence' plus the 16 agencies listed in the link available in the article I provided.

    Here is the link in question: https://www.dni.gov/index.php/intelligence-community/members-of-the-ic

    If USA Today reporting is not credible to you but Russia Today's reporting is, then I'm afraid your trust of Kremlin created propaganda outlets over independent news outlets only underscores my point that Russian information warfare has been very successful at influencing and shaping parts of American public opinion.

    I also don't think US intelligence agencies would make this accusation publicly if they were not confident. They could have just as easily made this accusation against China but have not because it doesn't fit China's MO. Russia has engaged in similar types of email hacking operations in former Eastern European countries it has been seeking to control and influence.

    And comparing an app to McCarthyism is absurd. McCarthysim was the state targeting individuals and organizations. This is private citizens compiling a list by their own accord, which they are free to do. When a left wing blog makes a list of the top ten most right-wing and GOP influenced websites, are they also engaging in 'McCarthism'? Is the left engaging in 'McCarthyism' when it accuses Fox News of being GOP influenced propaganda? C'mon.

    Regardless, I am done with this conversation for now. You can think what you want.

    Pat November 27, 2016 at 4:24 am

    James do you happen to remember when those intelligence agencies reported Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction.? How about when North Korea hacked Sony? Both of which were inaccurate and dare I say it propaganda intended to mislead the American public.

    Short of watching the hacking in real time there is no way those agencies would have been able to trace any competent hacker.So here are some very serious questions for you. Do you think the Russians hire script kiddies? Why does Naval Intelligence have anything to do with this investigation? Same with at least half of those agencies?

    Why were 17 agencies watching the DNC? Don't they have anything better to do, like figuring out who hacked the State Department, the IRS and Social Security?

    The immediate claims that Russia hacked the DNC were never credible to any one with even a bit of knowledge about high level hacking. The 17 agency thing was outright laughable once you asked the simple question of what most of them had to do with this investigation. And USA Today was and is the print equivalent of the Yahoo front page.

    You say you are done, but I sincerely hope so e of what was said here percolates in your thoughts. Most of us here understand propaganda, misinformation, and yes confirmation bias. You seem to need to learn to look critically at your usual sources as well as those you have warned about.

    James November 27, 2016 at 6:04 am

    Being wrong about something in the past doesn't mean you are always wrong. In fact, the CIA and FBI have been on the money about countless things in the past, but I'm sure you know this and are just trying to deflect. And it's not true that NK being involved in the Sony hack has been debunked. Opinion is mixed among independent security analysts. Look it up.

    And I think you should take your own advice as far as confirmation bias and understanding propaganda are concerned. Nobody who relies on FSB cut outs like RT for information and analysis has room to talk about their intelligence and critical thinking. NC and other alternative 'anti-establishment' news sources you consume are full of their own bias. You should wander out of the alt-left echo chamber once in a while and stop thinking that any criticism of Russia is 'red-baiting' and propaganda. Mr. Putin isn't a damsel in distress that needs your defending.

    integer November 27, 2016 at 6:52 am

    You can think what you want.

    Lambert Strether November 27, 2016 at 6:58 am

    There are so many straw men in this I don't know where to begin. So I'm not going to. Not feeding trolls is one of my policies.

    pretzelattack November 27, 2016 at 9:14 am

    oh so now you're an intelligence expert, but somehow you still don't have any evidence, because the "17 intelligence agencies" don't have any evidence either. they didn't have evidence of wmd's but i bet you fell for that, too. i think the most dishonest line in your post is this: You should wander out of the alt-left echo chamber once in a while and stop thinking that any criticism of Russia is 'red-baiting' and propaganda

    while you're searching for evidence to back up the rancid propaganda exposed by glenn greenwald's article in the intercept, you can look for one single post expressing this conviction. just one.

    after all the lies by our intelligence agencies, using the same methods as this smear, to uncritically accept anonymous quotes betrays either a great naïveté or intellectual dishonesty.

    David Lamy November 26, 2016 at 11:31 am

    Gee, if only there were some North American country that would try to influence foreign elections, for example say Russian or Ukrainian ones.
    But let me extend James's thought above by advocating for our leaders to obtain public encryption keys so that we may send our grievances privately without enabling any foreign interference. Won't that just invigorate our democracy?

    OIFVet November 26, 2016 at 12:13 pm

    If Russia is actively trying to influence American politics, then they have been far more effective than the US and get a much bigger bang for their buck. For one thing, they didn't have to drop a single bomb to effect a regime change. So assuming you are correct, the noise is just a hysterical regime change envy.

    So are RT and Sputnik propaganda outlets? Sometimes they are, but sometimes they report the truth that our MSM, having given up the last shreds of their journalistic integtity in return for access, won't report.

    Given the widespread funding of media (including government-owned media) by Western governments, I would say that US and Euro hysteria about Russian propaganda, real and imagined, is yet another off-putting display of noxious American exceptionalism.

    I grew up listening to broadcasts of RFE and VOA behind the Iron Curtain, and mixed in with honest reporting was a heavy dose of propaganda aimed at weakening Eastern European governments. Now, it is the America For Bulgaria Foundation that funds several media outlets in the country. What they all have in common is rabid Russophobia-driven editorial stances, and one can easily conclude that it is driven by the almighty dollar rather than by honest, deeply held convictions. So, America can do it but whines like a toddler when it is allegedly done to it?! What a crock.

    The worst thing is that regardless of whatever propaganda wars are going on, this list constitutes a full frontal attack on free speech in the alleged "Land of the Free." Besides NC, there are number of sites distinguished by thorough, quality reporting of the kind that WaPo and NYT no longer engage in. Having grown up behind the Iron Curtain, this is chilling to me. Dissident voices speaking against the endless wars for profit and neoliberalism are in effect being intimidated and smeared by anonymous thugs. This, while the militarized local police and federal agencies, closely coordinated by "fusion centers", have ruthlessly put down a number of citizen protests, have engaged in spying on all of us, and have gone after whistleblowers for exposing the reach and scope of the surveillance state. These are the hallmarks of dictatorships, not of the alleged "world's greatest democracy and beacon of freedom." What the eff happened to America, and why are you equating challenging the oppressive and exploitative status quo with being "unwitting Russian dupes?" Seems to me that the useful idi0t here is you, with all due respect.

    Glen November 26, 2016 at 12:21 pm

    American intelligence uses exactly the same tactics, and has since at least WW1. Selling the American public on the Iraq war is a classic example. Remember that all news is biased, some much more so than others (we report, you decide.)

    The advent of the internet and the subsequent broadening of readily available news of all slants has made it much harder for any intelligence agency of any specific country to control the news( but it has made it extremely easy for them to monitor what we are reading).

    Naked capitalism uses a wide variety of sources, and obviously has no coordination with any intelligence agency. The normal tell for this is being state sponsored, or having a big sugar daddy providing the funding, and Yves doesn't have any of that.

    As always, it's up to the reader to use their critical thinking skills and form their own opinions.

    Atalanta69 November 26, 2016 at 4:55 pm

    Some of us happen to believe that 'lambast[ing] the American political establishment and weaken[ing] the public's confidence in its leaders' is in the best interests of everyone on the planet, including the American public. If that constitutes propaganda, I'm not about to look that gift horse in the mouth. RT isn't perfect – I personally find their relentless cheerleading for economic growth rather wearying – but it knocks spots off the competition and consistently sends me scurrying to the internet to chase up on new faces and leads. I'm grateful for that.

    FluffytheObeseCat November 26, 2016 at 5:55 pm

    " Steve Keen is great, and I love his work, but it's also obvious "

    Damning with faint praise. A dainty smear tactic noted as such since the days of .. Shakespeare.

    It is obvious that Russia has been trying to influence American politics. The very existence of RT makes that obvious. What is not obvious is why modestly left-of-center Americans' political concerns should be subject to McCarthyite attacks in our most influential news outlets. We've been subject to internally generated far-right propaganda for decades now and have seen minimal, feeble 'mainstream' efforts to counter it. The far right has done tremendous damage to our nation and is poised to do much more now that its doyens control all branches of the federal government.

    And yet this libelous attack is more focused on left-leaning opinion sites than on the ultra-right. The latter were thrown into this list almost as window dressing. Conceivably because the far right is very adept at self-defense. But more because the prestige and financial well-being of the center-"left" is endangered by the rise of an adversarial, econo-centric left. The insiders from this branch of our duopoly never have been harmed by their historic "opposition" (Tea Party kooks + corrupt Beltway Republicans).

    What I interpret this as is a strike by 'think tank' grifters against those who are most likely to damage their incomes, their prestige and their exceedingly comfortable berths on the Acela corridor. It's a slightly panicky, febrile effort by a bunch of heels who are looking at losing their mid-6-figure incomes . and becoming like so many of the rest of us: over-credentialed, under-paid and unable to afford life in the charming white parts of our coastal metropolises.

    Brad November 26, 2016 at 6:34 pm

    Correct. The Democratic party liberals perform only one objective function: Attack the Left. That is what they are "there" for.

    nippersdad November 26, 2016 at 7:28 pm

    I was wondering what Brock has been up to since the dissolution of "Correct the Record."

    Has it been dissolved or has it morphed into something else? This looks like too seamless a transition from the Clinton campaign strategy we have all grown to love to the revenge strategy we have come to expect from such people. I look forward to the discovery portions of the libel suits to come. Hopefully Yves and Lambert will be taking up a collection for so worthy an enterprise soon.

    flora November 26, 2016 at 7:35 pm

    since you ask: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/david-brock-donald-trump-donor-network-231588 I think the term is "doubling down."

    Yves Smith Post author November 26, 2016 at 6:12 pm

    You've just libeled me. You have no evidence whatsoever to substantiate your claim. Nor do you have any evidence that Russia has been "aggressively" trying to influence US politics. This is one of many hysterical lines offered by Team Dem over the course of this election, up there with depicting all Trump voters as racist yahoos.

    Ed Harrison, who is the producer of the show and replied later in this thread, is the one who booked Keen and interviewed and other economists and firmly disputes your assertion that his show has anything to do with promoting an anti-US line. And as a former diplomat, Harrison would be far more sensitive than most to that sort of issue. I'm repeating his comment below:

    Hi Naked Capitalism. I haven't been on this site for some time. But I felt it necessary to comment due to an ad hominem attack from a commenter "James" regarding the show I produce at RT called Boom Bust.

    From my vantage point as producer at RT, I have been able to see the whole anti-Russia campaign unfold in all its fury. I have a lot of thoughts on this but I want to restrict my comments to the specific argument James makes. here:

    "it's also obvious that RT invites him on the network because he lambasts the American political establishment and weakens the public's confidence in its leaders. This is clearly a goal of Moscow, and they use people like Steve Keen to do it. I'm sure Steven Keen doesn't think of his role that way, but RT and Russian intelligence certainly do."

    Since I produce the show that Steve Keen appears on, I am well-placed to give you a view on this. James' comment is flat out false. What James writes is something he has fabricated in his imagination – connecting dots he believes should be connected based on no first hand evidence whatsoever.

    What actually happens on Boom Bust is this:

    Since no one I work with at RT has a sophisticated background in economics, finance or financial reporting, they give us a wide berth in putting together content for our show with nearly no top down dictates at all. That means we as American journalists have a pretty much free hand to report economic news intelligently and without bias. We invite libertarian, mainstream, non-mainstream, leftist, Democratic commentators, Republican commentators – you name it. As for guests, they are not anti-American in any way shape or form. They are disproportionately non-mainstream.

    We have no pro-Russian agenda. And that is in part because Russia is a bit player on the economic stage, frankly. Except for sanctions, it has mostly been irrelevant on our show since inception.

    Let me share a strange anecdote on that. We had a guest on our show about three years ago, early in my tenure. We invited him on because he had smart things to say about the UK economy. But he had also written some very negative things about Putin and Russia. Rather than whitewash this we addressed it specifically in the interview and asked him an open-ended question about Russia, so he could say his piece. I was ASTONISHED when he soft-pedaled his response and made no forceful case as he had done literally days ago in print. This guy clearly self-censored – for what reason I don't know. But it is something that has stayed with me ever since.

    The most important goal from a managerial perspective has been that our reporting is different i.e. covers missing and important angles of the same storyline that are missing in the mainstream media or that it covers storylines that are missing altogether.

    Neither Steve Keen nor any other guest on our show appears "because he lambasts the American political establishment". This is false. He appears on our show because he is a credible economist who provides a differentiated view on economics and insight that we believe will help our viewers understand the global economy. If Paul Krugman had something to say of that nature and would appear on our show, we would welcome him. In fact, I and other producers have reached out to him many times to no avail, especially after we had Gerald Friedman give his take on the dust-up surrounding Bernie Sanders' economic plan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yna275KzuDQ

    Look, I understand the scepticism about RT and its motives. It IS a state-funded news outlet with news story angles that sometimes contrast sharply with western media. And it has not been critical of the Russian government as far as I can tell. But you can't ascribe nefarious motives to individual economists or reporters based on inaccurate or false third hand accounts. You are just making things up, creating a false narrative based on circumstantial evidence. This is just adding to the building peer pressure associated with what almost seems like an orchestrated campaign to discredit non-mainstream sources of news.

    bob November 26, 2016 at 6:14 pm

    "Russia is aggressively trying to influence American politics" Apparently with the help of Hillz. Was her decision to use a private email server made with the help of Putin?

    Brad November 26, 2016 at 6:24 pm

    James, we get it. We US citizens are not to be permitted to criticize our own government or corporations as that might "weaken public confidence" in our Dear Leaders.

    We cannot be trusted to think for ourselves in discerning what is and is not propaganda, for after all we would be able to discern the same coming from the US side.

    The overt stifling of dissent that was such an outrageous feature of the Clinton campaign "is clearly a goal" of your side.

    Who needs Putin when we have mindless ClintonBots to do all the dirty work here?

    Lambert Strether November 27, 2016 at 7:22 am

    > weakens the public's confidence in its leaders*

    Assumes facts not in evidence. See Pew Research :

    This is a secular trend, a great wave. If Steve Keen were going on Tass 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Live!!! With ***Nude*** WOMBATS!!!!, undermining confidence in neoliberal economists - let me pause to gasp in horror - it would be the merest bit of froth on that wave. Taking Jame's view as a proxy for the views of the intelligence community, if they really believe this - and it's not just a ploy for budget time - then the country truly is doomed.

    NOTE * Note the authoritarian followership of "leaders." So my response with institutions is not precisely on point.

    Pat November 27, 2016 at 8:04 am

    The idea that banks were trusted more than organized labor was troublesome to me till I remembered the labor leaders like Trumka and the continued betrayals of membership by the likes of the AFL CIO. At that point I got it really was a toss up.

    Synoia November 26, 2016 at 9:38 pm

    This is a Bezos hostile takeover – aka:

    My revenue is suffering because my rag is bullshit, but all these alternatives are unfair competition - please Mr Government shut them done, because I, the one and only Great Bezos (or Great Bozo), is loosing money.

    Boo Hoo, boo hoo boo hoo .

    davidly November 26, 2016 at 5:41 am

    almost positive = have a vague notion based on nothing but conditioning
    In other words, you are a small-time useful ijit

    hemeantwell November 26, 2016 at 8:51 am

    If you'd like, take a trip in the Wayback Machine to 1959. Then you'll find many criticisms of US society by the Civil Rights movement sharing the same sinister tone as criticisms made by Soviet new outlets. Then you'll also find a gaggle of US pols and their minions claiming on that basis that the Civil Rights movement is communist inspired, funded, and run. Then you'll also find many people who don't bother to distinguish source from story and end up enjoying the official Kool Aid.

    PlutoniumKun November 26, 2016 at 9:23 am

    It reminds me of a story from Northern Ireland in the 1960's when the leader of a civil rights march was asked by a BBC reporter 'is it true that your organisation has been infiltrated by radicals and communists?' His reply was to sigh and say 'I f**king wish it was true'.

    John Zelnicker November 26, 2016 at 9:47 am

    @hemeantwell – This same claim of communist inspiration and connection was also thrown at the anti-war movement. I remember arguing with a friend of my parents in the summer of 1969, after my freshman year at college where I was active in the anti-war and anti-draft movements. After countering all of the arguments made by this gentleman, he was left with nothing to say but "Well, that's the Commie's line " as a final dismissal.

    Jim Haygood November 26, 2016 at 10:52 am

    'US pols and their minions claiming that the Civil Rights movement is communist inspired, funded, and run.'

    Right up to his death on 4 Apr 1968, Martin Luther King was accused by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI of "knowingly, willingly and regularly cooperating with and taking guidance from communists." Now there's a US national holiday in King's honor.

    That same year, my dad visited Moscow and Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring. After he returned, we started receiving crudely mimeographed newsletters from Moscow - actual Soviet propaganda , delivered right to our mailbox in Texas.

    So laden were they with hoary old Marxist rhetoric that we started satirizing it in our underground student newspaper, mocking the public school administration as "capitalist running dogs" and "colonialist oppressors." (This did not go over well.)

    To his regret, my dad sent one of the Soviet flyers to the FBI, but never got a reply. He suspected that they put him on a watch list, rather than investigating how the Soviets were distributing their crude invective through the US mail.

    fresno dan November 26, 2016 at 11:16 am

    So laden were they with hoary old Marxist rhetoric that we started satirizing it in our underground student newspaper, mocking the public school administration as "capitalist running dogs" and "colonialist oppressors." (This did not go over well.)

    No capitalistic pigs?????
    – OINK!

    EGrise November 26, 2016 at 4:22 pm

    Are you sure the newsletter wasn't printed by the FBI?

    Titus Pullo November 26, 2016 at 9:52 am

    They link American propaganda all the time. If you take off your blinders, you'll find that most news is just propaganda, because the basis for most news stories is what person X says. What's sad is that people like you believe there is some kind of "objective" news source in the "free world" that is telling it like it is. There isn't and there never has been.

    It's all propaganda of one sort or another. I exhort you to read Plato and understand that the Sophists for which Socrates held so much ire are much the same as anon and administration sources for so much of what drives journalism.

    NC separates the wheat from the chaff.

    Stick November 26, 2016 at 10:08 am

    Yep Sputnik News is a regular feature in Links.

    Yves Smith Post author November 27, 2016 at 12:08 am

    No, it isn't and I'm the one who puts links together. Shame on you.

    Lambert Strether November 27, 2016 at 7:25 am

    Surely this is irony?

    flora November 26, 2016 at 1:01 pm

    You assume, without evidence, that the claims are true. I think in econ that's called "assume a can opener."

    anonymous in Southfield, MI November 26, 2016 at 2:13 pm

    I have identified a motif that pretty much always gives away a Hillary bot- it was used about several dozen thousand times as part of 'Correct the Record' during the runup to November 8. And here we have it again. It goes like this: I was always in favor of – – – – – – – (fill in the blank with the supposed offenders name) until I found out this 'truth'.

    Also, why not just admit you are a Clinton Supporter who finds it convenient that a lot of the sites could be trashed for being critical of HRC

    Spring Texan November 26, 2016 at 8:07 pm

    Yes, that motif was EVERYWHERE . . . you couldn't escape it!!

    Brad November 26, 2016 at 6:14 pm

    NC is likely "far more guilty" in accidentally republishing your American propaganda, since the Russian variety is so obvious.

    Lambert Strether November 27, 2016 at 7:05 am

    Let me just make a list of the weasel words (setting aside the famous "I like you, but ____" trope, which I have never yet seen used in good faith in all my many years of blogging, partly because of the assumption that whether a random commenter "likes" the blog is important.

    1. almost positive
    2. guilty of accidentally
    3. at some point
    4. probably linked (but with no evidence)
    5. can be traced (but not by James!)
    6. some . operation like

    The ginormous pile of steaming innuendo and faux reasonableness aside, James seems to think that the NC readership has no critical thinking skills at all. Apparently, NC readers are little children who need expert guidance from James and his ilk - bless their hearts! - to distinguish crap from not crap.

    Adding "

    KnotRP November 26, 2016 at 3:47 am

    If there is any take away from this foul
    Bernays-inspired campaign season, it is
    that fear can and will overrule reason completely.
    Half of the voters (whichever lost) were set up
    for a cognitive dissonance cork blowing episode.
    No one should expect reason to be an effective defense against cognitive attempts to rectify that dissonance .neither side can be unplugged
    from their self-selected news matrix, without
    blowing their cork. It will not matter that this list
    is comical, because it is a dog whistle to the
    audience preloaded with fear (and the other side would've done a variation of the thene if they had lost).

    (pretty funny of them to list your site though..I guess
    the Russians must've also been quite upset by all
    the American mortage fraud in housing bubble #1
    and felt a need to •head explodes•)

    I suppose this comment will add me to some list maintained by some very frightened but misguided people? What's the line "lighten up, Francis"?

    wheresOurTeddy November 26, 2016 at 4:01 am

    Verdict on PropOrNot: Looks like Prop to me. Getting really sloppy, Oligarchy

    Benedict@Large November 26, 2016 at 12:00 pm

    This has all the earmarks of an effort by the Nuland Neocons that joined Camp Hillary, and now in defeat constitute a portion Hillary's professional dead enders.

    RenoDino November 26, 2016 at 5:56 pm

    Camp Hillary, as you call it, has decamped and is on the march. It has powerful allies in the intelligence community, the media and actors on the world stage who deem Trump to be an existential threat to America and world. The story of Russian inspired fake news is paving the way for regime change, an HRC specialty. The recount is the tip of the spear. If they can pull this coup off, sites like this will move from the useful idiot category to the enemy of the state category overnight.

    The brilliance of this move will eliminate all possibly of civil unrest since America democracy will be saved from a Russia threat that requires a declaration of war and severe restrictions on media freedom.

    I can guarantee you Trump is looking over his shoulder and sees it coming and is working furiously to build a case for his own legitimacy. He is doing his best to sound normal.

    Obama has relegated himself to the sidelines. He hates conflict, but will back Hillary if she can pull it off.

    We will know in two weeks one way or the other.

    bob November 26, 2016 at 6:18 pm

    "Camp Hillary, as you call it, has decamped and is on the march." True that. Even a lost election can't stop them. Heard over the holiday- Andrew Cuomo for prez. So the same people who didn't show up to vote for Hillz can now not show up to vote for her waterboy/bagman.

    Manfred Keeting November 26, 2016 at 4:01 am

    Yet Mike Shedlock was not listed. If I were he, I'd be pissed. I'd write to the site demanding to know why!

    Yves Smith Post author November 26, 2016 at 4:17 am

    His post yesterday says pretty much that.

    fresno dan November 26, 2016 at 11:18 am

    Manfred Keeting November 26, 2016 at 4:01 am If you weren't on the Nixon's enemies list, there was something wrong with you

    Synoia November 26, 2016 at 9:41 pm

    Or not important enough. I seem to remember those years, and my focus was on:

    1. The next Beer
    2. The next female
    3. The next Party
    4. Going to work
    5. I need to pee (see 1)

    All of which changed priority at a whim of what I had to do next.

    begob November 27, 2016 at 7:52 am

    I think sicsempertyrannis was omitted too. Some comments on there are informative on Syria.

    Propertius November 26, 2016 at 4:27 am

    Down in the 8th Circle of hell, I assume Joe McCarthy is getting a chuckle out of this.

    a different chris November 26, 2016 at 10:29 am

    For sure. The "history doesn't repeat but it rhymes" is suddenly sickeningly applicable here.

    I hope they've bitten off more than they can chew in this case. There is that argument that we are "siloing" in our little corners of the web, however – everybody read the newspapers and listed to the radio back then. Which means a very, very small subset of the population set the agenda. Nowadays, the "far-left" and "far-right" are only a click away from each other (and they always did seem to have more in common with each other than the center which has gone from mushy to absolutely rotten). A unified pushback on this is not impossible and who knows where it might lead?

    Gabriel November 26, 2016 at 4:54 pm

    "First as tragedy, then as farce"

    Plenue November 26, 2016 at 5:22 pm

    First as tragedy, then as farce. People literally killed themselves because of McCarthyism. No one is going to kill themselves over this farce.

    The Rev Kev November 26, 2016 at 4:28 am

    Aha, I have solved the mystery. It is elementary my dear Watson! The PropOrNot site is itself a Russian propaganda ploy on the part of the KGB! What? errr, ok, the FSB then. By adding sites such as the Naked Capitalism site to the list, it will be discredited in its entirety thus letting the nefarious Russian propaganda websites be given a free pass. Mystery solved! And sorry Max but "Naked Capitalism" a leading left-wing financial news blog"? I'd rather label it a practical and empirical financial news blog myself.

    Seriously, I am wondering if something else is going on here ("tin-foil hat" mode on) with this piece of trash. No doubt people here have heard all the cries of "fake news" since the election. This was on top of months of claims of Russian hacking of the election which is still ongoing (cough cough, Jill Stein). Now Merkel is screaming blue murder of probable Russian hacking of the German elections next year and just this week the EU Parliament has passed a resolution which in part states that Russian media exists to "undermine the very notion of objective information or ethical journalism," and one of its methods is to cast all other information "as biased or as an instrument of political power."

    I am given to understand that the military use the term "preparing the battlefield" and that is what I think that we are seeing here. There have already been calls for FaceBook and Google to implement censorship of "fake news" which will amount to censorship of social and news feeds – the same media Trump used to bf the entire news establishment in this years election. Could we be seeing the beginnings of calls to censor the internet? All to fight terrorism and black propaganda of course. The Left would have absolutely no problem with this and if was used to get rid of sites that contrasted the mainstream media's narrative, more people would be forced to use the mainstream media for their news which would make them happy. Something to think about.

    rusti November 26, 2016 at 5:01 am

    And sorry Max but "Naked Capitalism" a leading left-wing financial news blog"? I'd rather label it a practical and empirical financial news blog myself.

    While the level of discussion here is generally at a much deeper level than most sites and commenters don't fit into neat little ideological boxes, I don't think it's a particularly egregious generalization to call a site with readers that overwhelmingly support things like financial regulation, single-payer health care and post-office banking "left-wing".

    But Max himself is an interesting character. I've been scratching my head wondering how a guy one step removed (Sidney Blumenthal) from the Clintons' inner circles is ambitious about exposing the ludicrous claims made by those same people regarding Palestine and Syria.

    flora November 26, 2016 at 5:22 am

    The list of news sites on the said fact-free, unsourced, anonymous webpage are all, so far as I can tell, news sites that have disagreed with neocon foreign policy preferences on several occasions.

    JEHR November 26, 2016 at 1:58 pm

    I am so tired of the use of "left" and " right" and "progressive" and "libertarian" that when I see these words I go off into a daze. These words are bandied about in so many different ways for so many different reasons, that they have almost become meaningless. I would rather that people or organizations be described in detail who supposedly have these "left" "right" etc. characteristics, then I would know what was being claimed.

    clincial wasteman November 26, 2016 at 11:47 pm

    yes, and one good way to that sort of detailed description is to read here regularly for a while: there's hardly any political self-tagging or confessional drama going on, but any one person's comments over a few months do add up to a picture of how her/his life experience, unlabelled political principles, intellectual ( not the same as academic!) background and style of spontaneous reaction (yes Mr Mencken, 'humor!) all fit together. And this gradually reveals a lot more than Left-Right status updates or biographical oversharing ever could: not so much about the person - who has a right to all the unknownness s/he wants - but about the experiences and reasoning that might connect a statement that delights you and another that leaves you aghast when both come from the same person and within about a dozen lines. And all this with no fuzzy-fake "consensus" in sight: mutual respect across abyssal differences is hard-won and correspondingly cared for.

    "The internet" still gets blamed for "ruining face-to-face interaction" by people who probably flatter themselves about the richness of their past social lives. But I can't imagine when I'll ever have a spare few years and some mysterious money (not to mention some "social skills" and a valid passport ) with which to visit Maine, Oregon, Arizona, Buenos Aires (etc etc etc) for extended casual conversations there. In the absence of that option, whatever you all have the patience to write here counts as THE escape route out of political parochialism and geographical niche.

    Lambert Strether November 27, 2016 at 7:37 am

    > preparing the battlefield

    I like the idea some commenter had (too lazy to find it right now) that all these strategems were long-prepared, and in place for a Clinton victory. Now the Clinton faction in the political class is deploying them anyhow. They'd better hurry, because influence peddling at the Clinton Foundation isn't as lucrative as it once was .

    KK November 26, 2016 at 4:29 am

    Surely any site that accepts donations could be funded by a foreign power without knowing?
    ps A couple of my students make 50p a post for challenging negative posts on travel websites by making up how great was their experience.

    a different chris November 26, 2016 at 10:34 am

    And, um, so what? They can waste money anywhere they want. How much has the US spent over my lifetime propagandizing the Middle East and how did that work out?

    rusti November 26, 2016 at 4:50 am

    The Neera Tandeen tweet is revealing in that it shows how hypocritical all the pearl-clutching was over Trump's complete lack of discretion in pushing bogus and fabricated stories. A cursory glance through the rest of her feed shows a bunch of equally thoroughly scrutinized claims that the Putin/Comey/Deplorables triumvirate conspired to steal the election from the forces of Good.

    z November 26, 2016 at 5:21 am

    For long time readers this russian(chinese) propaganda should be obvious. And it is ok, get used to it. Great opportunity to learn "how to read between the lines", and when you understand, solidifying into a basic skill.

    "The only way to get smarter is by playing a smarter opponent." and now you have a good ones, not a cheap wapo columnist but organised, educated, trained information warfare hacks.

    we are on the early days, more to come, much worse to come.

    nmb November 26, 2016 at 5:25 am

    Be careful NC. MSM are in panic. They see that their propaganda is less and less effective and start targeting those who offer an alternative against their obsolete narratives. Be prepared: when they will realize that these don't work at all, their fake democracy will become an open dictatorship.

    Steve H. November 26, 2016 at 10:26 am

    President-elect Trump calling them liars may have unsettled them.

    It's good to know we have a strong leader protecting our backs!

    /s? Time will tell.

    David N November 26, 2016 at 5:31 am

    I loved naked capitalism's election coverage, but here is an anecdote of how it angered conventional liberals.

    I read a particle physics blog by Columbia mathematician Peter Woit, who wrote an election post-mortem (he occasionally writes about politics). Not Even Wrong is one of the most popular blogs in theoretical physics, I've several excellent physicists post in the comments to previous entries. I was very surprised to see Woit blame naked capitalism (and others) for the electoral defeat of Hillary Clinton, he's a very conventional thinker normally so I would have expected him to not even know about naked capitalism. I'm still surprised he knew about it.

    My guess? There is a lot of communication in the country between people who do read some of these 200 news media organizations, with the vast majority who stick to conventional sources such as the NYT, the WSJ, and who think that Vox and The Atlantic are intellectual sources. When people get exposed to alternative media for the first time, even educated people, their most likely response is some combination of anger, laughter, and asking if the writer also believes that 9/11 is an inside job.

    Anyway, this is what it looked like: http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=8906

    PlutoniumKun November 26, 2016 at 7:35 am

    I hate to get tin foily, but that blog is typical of a few I've seen – expressing real anger at the amorphous 'left' for not getting on board the Hilary train. There is an element of vengefulness in some of the writing and combined with the evidence of the article above, it seems there is an element within the establishment (the losing half) who are in full on McCarthy mode – and of course the first stage of a purge is to accuse the targets of being traitors and in the pay of foreign interests. Trump and the people around him are dangerous of course, but I think a defeated neolib/neocon establishment is equally dangerous. We are in worrying times, and its not just the far right we have to be worried about.

    john bougearel November 26, 2016 at 11:17 am

    Even normally level-headed Bill Black posted some rather biased opinionated op-eds here about P-Elect Trump. Which surprised me.

    Synoia November 26, 2016 at 9:44 pm

    he's a very conventional thinker

    And he is in the field of Physics research? Does that make it a Oxy-Moron or the dear Prof a complete Moron?

    Lambert Strether November 27, 2016 at 7:34 am

    > some rather biased opinionated op-eds

    Let's parse this

    1) Throw away the weasel words

    some rather biased opinionated op-eds -> biased opinionated op-eds

    2) Throw away the evidence-free

    biased opinionated op-eds -> opinionated op-eds

    3) Expand the abbreviations

    opinionated op-ed -> opinionated opinion editorial

    4) Eliminate redundancy

    opinionated opinion editorial -> opinion editorial

    So Bill Black wrote an "opinion editorial." Is there a problem with that?

    Marco November 26, 2016 at 8:37 am

    Woit also includes the NYT in his list of culprits so I don't know what planet he resides. Also interesting to note his jetting off to Paris as tonic. Oh the humanity!!

    craazyman November 26, 2016 at 8:40 am

    It's incredible how many otherwise smart people can't think for themselves.

    It's hard to know what to believe! You can believe your own eyes, but even your mind connects the dots without you knowing it.

    This is not the Washington Post's finest hour - although they probably haven't had one of those for years at this point. I'm down to the Redskins coverage in the WaPo, which is still quite good actually.

    I used to be a Washington Post paper boy, so I'l put one last quote from Charles Osgood

    It was while making newspaper deliveries, trying to miss the bushes and hit the porch, that I first learned about accuracy in journalism
    -Charles Osgood

    (All quotes from quotegarden.com)

    shinola November 27, 2016 at 12:05 am

    More people should read the historical "rantings" of Mark Twain, Mike Royko & Molly Ivins

    Joseph P. November 26, 2016 at 9:15 am

    I notice that Woit has disabled comments on this particular post (all other posts have comments enabled). Probably he justifies it by telling himself that he is running a physics related blog and isn't interested in promoting discussion on non-physics related matters like politics (but he still wants to promote his own political opinions on his physics blog!). It's typical of the fingers-in-the-ears reaction that ivory tower liberals to Trump's win.

    lyman alpha blob November 26, 2016 at 6:13 pm

    I am protesting his column by believing in string theory – that should teach him.

    David N November 26, 2016 at 7:05 pm

    One doesn't need string theory to explain the lyman-alpha forest though, just lambda-CDM cosmology :-)

    ggm November 26, 2016 at 10:42 pm

    Calling Susan out by name, misrepresenting her viewpoints, and then turning of comments is completely indefensible.

    I always felt he has needlessly politicized string theory research l by making his case against it primarily in popular science books and on his blog rather than in peer-reviewed journals and academic papers. Since when is it a good idea to let public perception influence our scientific whims? Whether or not his arguments are valid is beside the point, it wasn't the right way to go about attempting to influence the field.

    Sammy November 26, 2016 at 5:35 am

    I am re-posting the following from an insightful comment on the Liberty Blitzkrieg report on this scam site:

    "The anonymous "executive director" of the Propornot website, quoted by the Washington Post, was mostly a likely a "senior military intelligence" impostor cum serial teen pornographer named Joel Harding. He is facing a lawsuit over the copyright infringement of Internet-distributed (teen) pornography (Case No. 1:16-cv-00384-AJT-TCB) in the US District Court for the eastern district of Virginia, Alexandria division. This is in the public domain.

    BTW, Harding's fellow trolls have been known to ascribe the rank of Brig Gen to their pathetic troll leader in private messages to the unsuspecting.

    No wonder Joel Harding wished to remain the anonymous "executive director" whose laughably scientific work was quoted by Washington Post. But why didn't Washington Post's Craig Timberg check this up? Basic journalistic checks thrown out of the mixed gender bathroom window? Details of Harding's trolling activities are available on the very Internet that is trolled by Joel Harding through his 3,000-odd troll sites.

    And to think that I used to be an avid reader of Washington Post's science and Technology reports now galls me.

    There is a growing assumption that the patriotic paranoid activities of Joel Harding and associates are a cover for their Ukrainian teen pornography distribution business."

    EndOfTheWorld November 26, 2016 at 5:41 am

    Sigmund Freud called this "projection".

    The US MSM is all propaganda all the time-every bit as bad as Pravda ever was. RT now is the "anti-propaganda." They were even carrying Jesse Ventura and other Americans who are blacklisted by the MSM.

    This is a "hail mary pass."

    Pavel November 26, 2016 at 8:02 am

    A hail mary pass that was intercepted by the opposing team and run back for a touchdown.

    Methinks the WaPo, "PropOrNot", and the rest of the MSM involved with this stunt are going to have a lesson in The Streisand Effect. Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg (whom I greatly admire BTW) has said he already has many new followers and donors.

    EndOfTheWord November 26, 2016 at 8:39 am

    The hail mary pass was intercepted and run back for a touchdown. Ha, ha, ha. That's a good one, Mr. Pavel.

    hunkerdown November 26, 2016 at 6:18 am

    There's a Chrome addon in beta! Wow. I must say I'm impressed. It's like a porn blocker for liberals in crisis.

    This demands popcorn and much Nietzschean weaponized laughter.

    sd November 26, 2016 at 6:34 am

    Serious question here.

    What exactly is the origin of the Russia bashing that's been going on as of late? I feel like I missed some important public dis somewhere that would explain it all. Condoleeza Rice's general dated anti-Soviet attitude I could understand, but that doesn't explain the escalating bigotry pouring out of Obama and Clinton (and their various surrogates). Is it a case of a bomb in search of a war?

    EndOfTheWorld November 26, 2016 at 6:58 am

    Looks to me like it came out of the HRC campaign. LOL James Carville was talking about the KGB tampering with the vote tally .not knowing they've been out of business since 1991. The whole thing makes absolutely no sense, and it won't fly with the American public, many of whom watch RT, or may be married to or dating Russians. Even Randy Newman likes Putin enough to write a song about him.

    John November 26, 2016 at 9:17 am

    The funny thing is it's been an open secret that the Democratic party has known about electronic voting fraud (always swinging to the Right) for years but refuses to go near the subject publicly supposedly because they didn't want people to lose faith in election results and stop voting.

    John November 26, 2016 at 9:47 am

    Even today they are defending the results
    U.S. Officials Defend Integrity of Vote, Despite Hacking Fears
    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/us/politics/hacking-russia-election-fears-barack-obama-donald-trump.html?_r=0

    tgs November 26, 2016 at 10:26 am

    The Obama administration said on Friday that despite Russian attempts to undermine the presidential election , it has concluded that the results "accurately reflect the will of the American people."

    From the NYT article you mention. It is now axiomatic that the Putin government was actively attempting to subvert our election. This despite the fact that absolutely no compelling evidence has ever been given.

    integer November 26, 2016 at 7:37 am

    What exactly is the origin of the Russia bashing that's been going on as of late? I think it can be traced back to this .

    z November 26, 2016 at 2:45 pm

    After the nineties opening foreign influence was accepted and russia started integrating into the western world. Some years later the resurged nationalist kicked out western companies, broke cultural-social contacts.

    West is made on free trade-free business-free ideas flow. if russia not trading on common terms, west gonna take it by force. and russia holds one-fourth of fresh water, one-fifth of world forests, one sixth of arable but never before used land, and never before properly explored mineral wealth. All these can help to secure a prosperous 21.century for the west.

    Same like before the american conquest, only difference now local indigenous people wield nuclear weapons and have unlimited chinese support, so no rush let them make mistakes. (and they do, ukraine-syria-azerbaijan just the latest)

    WJ November 27, 2016 at 2:45 am

    I bet your funders can't wait to "properly explore" that Russian mineral wealth.

    PlutoniumKun November 26, 2016 at 7:41 am

    I don't think there is an easy answer to your question, but I think it goes around to the failed Ukrainian coup (well, partially failed) and the realisation within a certain element of the neocon establishment that Putin had been inadvertently strengthened by their policy failures in the Ukraine and Syria. I think there was a concerted element within the Blob to refocus on 'the Russian threat' to cover up their failures in the Middle East and the refusal of the Chinese to take the bait in the Pacific.

    This rolled naturally into concerns about cyberwar and it was a short step from there to using Russian cyberespionage to cover up the establishments embarrassment over wikileaks and multiple other failures exposed by outsiders. As always, when a narrative suits (for different reasons) the two halves of the establishment, the mainstream media is always happy to run it unquestioningly.

    So in short, I think its a mixture of genuine conspiracy, mixed in with political opportunism.

    Dirk77 November 26, 2016 at 8:44 am

    +1

    cocomaan November 26, 2016 at 8:53 am

    Don't forget Snowden and Assange. The intelligence community is, I'm sure, furious about those two. With Snowden still in Russia, it's basically a weeping sore on the intelligence community's face. Those people do not like exposure at all.

    I remember that, shortly after Snowden's revelations, the war drums really started to beat for Syria.

    a different chris November 26, 2016 at 10:43 am

    In all success* is the seeds of failure. Once upon a time, the "beating of war drums" was a great distraction from whatever ill's were currently affecting a nation. But the US now has such an overwhelming military that not only is there absolutely no threat to the US land mass, but for a given person there are at least two degrees of freedom between them and anybody actually involved in these wars themselves. We lost a soldier – ONE soldier – on Thanksgiving day and sure it was all over the news but how many USians actually know even a member of his family, let alone him? About zero to a first approximation.

    So it just isn't working as a distraction. TPTB I don't think really get that yet.

    *the word success here is used in a morally neutral sense

    Allegorio November 26, 2016 at 7:31 pm

    Likewise don't forget Chelsea/Bradley Manning! He was the one who put WikiLeaks on the map and is now paying a horrible price for his courage and love of humanity. His name is constantly dropped from the list of whistle blower heroes. Why? Because of his gender ambiguity? Whatever his gender Manning is an American hero worth remembering.

    fresno dan November 26, 2016 at 11:29 am

    PlutoniumKun
    November 26, 2016 at 7:41 am

    I think that's about right PlutoniumKun but I would add your moniker – the US is gonna spend a FORTUNE (I TRILLION dollars using Austin Powers voice) updating our nuclear arsenal. Can't really justify using ISIS, so the Soviet boogyman has to be resurrected .

    Lurker November 26, 2016 at 5:37 pm

    YES! You need a big bad enemy to justify expenditures on big bad weapons. ISIS ain't gonna cut it.

    integer November 26, 2016 at 8:02 pm

    Plutonium kun : "I'm hardly absorbed by your stomach or intestines and I'm expelled by your body, so in fact I can't kill people at all"

    (Curiosity finally got the better of me)

    grayslady November 26, 2016 at 8:30 am

    A friend of mine is convinced that Obama and the Beltway crowd have never gotten over Russia giving asylum to Edward Snowden. If you look at the timing between Snowden's revelations and the U.S. ginning up its anti-Russia talk and activities, there is some correlation.

    cocomaan November 26, 2016 at 8:54 am

    haha, I literally just posted this two inches above! +1

    I think the intelligence community, all those northern virginia folks, hate the fact that every day there's a traitor who has an outlet on twitter.

    witters November 26, 2016 at 6:09 pm

    Listen to Gore Vidal (in 1994!) and find out why: https://www.c-span.org/video/?61333-1/state-united-states

    ToivoS November 26, 2016 at 6:10 pm

    What exactly is the origin of the Russia bashing that's been going on as of late?

    That is very good question and it does not have a simple answer. I have been pondering this for 8 years now. The latest bout of Russia-hatred began as Putin began to re-assert their sovereignty after the disastrous Yeltsin years. This intensified after Georgia, Ukraine and Syria. In adddition the US was preprogrammed to hate Russia for historical reasons. Mostly because of the Soviet era but also when the US inherited the global empire from the Brits we also got some of their dislike of the Russian empire dating back to the 19th century.

    Allegorio November 26, 2016 at 7:49 pm

    It all started when Putin arrested the Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, when Putin put a stop to the shock therapy looting of Russia by the Harvard mafia and Jeffrey Sachs. Didn't he know that oligarch's are above the law? They are in the US. Didn't he know that money can buy you immunity from prosecution like it does in Europe and the US? Can't have that, hence the Ukraine, deprive him of his warm water naval base. Then there was the Crimean referendum. Out smarted again! Can't have that!

    WJ November 27, 2016 at 2:53 am

    Yes. There was a Michael Hudson piece posted here in 2014 that lays it all out. Apparently those wanting to bring "democratic institutions" to Russia haven't given up yet.

    This Propornot outfit has all the makings of a National Endowment for Democracy scam, including its sudden appearance in the Post, which has been publishing crazy regime-change-esque editorials on Russia for more than two years now.

    It's all so depressing.

    Mark Alexander November 26, 2016 at 6:37 am

    It's all my fault. I studied Russian in high school (4 years) and college (1 year), and even subscribed to Pravda briefly in college (as did all of my classmates) to improve reading skills. I also spent a month in Russia in 1971. This is how I became a dirty commie. By commenting on NC a half dozen times in the past, I have forever tainted it. Sorry!

    BTW, what is the W3C approved sarcasm tag? /sarc or /s?

    Disturbed Voter November 26, 2016 at 8:28 am

    I also took 4 years of Russian in HS. When in the Cold War, it is best to understand your opponents (not enemies), rather than be ignorant. That is how one can play chess and win and yes, it is as much a matter of intimidation and annoyance, as it is cold calculation. Bobby Fischer vs Boris Spassky. States have no enemies. Former allies become opponents and vice versa pragmatism rules.

    pebird November 26, 2016 at 1:32 pm

    Sometimes it isn't necessary.

    allan November 26, 2016 at 6:54 am

    " the kind of folks who make propaganda for brutal authoritarian oligarchies are often involved in a wide range of bad business."

    Sounds like half of the D.C. economy. And so the Democratic Party ends, not with a bang, but with a McCarthyite lynch mob.

    The Vole November 26, 2016 at 7:03 am

    Wow this is straight out of John LeCarre.

    divadab November 26, 2016 at 7:03 am

    Well Joe McCarthy was a Republican so this is yet another example of Democrats taking on that mantle of paranoid fear and war-mongering. Flipping Clintons, the best Republican President and candidate the Dems could come up with.

    Kathleen Smith November 26, 2016 at 7:45 am

    The MSM can no longer fool the people that there has been an economic recovery, that is why nobody believes the media anymore and that is why Donald Trump won the election. Watching news today is like watching a bad puppet show. The masses are finally waking up to the fact that their government has sold them down the river to big corporations and predatory bankers. Took the sheeple long enough.

    Kokuanani November 26, 2016 at 7:52 am

    I was dismayed to see a reference to this rotten WaPo article on Bill Moyers' Facebook. Usually he's much better than that.

    And based on the comments, folks are believing this junk.

    Escher November 26, 2016 at 8:21 am

    It's an idiotic new red scare, and I can tell you the well credentialed, supposedly smart liberals in my circles will eat it right up. Their critical thinking is completely out the window at this point, and they'll accept apparently anything to avoid coming to terms with Clinton having lost to Trump. It's terrifying.

    knowbuddhau November 26, 2016 at 12:47 pm

    Bummer. I'll always have a fondness for him from the Power of Myth interviews.

    Was surprised to find PoN recommended in an article on In These Times.

    http://inthesetimes.com/article/19658/20-lessons-from-the-20th-century-on-how-to-survive-in-trumps-america

    9. Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on your screen is there to harm you. Bookmark PropOrNot and other sites that investigate foreign propaganda pushes.

    It was so jarring I kept reading that last sentence, thinking I'd missed the snark. Fully expected it to end with "as an example," not to lend it cred.

    Harold November 26, 2016 at 5:39 pm

    The article you mention in In These Times is by Timothy Snyder :), who despite being a well-known historian is no mean propagandist himself, having suggested that the Ukrainians not the Soviets liberated Auschwitz. http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2014/03/07/crimea-putin-vs-reality/

    OIFVet November 26, 2016 at 5:46 pm

    Timothy Snyder is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. That he would recommend PoN is at least a small indication of who stands behind it. Snyder is has given bad odor to the term "historian" over the past three years. He is to objective history what Bernays was to objective journalism.

    Harold November 26, 2016 at 8:26 pm

    Snyder: "The army group that liberated Auschwitz was called the First Ukrainian Front." The NYR of Books has suppressed the comment section on its blog, probably to spare Snyder the embarrassment of having his howlers pointed out by readers.

    knowbuddhau November 26, 2016 at 7:03 pm

    Ah so, thanks to you both. Two tells made me suspicious: lots of apparently good advice, then the little drop of poison just nonchalantly dropped in the mix; and Yale historian ;) .

    My comment there hasn't made it out of moderation yet. But someone else tore into him for the same reason I did, recommending PoN:

    Because you have no idea who the hell they are, anymore than anyone else does, they've just released a list of non-MSM news sites that they disagree with. They smear long running and well trusted sites as "propaganda" outlets without offering any evidence or stating any sort of methodology. You have litereally abandoned the professional ethic which ought to go along with being a published.historian and University professor purely because it makes you FEEL BETTER.

    I just asked him, as a Yale historian, to please tell us how the list was compiled, or at least give some reason for his unqualified recommendation. I went on to say that I read several of the sites listed, esp. Counterpunch and of course, NC. Even helpfully provided a link to this article, saying the idea that NC pushes foreign propaganda is ludicrous, and the WaPo article was being thoroughly debunked here.

    Ended with "I call upon the author to explain! (h/t Nick Cave)"

    inode_buddha November 26, 2016 at 8:22 am

    WaPo Has been sounding increasingly shrill for the last year. Makes you wonder what they're hiding or what truth they're running from.

    polecat November 26, 2016 at 5:11 pm

    Hit em where it hurts .. PROFITS --

    **BOYCOTT AMAZON & The WASHINGTON POST !!

    ** Any and all who spew this crap

    ambrit November 26, 2016 at 9:38 am

    More likely, what "truth" 'they' are trying to manufacture. (When did the new 'owners' take up the reins at WaPo? There might be a correlation, and a causation involved)

    Inode_buddha November 26, 2016 at 10:29 am

    This is why I'm looking forward to any legal cases that may arise out of this - I plan to follow such *very* closely. Would love to see discovery documents upon the editorial and ownership staff . the legal equivalent of a public enema, "you shall have no more secrets "

    After all, didn't Fox News win a case essentially stating that it was OK to flat out lie and fabricate from whole cloth? Then why can't Democrat media organs do likewise?

    ambrit November 26, 2016 at 10:46 am

    Why didn't I think of that earlier? "Political Infotainment." If my reading serves me right, I was under the impression that newspapers of a hundred years ago and earlier displayed their political allegiances openly. A reader could easily work out the underlying story from separating "story" from "interpretation." Now, news outlets are supposedly impartial and pure of heart. Yet another cherished myth bites the dust. Perhaps it is better this way.

    John November 26, 2016 at 10:52 am

    Yes Fox Lies did win such a case. And if any fake "news" outlet should be on the list it is them.

    pebird November 26, 2016 at 1:35 pm

    Didn't we used to call "fake news" rumors? And when did newspapers stop printing rumors?

    Disturbed Voter November 26, 2016 at 8:24 am

    Per FDR .. sometimes we are better known by our enemies, than by our friends.

    Vedant Desai November 26, 2016 at 8:30 am

    Just check this out :

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

    Based on the evidence of above mentioned link, this "PropOrNot" can be part of a project of U.S. government to manipulate media to create an anti-Russia climate or more likely another method of attack on what they consider "Left" so status quo in economic policies of U.S. can be maintained.

    Susan C November 26, 2016 at 8:32 am

    What is going on with the press/MSM lately? It is like one big game of mind control. Is that what journalism is for – to persuade people to do what the system wants them to do and I hope I am not stretching here but a la Bernays? I mean when I think about this it is really sort of terrifying as the MSM has done little else but constantly broadcast to people that life in America is just fine and everyone is happy when in fact the opposite is true – there is a lot of hardship out there since the financial crisis, a lot of people never recovered, millions or tens of millions. So how can people not be drawn to alternative news sites which thankfully are quite abundant now and want political change? It just seems like the WaPo, NYT are living in this one little sliver of opulence and prosperity while the rest of us just shake our heads and wonder what has happened to this country, especially as we see their darling was not voted in as President. So now they are striking out and attempting to smear the reputations of good sites, And what is this fake news thing – I am not on social media and have no idea what the fake news is – is it about the pizza places? And why are the social media sites being censored – I had read on zh that when the Comey story hit before the election that that news was not trending at all which was very strange according to those who would know better.

    I don't know where all this fear is coming from in the MSM but I imagine they have lost their grasp of the American mind. I worry every time I tune in that I am being lied to and misled for a reason. A political reason. I grew up in the 50's and remember real journalism and I want it back. I want to know what is really going on. Everywhere.

    Allegorio November 26, 2016 at 7:11 pm

    It has worked for a hundred years, since WWI and the Creel Commission, the destruction of a vibrant American Left. Imagine the panic in the boardroom suites, the millennials no longer think that socialism is a bad word, and supported an aging leftist for president. OMFG! It's all Russia's fault providing an alternate plausible narrative. Can't have that. Outsourcing jobs to Asia, burdening college students with immense debts, incredible corruption personified by the Queen of Wall Street couldn't have anything to do with it. All power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. It's finally happened, they have over reached and are about to fall off the edge. Relish the panic.

    Escher November 26, 2016 at 8:41 am

    So this WaPo story is an example of the "fake news" we're supposed to be on the lookout for, right?

    cocomaan November 26, 2016 at 8:46 am

    When everything hits the fan, I'll be glad to have you other filthy propagandists in the FEMA camp alongside me, breaking rocks, eating gruel, and discussing the path to insanity.

    I really wish that reporters like those at the Post and the Times had done us all a favor and walked into the ocean after their abysmal election coverage. Why anyone listens to these outlets anymore is a question that I ponder at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering what the hell happened to my country.

    Butch In Waukegan November 26, 2016 at 9:04 am

    On PropOrNot's list is usslibertyveterans.org, which might be an indication its neocon origins.

    The site has few articles, no comments and its visit counter shows under 3,800 hits. It looks like it was created 4 months ago. It is propaganda because?

    Their stats page shows that ProOrNot's strategy might backfire. Yesterday was a record day for hits.

    Or maybe usslibertyveterans.org is a fishing lure.

    Jagger November 26, 2016 at 10:24 am

    Who could possibly have a problem with a site on the USS Liberty? Certainly narrows down the list of suspects considerably, assuming it wasn't a deliberate false track. For those not familiar with the USS Liberty, it was the USN ship attacked, nearly sunk with heavy casualties, by Israel in 1967. A lot of military still have bitterness towards Israel and the American leadership due to the lack of justice and cover-up over that incident.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident

    integer November 26, 2016 at 9:10 pm

    The surrounding of "Russian propaganda" with the letter 'y' reminds me a bit of this :

    (((Echo))) is a symbol used by anti-Semitic members of the alt-right to identify certain individuals as Jewish by surrounding their names with three parentheses on each side. The symbol became a subject of online discussions and media scrutiny in June 2016 after Google removed a browser extension that automatically highlights Jewish surnames in the style.

    Note that Israel has a lot to lose if Trump pulls the US out of the Middle East. Here's some Russian propaganda on the issue:

    Jagger November 26, 2016 at 10:32 pm

    Recent tweet by PropOrNot per Greenwald.

    https://theintercept.com/2016/11/26/washington-post-disgracefully-promotes-a-mccarthyite-blacklist-from-a-new-hidden-and-very-shady-group/

    Tila Tequila's Descent Into Nazism Is A Long Time Coming

    The self-proclaimed "alt-reich queen" has a long history of anti-Semitism, and an even longer one of internet trolling.

    Again unless this is a false lead, these guys are looking more and more Israeli or Israeli sympathizers. Other tweets per Greenwald at same link also suggest a pretty low maturity level. Possibly kids or college level??

    Old Hickory November 26, 2016 at 9:20 am

    The WaPo story is in today's Greensboro (N.C.) News & Record. Front page, above the fold. Sheesh.

    Tom Stone November 26, 2016 at 9:26 am

    This is a lot worse than "Yellow Cake" and it scares the pants off me. This is the "Official line", signed off on by the editors of WaPo. Think about that for a minute. And then think about the campaign to get the EC to enthrone HRC.

    Trump dissed the MSM and they are pissed off, so are their masters who wanted Obama to slide through TPP in the period between Hillary's win and the inauguration. They blew more than $1Billion on a loser and they may have decided that losing is not acceptable and that it will be HRC on the throne, whatever it takes. The recklessness displayed by the MSM here is breathtaking at a moment when the USA is more divided than it has been since the election of 1860.

    ambrit November 26, 2016 at 9:48 am

    Add this to the "YouTube Heros" project,
    see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh_1966vaIA
    and the nascent "fake news site" purge program,
    see: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-facebook-crack-down-adverts-appearing-fake-news-sites-us-election-trump-2016-11
    and one sees a coordinated meta project to "sanitize" the public's sources of information.
    I'm leaning towards your take on this. Joe McCarthy had nothing on these present "operators."

    Patricia November 26, 2016 at 4:43 pm

    Hero youtube vid ("mass flag videos!") has 918K dislikes to 29k likes. Encouraging

    tgs November 26, 2016 at 10:36 am

    it scares the pants off me

    I'm with you Tom Stone. There is nothing funny about this. The MSM at this point is the greatest purveyor of fake news on the planet, I am talking about not just CNN and Fox, but the BBC, France24 and so on.

    Pretty much everything they have said and every video they has shown on east Aleppo is either a lie or a fake. As someone noted the other day (I can't remember who) if the stories about east Aleppo were actually true, then the Russians and Syrians have destroyed approximately 900 hospitals – including the 'last pediatric hospital in east Aleppo' which has been completely demolished on at least three separate occasions in the last few months. The main stream outlets don't even try to be consistent.

    The people who run things here and in Europe are apparently desperate – and this latest move is an indication of how desperate they actually are. It is indeed scary.

    HBE November 26, 2016 at 11:11 am

    It's 90 hospitals not 900, but 90 is just as ridiculous given the whole country of Syria only has 88 hospitals/clinics.

    fresno dan November 26, 2016 at 11:36 am

    tgs
    November 26, 2016 at 10:36 am

    I am publicly apologizing to Sarah Palin who I used to think was a dingbat for all of her criticism of the MSM aka Lame stream media. She was far, far more correct than I ever thought possible.

    But look at the silver lining – how many people like me who thought that the large media got the essential facts correct can now see how much we're being fed pure propaganda .how much of what you see depends on what your looking for .

    MRLost November 26, 2016 at 9:54 am

    Weapons of Mass Distraction. Another nail in the coffin of credibility of the NYT and WaPo. Recall after the Stupid War and how there were zero weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq that the NYT and Wapo declined to mention or explore their own culpability in beating the drums of war. This will be more of the same.

    John Wright November 26, 2016 at 11:11 am

    The Times had a retrospective on their actions on May 26,2004. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/world/from-the-editors-the-times-and-iraq.html

    "Some critics of our coverage during that time have focused blame on individual reporters. Our examination, however, indicates that the problem was more complicated. Editors at several levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper. Accounts of Iraqi defectors were not always weighed against their strong desire to have Saddam Hussein ousted. Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all."

    So the Times DID admit some culpability, but it wasn't as if the Times volunteered to donate a portion of their profits(deepen their losses?) to help Iraqi victims or US soldiers and their families.

    And given the Times Syria coverage, where even the sanctimonious Nick Kristof (August 28, 2013) called on for Obama to bomb Syria for credibility reasons, nothing has changed at the Times.

    "Yet there is value in bolstering international norms against egregious behavior like genocide or the use
    of chemical weapons. Since President Obama established a "red line" about chemical weapons use, his
    credibility has been at stake: he can't just whimper and back down."

    The Times playbook is to parrot what TPTB wants to do and then if the readers subsequently revolt in disgust, apologize later.

    After I quit my digital subscription to the Times, it seems I'm limited to 10 articles/month. This might be more than the safely recommended monthly dose of the NYTimes.

    clarky90 November 26, 2016 at 3:25 pm

    The dissimulation, the feigned ignorance (the irony). During the 1930s, the New York Times actually acted as propaganda agents for Stalin. They collaborated with the Soviet Security Services to prevent the rescue of millions of Ukrainian peasants (deplorables).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty

    "In 1932 Duranty received a Pulitzer Prize for a series of reports about the Soviet Union, 11 of them published in June 1931. He was criticized then and later for his denial of widespread famine (1932–33) in the USSR, most particularly the mass starvation in Ukraine. Years later, there were calls to revoke his Pulitzer; The New York Times, which submitted his work for the prize in 1932, wrote that his articles constituted "some of the worst reporting to appear in this newspaper."

    Elizabeth Burton November 26, 2016 at 4:03 pm

    Editors were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper.

    And there you have it, boys and girls, the one driving force behind journalism as practiced in the corporate media. If I had been paid for every time I was told to fudge a story lest the local broadcast stations break it first, I would have been able to pay my mortgage.

    The Trumpening November 26, 2016 at 10:06 am

    This whole Russian propaganda campaign is nothing more then elites attempting to slam shut the Overton Window that the Trump campaign has pried open a bit this year. This article explains why they will most likely fail:

    http://thefutureprimaeval.net/the-overton-bubble/

    simjam November 26, 2016 at 10:11 am

    I suspect that PropOrNot's outburst was developed during the campaign by well heeled and connected Hilary supporters to be unveiled after the election to muzzle increasingly influential web sites including NC. As it stands PropOrNot shot a blank. If Hilary had won the campaign against "fake news" would probably have taken on a more ominous tone.

    Mel November 26, 2016 at 11:39 am

    Wolf mentioned that the list will function as a dog-whistle for money - that is, advertisers - telling them about the dangerous places. Maybe not shooting a blank in the short run. In the long run, of course, advertisers will follow the eyeballs anywhere.

    flora November 26, 2016 at 12:39 pm

    maybe David Brock is still correcting the record? ;) http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/david-brock-donald-trump-donor-network-231588

    Oil Dusk November 26, 2016 at 10:14 am

    The MSM became so biased during the Presidential election, it drove many Americans toward social media where you could at least view campaign speaches unfiltered. The same process is now being applied in the support of manmade climate change alarmism with hopefully the same result

    witters November 26, 2016 at 6:17 pm

    Go away. Stop smearing NC with climate denialism. You, sir, are a troll.

    pretzelattack November 26, 2016 at 10:22 pm

    i think you meant the same process is applied in the support of oil company propaganda. the msm slavishly supported the pro fracking clinton, slavishly acted for years as if there were an actual scientific debate, instead of fossil fuel shills vs scientists.

    Uahsenaa November 26, 2016 at 10:15 am

    I really hope this doesn't get buried in the comments, because it's important to note that Ames is actually incorrect. He would have been right as recently as 3 years ago but no longer is.

    The provisions of the Smith-Mundt act that prevented materials produced by the BGG from being used for domestic purposes were repealed by the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 (actually passed in 2013, when incorporated into the NDAA), which states:

    The Secretary and the Broadcasting Board of Governors are authorized to use funds appropriated or otherwise made available for public diplomacy information programs to provide for the preparation, dissemination, and use of information intended for foreign audiences abroad about the United States, its people, and its policies, through press, publications, radio, motion pictures, the Internet, and other information media, including social media, and through information centers, instructors, and other direct or indirect means of communication.

    It also contains a provision that supposedly prevents the BBG from influencing domestic public opinion, yet also says the following.

    Nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit the Department of State or the Broadcasting Board of Governors from engaging in any medium or form of communication, either directly or indirectly, because a United States domestic audience is or may be thereby exposed to program material, or based on a presumption of such exposure.

    Worth noting: passed under Obama and discounted at the time but venues such as Mother Jones, who did the heavy lifting of telling progressives they were paranoid.

    Uahsenaa November 26, 2016 at 10:18 am

    Mother Jones link .

    Katharine November 26, 2016 at 11:36 am

    Thanks for this information!

    I am guessing the proviso you quote may have been intended to cover the possibility of people in places like Florida hearing broadcasts aimed at Cuba or other targets, but it certainly raises questions.

    What I find most despicable in all this is the cowardice of these people making up their accusations and refusing to say who they are. Beneath contempt.

    Uahsenaa November 26, 2016 at 2:47 pm

    As a loophole it's not perfect (the intent of the primary provision it qualifies seems rather clear on its face), but we're talking about people who wrote elaborate memos justifying torture and extra judicial murder, and who went before Congress (i.e. Holder) to claim that "due process" does not necessarily mean "judicial process." A loophole like that is more than enough to judge such activities legal enough. I certainly can't imagine anyone in the current administration prosecuting it.

    Yves Smith Post author November 27, 2016 at 12:13 am

    Ames tells me Pando has a legal opinion to the contrary.

    lyman alpha blob November 26, 2016 at 10:19 am

    In regards to all this 'fake news' and 'Russian propaganda' hysteria, one potential problem I keep seeing mentioned is that certain sites could be banned from FleeceBook thereby destroying these sites' page hits and ad revenue.

    I don't use the FleeceBook so I guess I don't understand how this works. I can come to this or any other website any time I want so why would I care that it's been banned by FleeceBook? I don't remember exactly how I first heard of NC but I'm guessing I followed a link from one of the other left-leaning sites I read regularly (which coincidentally also are authored by Boris Badinov according to the WaPo). Is FB sort of like AOL back in the day where AOL users thought they were surfing the intertubes but in reality were in some sort of AOL-approved pen? And if that's the case I have to wonder how long it will be before FB becomes just like AOL is today, ie mainly used by the less internet savvy. I already hear rumors that the youngsters consider FB something only old people use.

    I am genuinely interested if anyone can explain this – would it really hurt websites that much to be banned by FB? Wouldn't there be a backlash against FB for doing so?

    PS: The thing that made me start using NC as my go-to source for news besides the excellent original financial reporting was the fact that you guys started including regular links to sites like BAR, Counetrpunch, etc that I was already reading anyway. I feel like I can read here without missing out on what was going on elsewhere – there's only so much one can read in a day. Keep up the great work!

    Yves Smith Post author November 26, 2016 at 1:33 pm

    I would assume that's how they intend to hurt these sites, but we get virtually no traffic from Facebook. However, being banned from FB would seriously dent out policy influence.

    Jess November 26, 2016 at 3:48 pm

    The thing is, it would prevent people like me from linking to NC stories in our personal posts, or in replies to posts from our FB friends.

    polecat November 26, 2016 at 5:17 pm

    Well now they gotcha were they want ya

    don't .. use Faceborg -- .. see that was easy .

    same with GooGOO, TWITTED etc. .

    Jess November 26, 2016 at 8:09 pm

    Unfortunately, Faceborg is the best way for me to stay in touch with certain people. For example, it has a closed group called FDL-LLN which is limited to former commenters on FireDogLake. (LLN stands for Late Late Night, which was a subforum for people to post music and discuss musical artists; the LLN heading was used for the FB group out of, I believe, both nostalgia and the friendships that many formed as FDL "pups".)

    In addition, if you post an NC link on FB, it gets seen by many people who might not otherwise become aware of the site.

    polecat November 27, 2016 at 2:20 am

    well .. by all means go ahead and continue to be used as product, because THAT"S the only thing of import by the likes of zuckerberg.

    homeroid November 27, 2016 at 2:39 am

    Ah Jess I miss LLN and Suz an Tut and all the rest. But not enough to go Faceborg. Somethings are lost some remain. I still have a phone which i use every so often.
    Bob.

    skippy November 27, 2016 at 3:44 am

    After a few years of FB econ sites, hashing things out with the usual suspects, things began to increasingly change as the primaries got to the wire. Once solid commenters replete with knowlage and experience began to mimic the very people and camps they once railed against.

    It was on then when I took on these people for such actions that I started to get the FB treatment, ending in privacy washing.

    Disheveled Marsupial . especially when noting Hillary's history and bad side, sad to think it might have been one of the old gang that put in a complaint to FB.

    WhatsNotToLike November 26, 2016 at 10:20 am

    There is something bizarre about this whole scenario.

    PropOrNot is asserting that the sites on the 'List", both right and left, were responsible for the Clinton loss by spreading false Russian propaganda. This would make more sense, as a political project, if Clinton had won. Asking the Trump DOJ and Trump's/Comey's FBI to investigate the asserted causes of Trump's win is bizarre.

    It only makes sense, IMHO, if this project was already in the works pre-election anticipating a Clinton win, where it would have had the benefit of targeting both the right and the left and continuing the drum beat for war. If that is the case, the losers appear to be too shell-shocked or committed, financially or ideologically, to think through the implications of letting this go forward.

    I do like the idea of NC, and other left-wing sites, forming a coalition with right-wing sites to take legal action. Ralph Nader's "Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State" comes to mind.

    Skip Intro November 26, 2016 at 3:29 pm

    The site was apparently registered on Aug. 21 2016, when the establishment still felt confident that the ascension of the empress was a done deal.

    WJ November 27, 2016 at 3:09 am

    Wasn't the reality of Russia intervention in Syria well underway by that time as well? Wasn't the whole US Syrian ploy dependent on everybody selling the people a clear distinction between evil Assad, evil ISIS, and good moderates (ahem al-quaeda)?

    That narrative was clearly no longer believed even by the journalists writing it. Why? Sites like this one and others. Why does it matter? Because aim was to get rid of Assad to cut Russia out of Mideast, having failed to achieve that goal two years earlier in Ukraine. Cui bono?

    Allegorio November 26, 2016 at 6:41 pm

    Excellent observation, preparation for a post Killery election purge of the alternate media.

    pretzelattack November 26, 2016 at 7:19 pm

    ah, that makes sense. and why waste a good purge even if plan a doesn't quite work out?

    nippersdad November 26, 2016 at 8:13 pm

    Good points. Also, IIRC, internet governance is due to be turned over to a non-governmental organization in the not too distant future. Might this not be a way of achieving the elimination of net neutrality during a Democratic Administration that would not want to be seen as sticking the knife in themselves?

    In that scenario, it would look a lot like the present Administration is secretly working the refs in the same way that they tried to push the TPP and its' associated ISDS provisions before the whistle was blown on them.

    Light a Candle November 26, 2016 at 10:37 am

    Wow, this is surreal. Edward Bernays on steroids.

    This whole bizarre "fake news" meme along with the and the Russians are coming is getting widespread media traction including Vanity Fair. It's getting repeated in Canadian media too.

    Now PropOrNot not is not credited as the source but the more plausible sounding Foreign Policy Research Institute and lots of references to the Washington Post's "reporting".

    I think this is a deliberate campaign to discredit progressive and independent news sources. God forbid that citizens should read a variety of sources and make up their own minds.

    jo6pac November 26, 2016 at 11:28 am

    Yes eddy b. meets Eric Hoffers True Believers.

    NC Please keep up the wonderful work done here.

    Stephanie November 26, 2016 at 10:40 am

    I have wondered for about a year now if someone is handing out anti-Russian story quotas – or maybe anti-Russian story cash, with a bonus for anything that goes viral. I'm not sure how else you explain stuff like this from a Gawker site that was mainly focused on minimum wage law and whether the Tilted Kilt could legally fire you for being too fat.

    This current listicle feels very much the same, except with less professionalism and more credulity. Either someone is getting paid enough not to care how asinine this looks, or the inmates really are running the media asylum.

    S Haust November 26, 2016 at 10:58 am

    Thanks a lot for noticing this.
    Provides me a one-click route to a long list of my favorite sources.
    Don't need to bother with bookmarks anymore.

    OIFVet November 26, 2016 at 11:02 am

    Naked Capitalism is in great company: BAR, Counterpunch, Antiwar, Consortium News. I didn't need to read these sites to come to my views though, all they did is to confirm what I had come to believe all on my own: that Hillary is a corrupt warmonger, that the American government has been captured by the moneyed elites, that the Democrat Party is a rat nest of neoliberal infestation. And while I was naturally predisposed toward Russia by virtue of where I was born and by Bulgarian history, my college career was marked by my support for all of the bad policies that brought us the new Cold War with Russia: NATO expansion, the bombing of Serbia, the economic ruin of Russia, the unipolar world order. I was young, stupid, and ambitious. Later on I simply settled into profound indifference toward Russia and a general anti-war attitude brought about by my own service. It wasn't until the hysterical MSM crapstorm of breathless smears about Sochi that I began to notice the US policies against Russia. So for me, the most effective pro-Russia propaganda outlets proved to be US MSM, WaPo and NYT being the most effective of all. Just one of life's little ironies. So WaPo wants to sling mud and go on a witch hunt? I suggest that they indict themselves first and foremost, for being a mindless disseminators of US government propaganda.

    Dave November 26, 2016 at 11:10 am

    Naked Capitalism is my home page and the first thing I read. If it's Russian Propaganda, I would like to offer a big Thank You to Russia. -sarc.

    Consider the Bezor's attack a positive, he will introduce thousands of new readers to this site.

    S Haust November 26, 2016 at 11:12 am

    "a new 'Eurasian' empire stretching from Dublin to Vladisvostok"

    Why Dublin? With a flick of the finger, they could have had the flyover terrain between there and Shannon.

    And why Vladivostock? You can go a lot farther East than that and still be in Russia.

    For Pete's sake, why have they not included Sapporo and the rest of Japan. Aren't they vulnerable too?

    And the Aleutians; for that matter, why not the rest of Alaska too? After all, we only bought it from them at a knock-down price. Anyone knows they got
    a raw deal. Shouldn't they want that back too?

    Katharine November 26, 2016 at 11:40 am

    You forget their target audience is ignorant of geography, inter alia. They had to stick to names people might be able to place at least vaguely.

    PlutoniumKun November 26, 2016 at 1:38 pm

    Shannon Airport would have been appropriate as during the Cold War it was Aeroflots main base for flying on to Cuba. Its now only a short drive from Trumps Irish golf course.

    Ted November 26, 2016 at 11:21 am

    Conflicted. On the one hand, as a long time reader of a diversity of listed websites (on the lefty side mostly), this comes across as ham fisted and, frankly, bizarre. Not only the laughable story itself, but that it has been picked up and reposted by a host of other rather mainstream and 'liberal' surrogates.

    It is *bizarre* because Russia today is nothing of what the boogeyman USSR was in times past: an alternative political-economic arrangement to then industrial capitalism. Russia Today (wink, wink) is as capitalist and as democratic as any of the other players on this particular stage (plenty of the former, not so much of the latter). An economic competitor, sure, but no USSR. So the anti-Russia/Putin propaganda just consistently reads hollow to anyone who spends any time just reading run of the mill reporting of goings on in the world (reporting aside from propaganda stories). In other words, if you are a relatively informed reader of diverse sources and traveler, the anti-Russia stuff just comes across as contrived from the get go.

    But then again, I got a chance to visit with some 1000s of academic colleagues at a national convention recently. This is where the 'conflicted' point comes from. As Good Liberals, academics dine daily on a strict NYT, WAPO, NPR diet, with the more 'edgy' types hanging at VOX and HuffPo. And they BELIEVE everything their beloved media tells them through these sources, without reservation (and with the requisite snark and smirk). The academy is nearly completely captured and now so deeply immersed in its echo chamber that any information that might challenge its perception of the world is immediately dismissed as nefarious propaganda (either paid for by the Koch bros, or Putin). Of course, since the elite academy is overwhelmingly Ivy educated, their worldview loops back to their Ivy educated friends at said media outlets. Creating a bubble that is increasingly impenetrable to reason and critical analysis.

    Moose and Squirrel must DIE November 26, 2016 at 11:28 am

    Lots of panic for the Washington regime. The clownish asshole loser that they carefully groomed proved less repulsive than their chosen Fuehrer Clinton. Now they are distraught to see that their enemy Russia sucks much less than the USA.

    Russians get a much better deal than the US subject population. The Russian head of state has approval ratings that US politicians scarcely dream of. Russia complies with the Paris Principles, the gold standard for institutionalized human rights protection under international review. The USA does not. Russia's incorruptible President keeps kleptocrats in check, while the US banana republic installs them in high office. Russia complies with the rule of law: they refrain from use or threat of force and rely on pacific dispute resolution, using proportional and necessary force in compliance with UN Charter Chapter VII. The US shits on rule of law, interpreting human rights instruments in bad faith and flouting jus cogens to maintain impunity for the gravest crimes. In the precise terms of Responsibility to Protect, the US government does not even meet the minimal test for state sovereignty: compliance with the International Bill of Human Rights, the Rome Statute, and the UN Charter. Naturally the US is bleeding legitimacy and international standing, and Russia is going from strength to strength. If Russia invaded, we would strew flowers and sweets.

    The collapse of the USSR did Russia a world of good. Now it's time for the USA to collapse and free America.

    nothing but the truth November 26, 2016 at 11:29 am

    it boils down to Soros vs Putin. Anyone who is not with Soros is with Putin, according to Soros. Soros cannot digest the death threat he was given by Putin, to stay away from Russia or else. Since Soros was born in old communist europe, he seems to believe he has the right to regime change there. And he has been very successful – primarily because he is in bed with the CIA and the Russians are just now waking up again.

    Ignacio November 26, 2016 at 12:01 pm

    So sorry! I am a foreign "propagandist" reader, commenter and contributer from Spain, and I am just shoked to see this! How sad is this, it pretty much looks like McCarthysm again!!!!

    Edward Harrison November 26, 2016 at 12:06 pm

    Hi Naked Capitalism. I haven't been on this site for some time. But I felt it necessary to comment due to an ad hominem attack from a commenter "James" regarding the show I produce at RT called Boom Bust.

    From my vantage point as producer at RT, I have been able to see the whole anti-Russia campaign unfold in all its fury. I have a lot of thoughts on this but I want to restrict my comments to the specific argument James makes. here:

    "it's also obvious that RT invites him on the network because he lambasts the American political establishment and weakens the public's confidence in its leaders. This is clearly a goal of Moscow, and they use people like Steve Keen to do it. I'm sure Steven Keen doesn't think of his role that way, but RT and Russian intelligence certainly do."

    Since I produce the show that Steve Keen appears on, I am well-placed to give you a view on this. James' comment is flat out false. What James writes is something he has fabricated in his imagination – connecting dots he believes should be connected based on no first hand evidence whatsoever.

    What actually happens on Boom Bust is this:

    Since no one I work with at RT has a sophisticated background in economics, finance or financial reporting, they give us a wide berth in putting together content for our show with nearly no top down dictates at all. That means we as American journalists have a pretty much free hand to report economic news intelligently and without bias. We invite libertarian, mainstream, non-mainstream, leftist, Democratic commentators, Republican commentators – you name it. As for guests, they are not anti-American in any way shape or form. They are disproportionately non-mainstream.

    We have no pro-Russian agenda. And that is in part because Russia is a bit player on the economic stage, frankly. Except for sanctions, it has mostly been irrelevant on our show since inception.

    Let me share a strange anecdote on that. We had a guest on our show about three years ago, early in my tenure. We invited him on because he had smart things to say about the UK economy. But he had also written some very negative things about Putin and Russia. Rather than whitewash this we addressed it specifically in the interview and asked him an open-ended question about Russia, so he could say his piece. I was ASTONISHED when he soft-pedaled his response and made no forceful case as he had done literally days ago in print. This guy clearly self-censored – for what reason I don't know. But it is something that has stayed with me ever since.

    The most important goal from a managerial perspective has been that our reporting is different i.e. covers missing and important angles of the same storyline that are missing in the mainstream media or that it covers storylines that are missing altogether.

    Neither Steve Keen nor any other guest on our show appears "because he lambasts the American political establishment". This is false. He appears on our show because he is a credible economist who provides a differentiated view on economics and insight that we believe will help our viewers understand the global economy. If Paul Krugman had something to say of that nature and would appear on our show, we would welcome him. In fact, I and other producers have reached out to him many times to no avail, especially after we had Gerald Friedman give his take on the dust-up surrounding Bernie Sanders' economic plan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yna275KzuDQ

    Look, I understand the scepticism about RT and its motives. It IS a state-funded news outlet with news story angles that sometimes contrast sharply with western media. And it has not been critical of the Russian government as far as I can tell. But you can't ascribe nefarious motives to individual economists or reporters based on inaccurate or false third hand accounts. You are just making things up, creating a false narrative based on circumstantial evidence. This is just adding to the building peer pressure associated with what almost seems like an orchestrated campaign to discredit non-mainstream sources of news.

    ambrit November 26, 2016 at 4:18 pm

    You are in good company with that suspicion of a campaign to "sanitize" the public's sources of information. If one were to consider the Corporate sector as the equivalent of a state, then almost all news sources are liable to extra strong scrutiny. Going back to Bernays, the "shepherding" of the news sources used by the majority of the population is crucial to maintaining control of public perceptions. In that sense, the present struggle for control of the news narrative is understandable.
    Keep up the good work.

    shinola November 26, 2016 at 12:13 pm

    NC " a leading left-wing financial news blog"?

    Isn't that a compliment? I mean it does say "leading" (and I have to agree).

    As for "left-wing", well NC does frequently feature articles by Bill Black & others associated with the University of Mo. Kansas City; and UMKC has long been known for its lefty, socialist/commie leanings – I know because my 81 y.o. mother told me so (and I had a prof. there teaching "History of Economic Thought" who came right out & claimed to be a Socialist – horrors!)

    DJG November 26, 2016 at 12:14 pm

    Lambert foresaw that there would be a witch hunt after the election. He indicated that it would come from the Democratic Party and the conserva-Dem establishment. And, ecco!, a witch hunt. So what could possibly be the source?

    I am noticing on my Facebook feeds that the ooshy liberals are in a feeding frenzy: They believe that they are victims of some breakdown in information. The shocker was that the news being passed around in DemPartyLandia was that the Democrats were on the verge of retaking both houses of Congress and the presidency. Meanwhile, Water Cooler showed that the neither house of Congress was truly in play and the presidential race was a dead heat. After the election, various lists began to circulate. The one cited by Yves isn't the first. I saw one list that included The Onion, The Daily Currant, and Duffel Blog. You mean Duffel Blog's story on U.S. soldiers trying en masse to join the Canadian army isn't true?

    Further, much of liberaldom is now deep into trying to flip the Electoral College or amend the Constitution immediately, as well as the Trump as Fascist meme.

    Yes, America, land of self-proclaimed bad-asses, turns out to be the realm of panic. And many policies and stances are going to have to be suddenly revised: Ooshy liberals, who supported charter schools for years, are suddenly shocked that DeVos of Amway is a charter-school addict. The disastrous foreign-policy adventures of the last few years have to be offloaded very soon on Trump, so that Obama can be thanked for being scandal-free.

    And, evidently, the conspiracy is now so big that it can't be blamed solely on Al-Jazeera.

    flora November 26, 2016 at 12:28 pm

    yes. a lot of people have stopped thinking straight, or stopped thinking:
    http://www.gocomics.com/michaelramirez/2016/11/19

    Ignacio November 26, 2016 at 3:42 pm

    Isn't this a good run to autodestruction?
    -I mean, Dem party autodestruction?

    susan the other November 26, 2016 at 12:15 pm

    This means we need more outlets besides Google and Facebook; outlets impervious to witch hunts – maybe offshore enterprises, after all that's the trend. The more the merrier for manufacturing dissent – in a good sense. What Russia does cannot harm us but it is always good to hear their take; and China is interesting as well. We get such gobbledegook from MSM we would never understand a single issue without alternative news. It's a little late for them to be all hysterical about losing their grip – they've been annoying us and boring us to death for 5 decades; and selling us down the river. I'm amazed they have a following at all.

    Isolato November 26, 2016 at 12:21 pm

    I was horrified to hear this regurgitated on NPR last night w/o the slightest question. Proof? We don' need no steenkin' proof!

    Lambert Strether November 27, 2016 at 7:43 am

    If you have an NPR tote bag, demand a refund!

    TedWa November 26, 2016 at 2:05 pm

    The military industrial complex and all the elites are behind all this massive propaganda stuff and fake news. They want war and nothing is going to stand in their way – not the democrats, not the republicans, no one. HRC knew this – hence her "paranoia" about Russia. It's crazy. I hope Trump has the balls to stand up against them. Thanks NC for being here --

    Rostale November 26, 2016 at 2:06 pm

    With the Washington Post at least, there is a pretty handy avenue of response. Namely that its CEO Jeff Bezos, who clearly approves of the editorial policy, is also owner of Amazon.com If you don't approve of Mr. Bezos using his media platform to revive McCarthyism and Yellow Journalism, keep that in mind when doing your holiday shopping, and when you see that item you were thinking of buying on amazon, take a moment to see about buying it elsewhere, even if it costs a bit more to do so. If Mr. Bezos want to use the Washington Post to promote censorship of media control, make him pay for it in a drop in Amazon's stock price.

    Calvin madamombe November 26, 2016 at 2:18 pm

    "Information globalism is a free flow of information across the world irrespective of race, source geography. Its up to a competent reader being selective- choosing what sort of information they want consuming. Its the bases of choice, a basic human right."

    Don Lowell November 26, 2016 at 2:57 pm

    Surely there is a lot of stuff going on and its good to flush it out. Wisconsin recount is a good place to start

    I think its local hacking as well as the rooskies..

    flora November 26, 2016 at 9:18 pm

    The Clinton campaign announced today they'll be joining the recount effort. Greens start a recount effort, Friday WaPo prints vile rumors, Saturday Clinton campaign announces it is joining the Wisc recount effort. This is banana republic stuff.

    winstonsmith November 26, 2016 at 3:42 pm

    Here is Glenn Greenwald's take: Washington Post Disgracefully Promotes a McCarthyite Blacklist From a New, Hidden, and Very Shady Group . I heartily agree with:

    One of the most egregious examples is the group's inclusion of Naked Capitalism, the widely respected left-wing site run by Wall Street critic Yves Smith. That site was named by Time Magazine as one of the best 25 Best Financial Blogs in 2011 and by Wired Magazine as a crucial site to follow for finance, and Smith has been featured as a guest on programs such as PBS' Bill Moyers Show. Yet this cowardly group of anonymous smear artists, promoted by the Washington Post, has now placed them on a blacklist of Russian disinformation.

    From the propornot website (deliberately not linking it) the YYY thing is really creepy.

    The YYYcampaignYYY is an effort to crowdsource identifying Russian propaganda outlets and sympathizers. To participate, when you see a social-media account, commenter, or outlet echoing Russian propaganda themes, highlight it with YYYs accordingly!

    Romancing The Loan November 26, 2016 at 4:42 pm

    Reminds me of the (((name of jewish person))) thing that popped up very briefly in the right wing fever swamp only to be instantly proudly self-added by a ton of jewish liberals.

    Elizabeth Burton November 26, 2016 at 4:20 pm

    I have come to the conclusion, based on personal observation, that anyone who includes the words "our leaders" in their narrative is not to be trusted. Granted, it's a personal thing, as I have been advocating whenever possible that we should under no circumstances apply that label to our elected officials but should instead always use their proper designation: "public servants."

    Anyone want to wager a thorough check of the MSM for the last fifty years or more would eventually uncover the first one of their ilk to refer to elected officials as "our leaders"? To then be followed by all of the others?

    Because how better to persuade the voting public that they should just fill in the bubble or push the button without asking a lot of silly questions about issues than by subtly brainwashing them with the implication the people they're voting for are better equipped to deal with the important stuff? Because "our leaders" are clearly better qualified to make the decisions than we are.

    George Phillies November 26, 2016 at 7:27 pm

    Also look for folks who refer to America as the Homeland. Heimatland sounds snazzier in the original German.

    shinola November 27, 2016 at 12:24 am

    "Homeland Security" had a creepy feel to it the 1st time I heard/read it

    Skip Intro November 27, 2016 at 2:28 am

    Good one. And referring to the president as our 'Commander in Chief' is also a pretty revolting tell.

    hunkerdown November 27, 2016 at 12:00 am

    Interesting. Google's n-gram viewer shows that "our leaders" is much more prevalent in books during and after wartime, peaking in 1942-44, with a somewhat steady rise between just before WW1 and the end of WW2 (upon which each war is superimposed), and an odd reversal upward around 1996 whose incline isn't much deflected by 9/11, and which levels off around 2005. It's almost like looking at the Third Way made flesh.

    Elizabeth November 26, 2016 at 4:37 pm

    My ex husband told me that back in the 70s when he was applying for a government job, he had to undergo an extensive FBI check. The fibbies found out he had a subscription to "Soviet Life" (a magazine about cultural, economic stuff in the USSR). As a result, his neighbors, family, past co-workers were all interviewed to see if he was a "subversive." The Russophobia has a long history.

    I agree with many commenters that Pravda's ProPorNet's listing is heading somewhere scary. The MSM got the message that they have no credibility anymore, and they're in a panic, as are the neocons/neolibs. I think after the US backed Ukrainian coup failed to nudge Russia into a war, this "Russian aggression" meme started in earnest. Now that the election is over and the "favored one" lost, it is quite telling to me that the panicked establishment isn't going to go quietly. They were planning on having WWIII, and are furious now.

    I'm too young to remember McCarthyism, but this stuff is frightening.

    sunny129 November 26, 2016 at 4:54 pm

    fyi

    [..]Also included are popular libertarian hubs such as Zero Hedge, Antiwar.com and the Ron Paul Institute, along with the hugely influential right-wing website the Drudge Report and the publishing site WikiLeaks.

    [..]One of the most egregious examples is the group's inclusion of Naked Capitalism, the widely respected left-wing site run by Wall Street critic Yves Smith. That site was named by Time Magazine as one of the best 25 Best Financial Blogs in 2011 and by Wired Magazine as a crucial site to follow for finance, and Smith has been featured as a guest on programs such as PBS' Bill Moyers Show. Yet this cowardly group of anonymous smear artists, promoted by the Washington Post, has now placed them on a blacklist of Russian disinformation.[..]

    https://theintercept.com/2016/11/26/washington-post-disgracefully-promotes-a-mccarthyite-blacklist-from-a-new-hidden-and-very-shady-group/

    european November 26, 2016 at 5:10 pm

    Key line from Greenwald IMO: "The Post story served the agendas of many factions: those who want to believe Putin stole the election from Hillary Clinton; those who want to believe that the internet and social media are a grave menace that needs to be controlled, in contrast to the objective truth which reliable old media outlets once issued; those who want a resurrection of the Cold War."

    me: The only way the mainstream media can get its power back is by killing or at least crippling the internet.

    polecat November 26, 2016 at 5:21 pm

    Boycott ANYTHING Bezos related !!!

    sunny129 November 26, 2016 at 5:01 pm

    the biggest peddler of FAKE News!

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-25/who%E2%80%99s-biggest-peddler-fake-news

    George Phillies November 26, 2016 at 5:05 pm

    What is happening for which this is a distraction?

    watermelonpunch November 27, 2016 at 12:04 am

    A bunch of people in the U.S. got fed up, and now it means that a lot of people who were used to only having contact with other people like themselves and hanging out at fancy parties are being told they need to start interacting with the general public or get a different job, and they're not happy about it.

    Karl Kolchack November 26, 2016 at 5:08 pm

    Just last week I made my first ever reader contribution to NC–now I wish I had waited a few days so my donation could be interpreted as an "FU" to ProporNot. :)

    Optimader November 26, 2016 at 5:30 pm

    My comment waz very bad and had a time, then marched out behind the barn an waz shotz

    Sluggeaux November 26, 2016 at 5:35 pm

    This Washington Post piece is so insidious as to make my blood run cold. We've seen in "education reform" how the Gates Foundation and Walton Foundation would place un-sourced propaganda in articles by friendly reporters in the WaPost and the NYTimes and then reference the news outlets as proving their propaganda to be "fact."

    As some know, I am a professional conspiracy theorist, having served as a local-level criminal prosecutor for over 32 years. I see a grave threat to the First Amendment when an anonymous source suspected to have ties to the military-industrial complex calls for the government to investigate news sources for espionage.

    I also find it interesting that The Intercept didn't make the list, despite the presence of Glenn Greenwald. Given Pierre Omidyar's closeness to the current administration (was FirstLook created to take Greenwald and Taibbi out of circulation during the 2012 election?), is there some sort of "tell" here about where this attack on Free Speech is coming from?

    Those on this blacklist should pool resources to pursue retraction, repudiation, and an admission by the Post editorial board that Timberg's outrageously un-sourced "reporting" is libelous and was published with an at best reckless and at worst intentional disregard for the truth.

    Yves Smith Post author November 27, 2016 at 12:24 am

    They've listed only sites that they think lack the $ to sue them. That is clearly one of the criteria.

    WJ November 27, 2016 at 3:21 am

    Probably true, though also worth noting that (as has been observed frequently here), the Intercept's regular reporting on Ukraine and Syria was often little better than mainstream outlets.

    LifelongLib November 27, 2016 at 3:22 am

    David Stockman's site is on the list. Wonder if he still has any pull

    Allegorio November 26, 2016 at 5:55 pm

    What is even more alarming, this seems to be coordinated with Jane Harmon's recent advocacy of a FISA drone court which also targets "enemy" web sites. Is this a prelude to shutting down dissenting web sites based on their status as foreign agents of our arch enemy "Russia" which the European Parliament has equated with Daesh. There is a sense of impending revolution world wide, is this the first step to preempt such? Is martial law the next step? There seemed to be a lot of projection involved when the neo-libs accused Trump of fascism and not accepting election results. Who is now not accepting election results and who are the real fascists calling for the shutting down of news outlets?

    Kevin November 26, 2016 at 6:23 pm

    Instead of "most of all, a sense of political levity", maybe Max meant to say something like political heft, political gravitas?

    Paul Jurczak November 26, 2016 at 8:06 pm

    Yet another reason why political establishment got what it deserved this election cycle. They still think that a bit of propaganda denied them a victory and there is nothing wrong with their policies

    flora November 26, 2016 at 9:06 pm

    WaPo is now too vile to read.
    McClatchy is still a fairly good news source. And, oh, look at this: Clinton campaign will join recount effort in Wisconsin. Not surprising.

    http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article117235428.html#storylink=latest_side

    flora November 26, 2016 at 9:10 pm

    adding: I think Stein and the Greens have been played.

    tgs November 26, 2016 at 10:52 pm

    Jill Stein has embarrassed herself with this effort. I gave money to her until she made her final vp choice – Baraka called Bernie a white supremacist! I did vote for her and now feel it really was a wasted vote. 1% in the national totals. Ok. Being a useful idiot for the Clintons – no way.

    Allegorio November 26, 2016 at 11:50 pm

    Ah yes, one more chance to steal the election. Syria must fall and be partitioned. Russia must be driven from the Ukraine, the internet must be cleansed of dissent. Patent and Copyright monopolies must be imposed on the world. This election took TPTB by surprise, they are surprised no longer. Trump does not want to be President, he's scared to death. The consensus is that the results will not change. Don't be so sure. There may yet be a coronation and then the shit will hit the proverbial fan. Apparently it was not enough for TPTB to control both parties, they also control the minor parties. Et tu Jill Stein!

    flora November 27, 2016 at 1:31 am

    recounts + planted stories on Russkie interference + pressure on electors to change their votes. that looks like the plan. in my foil bonnet opinion.

    Kim Kaufman November 26, 2016 at 9:46 pm

    Here's James Corbett's response to being on the list: What I Learned From the "PropOrNot" Propaganda List https://www.corbettreport.com

    integer November 26, 2016 at 11:11 pm

    Did you see this comment? It certainly seems plausible to me that cybersponse are involved. https://cybersponse.com/solutions/government

    integer November 26, 2016 at 11:42 pm

    FWIW I also checked that the registration address was correct. https://whois.icann.org/en/lookup?name=propornot.com

    Contact details: General Inquiries | Support – 480.646.3006 | [email protected]

    Reify99 November 26, 2016 at 10:37 pm

    Hillary and her handlers had the choice to lose to Bernie or to Trump. They chose Trump.
    (OK, maybe not consciously.)

    Now, they are are NOT happy with the result but please notice that Bernie is looking better, has more news coverage, even appearing on The View, for crying out loud! Yes veal pen, "outreach", whatever. Doesn't matter what they Think They are crafting.

    If they keep up the Rooskie angle they will be amazed how good Bernie starts to look.
    A little FB censorship. Ditto! Shut down some international protests. (In North Dakota) Bingo!
    Drive people into the street! Whoooee!

    They, DNC, Bezos et al, will pine for him before this is all over. Because he is the symbol for what could have happened if they had followed the law and had gone peacefully.

    They can't see it yet.

    BTW, RT has a 30 minute segment with Chris Hedges at Standing Rock circulating now.
    Seems legit to me. Decide for yourself.

    RBHoughton November 26, 2016 at 10:52 pm

    Yves stand up and take a bow. You have been noticed by the filth. One of the many reassuring signs to come from the corridors of power lately. Is it possible change really is coming?

    RBHoughton November 27, 2016 at 12:11 am

    I have just learned of a group in the European Parliament led by a Polish MEP and member of the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformers in Europe that is likewise attempting to create a fear of "fake news" from those sites that don't follow the MSM Editors' example of restraint in publication.

    It has this week received a huge injection of public money to extend its work. It seems that North America and Europe are in lockstep on the need to keep the people ignorant.

    John Day November 26, 2016 at 11:21 pm

    I have emailed whoever is at Propornot and politely requested to be added to their list. Johnday's Blog http://www.johndayblog.com/ , though modest and unnoticed, links mostly to sites on their list. http://www.propornot.com/p/the-list.html

    If this site is seriously trying to help snowflakes create information-safe-places, then it needs to protect them from my blog, too. Fair is fair. I deserve recognition.

    I also think Ilargi @ The Automatic Earth is being snubbed through their non-inclusion of that site. Everybody should email them and demand that all worthy blogs get included in their precious list.

    Roquentin November 26, 2016 at 11:58 pm

    When's this shit going to end? Every time I think these big media outlets have hit rock bottom, they find a way to sink even lower.

    makedoanmend November 27, 2016 at 1:22 am

    "When's this shit going to end?"

    When the rot is complete and the edifice tumbles? Or when TINA wins, and the voices go silent? My bet is on the later. Collectively, the money got all 4 aces (and a few more hidden up their sleaves and a few more hidden in their boots, etc – no end of aces.)

    Then the silence reigns and TINA is happy. Despair is walled offed into its own echo chamber and silence is taken for acquiescence and indifference.

    Until it doesn't.

    Human history just keeps playing the same music. Mind you, big nature might be adding a new wrinkle to march-of-death tune. Interesting times, very interesting.

    Dugh November 27, 2016 at 3:58 am

    Charles Hugh-Smith's response to the "list": "The Washington Post: Useful-Idiot Shills for a Failed, Frantic Status Quo That Has Lost Control of the Narrative"

    http://www.oftwominds.com/blognov16/useful-idiots11-16.html?fullweb=1

    [Nov 20, 2016] Speculation: Trump Promotes NSA Boss Rogers To DNI Because He Leaked The Clinton Emails

    Notable quotes:
    "... Putin has been supporting right-wing movements across the West in order to weaken NATO ..."
    "... prepare ourselves ..."
    Nov 20, 2016 | www.moonofalabama.org
    Speculation: Trump Promotes NSA Boss Rogers To DNI Because He Leaked The Clinton Emails

    If some investigative journos start digging into the issue this story could develop into a really interesting scandal:

    Pentagon and intelligence community chiefs have urged Obama to remove the head of the NSA

    The heads of the Pentagon and the nation's intelligence community have recommended to President Obama that the director of the National Security Agency, Adm. Michael S. Rogers, be removed.

    The recommendation, delivered to the White House last month, was made by Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., according to several U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
    ...
    The news comes as Rogers is being considered by President-Elect Donald Trump to be his nominee for DNI, replacing Clapper as the official who oversees all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies. In a move apparently unprecedented for a military officer, Rogers, without notifying superiors, traveled to New York to meet with Trump on Thursday at Trump Tower.

    Adm. Michael S. Rogers recently claimed in reference to the hack of the Democratic National Council emails that Wikileaks spreading them is "a conscious effort by a nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific effect." He obviously meant Russia.

    Compare that with his boss James Clapper who very recently said (again) that the "intelligence agencies don't have good insight on when or how Wikileaks obtained the hacked emails."

    Emails of the DNC and of Clinton's consigliere John Podesta were hacked and leaked. Additionally emails from Clinton's private email server were released. All these influenced the election in favor of Trump.

    Wikileaks boss Assange says he does not know where the emails come from but he does not think they came from Russia.

    Clapper and Carter wanted Rogers fired because he was generally disliked at the NSA, because two big breaches in the most secret Tailored Access Organization occurred on his watch even after the Snowden case and because he blocked, with the help of Senator McCain, plans to split the NSA into a spying and a cyber war unit.

    Now let me spin this a bit.

    Rogers obviously knew he was on the to-be-fired list and he had good relations with the Republicans.

    Now follows some plausible speculation:

    Some Rogers trusted dudes at the NSA (or in the Navy cyber arm which Rogers earlier led) hack into the DNC, Podesta emails and the Clinton private email server. An easy job with the tools the NSA provides for its spies. Whoever hacked the emails then pushes what they got to Wikileaks (and DCleaks , another "leak" outlet). Wikileaks publishes what it gets because that is what it usually does. Assange also has various reasons to hate Clinton. She was always very hostile to Wikileaks. She allegedly even mused of killing Assange by a drone strike.

    Rogers then accuses Russia of the breach even while the rest of the spying community finds no evidence for such a claim. That is natural to do for a military man who grew up during the cold war and may wish that war (and its budgets) back. It is also a red herring that will never be proven wrong or right unless the original culprit is somehow found.

    Next we know - Trump offers Rogers the Clapper job. He would replace the boss that wanted him fired.

    Rogers support for the new cold war will also gain him favor with the various weapon industries which will eventually beef up his pension.

    Some of the above is speculation. But it would make sense and explain the quite one-sided wave of leaks we saw during this election cycle.

    Even if it isn't true it would at least be a good script for a Hollywood movie on the nastiness of the inside fighting in Washington DC.

    Let me know how plausible you find the tale.

    Posted by b on November 19, 2016 at 02:14 PM | Permalink

    Comments woogs | Nov 19, 2016 2:29:47 PM | 1
    As the song goes, "Aim high, shoot low".

    Not sure about the speculation. There's justification for military spending beyond the cold war. Actually, the cold war could be sacrificed in order to re-prioritize military spending.

    In any case, Trump's proposed picks are interesting. I especially like the idea of Dana Rohrabacher as Secretary of State if it comes to pass.

    One thing for sure .... there's been so much 'fail' with the Obama years that there's an abundance of low-hanging fruit for Trump to feather his cap with success early on, which will give him a template for future successes. That depends largely on who his picks for key posts are, but there has seldom been so much opportunity for a new President as the one that greets Trump.

    It's there to be had. Let's hope that Trump doesn't blow it.

    jo6pac | Nov 19, 2016 2:36:32 PM | 2
    Sounds about right and this just means a new criminal class has taken over the beltway. That doesn't do anything for us citizens, just more of the same.

    Everything is on schedule and please there's nothing to see here.

    Jen | Nov 19, 2016 2:37:52 PM | 3
    I wonder if Rogers' statement appearing to implicate Russian government hackers in leaking DNC information to Wikileaks at that link to Twitter was made after the Democratic National Convention itself accused Russia of hacking into its database. In this instance, knowing when Rogers made his statement and when the DNC made its accusation makes all the difference.

    If someone at the NSA had been leaking information to Wikileaks and Rogers knew of this, then the DNC blaming Russia for the leaked information would have been a godsend. All Rogers had to do then would be to keep stumm and if questioned, just say a "nation state" was responsible. People can interpret that however they want.

    GoraDiva | Nov 19, 2016 2:38:45 PM | 4
    Any of the scenarios you mention could be right. The one thing that is certain - Russia was not the culprit. Not because Russians would not be inclined to hack - I think it is plausible that everyone hacks everyone (as someone said) - but Russians would not likely go to Wikileaks to publicize their prize. They'd keep it to themselves... in that way, they are probably like LBJ, who knew that Nixon had sabotaged the end-of-war negotiations in Paris in 1968, but said nothing for fear of shocking the "system" and the people's trust in it... (didn't work out too well in the end, though). Putin was right when he said (referring to the 2016 US election) that it all should somehow be ... more dignified.

    karlof1 | Nov 19, 2016 2:52:16 PM | 5
    Makes me wonder who populates the Anonymous group of loosely affiliated hackers and if they were used. The tale has probability; it would be even more interesting if the motive could be framed within the hacker's fulfilling its oath of obligation to the Constitution. Le Carre might be capable of weaving such a tale plausibly. But what about the Russia angle? IMO, Russia had the biggest motive to insure HRC wouldn't become POTUS despite all its denials and impartiality statements. Quien Sabe? Maybe it was Chavez's ghost who did all the hacking; it surely had an outstanding motive.

    PavewayIV | Nov 19, 2016 3:14:56 PM | 6
    I'll add some color on Rogers in another post, but I just want to preface any remarks with one overriding aspect of the leaks. From the details of most of these leaks, speculation on tech blogs (and as far as anyone knows for certain):

    There are many parties that had great incentive to acquire and leak the emails, but I have to insist with the utmost conviction (without a string of expletives) that a junior high school kid could have performed the same feat using hacking tools easily found on the internet . There was absolutely nothing technically sophisticated or NSA-like in someone's ability to get into the DNC server or grab Podesta's emails. It was a matter of opportunity and poor security. If anyone has a link to any other reasoning, I would love to see it. The DNC and Hillary leaks (among other hacks) were due to damn amateurish security practices. The reason you don't outsource or try to get by on the cheap for systems/network security is to reduce the risk of this happening to an acceptable cost/benefit level.

    So the presumption of Wikileaks source being (or needing to be) a state actor with incredibly sophisticated hacking tools is utter nonsense. Yes, it could have been the Russian FSB or any one of the five-eyes intelligence agencies or the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. But it could have just as plausibly been Bart Simpson pwning the DNC from Springfield Elementary School and sending everything to Wikileaks, "Cool, I just REKT the Clintons!"

    WikiLeaks doesn't care if the leak comes from the head of a western intel agency or a bored teenager in New Jersey. It cares that the material is authentic and carefully vets the content, not the source. At least until they kidnapped Assange and took over WikiLeaks servers a couple of weeks ago, but that's for a different tin-foil hat thread.

    Carol Davidek-Waller | Nov 19, 2016 3:18:02 PM | 7
    Is Trump that much of a deep thinker? Rebellious teenager who chooses anyone that the last administration didn't like seems more plausible to me. It doesn't matter who they are or what their record is. I don't think Trump plans to surrender any of his undeserved power to anyone. He'll be running the whole show. They'll do what he wants or be shown the door.

    Jackrabbit | Nov 19, 2016 3:42:42 PM | 8
    Here is another tale I find very plausible:

    rufus (aka "rufie") the MoA Hillbot uses a new persona - "Ron Showalter" - to attack Trump post-election. rufie/Ron conducts a false flag attack on MoA (making comments that are pages long) so that his new persona can claim that his anti-Trump views are being attacked by someone using his former persona.

    See here , here , and here .

    nmb | Nov 19, 2016 4:01:23 PM | 9
    One thing Trump could do immediately to signal that he is not with the establishment

    Qoppa | Nov 19, 2016 4:12:16 PM | 10
    I generally dislike "theories" that go too much into speculation, -- however this one sounds actually quite plausible!

    As for "Russia did it", this was obvious bullshit right from the start, not least because of what GoraDiva #4 says:
    I think it is plausible that everyone hacks everyone (as someone said) - but Russians would not likely go to Wikileaks to publicize their prize. They'd keep it to themselves

    Allegations against Russia worked on confusing different levels: hacking -- leaking -- "rigging".


    It was all like this :-)
    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwI-ThzWIAApRki.jpg


    This picture encapsulates IMO the full absurdity this election campaign had come down to:
    MSM constantly bashing Trump for "lies", "post-factual", "populist rage", "hate speech", -- while themselves engaging in the same on an even larger level, in a completely irresponsible way that goes way beyond "bias", "preference" or even "propaganda".
    I understand (and like) the vote for Trump mainly as a call to "stop this insanity!"

    ~~~

    Some more on the issue:

    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/10/really-really-upset-foreign-office-security-services/
    I left Julian [Assange] after midnight. He is fit, well, sharp and in good spirits. WikiLeaks never reveals or comments upon its sources, but as I published before a fortnight ago, I can tell you with 100% certainty that it is not any Russian state actor or proxy that gave the Democratic National Committee and Podesta material to WikiLeaks.


    http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/10/russia-hack-dnc-really.html


    And here about an inconspicuous detail suggesting one hacker actually planned to set up "Russians" as the source:
    https://medium.com/@jeffreycarr/the-yandex-domain-problem-2076089e330b#

    Nice summary on Sputnik
    https://sputniknews.com/us/201610261046768902-dnc-hack-speculation-carr-interview/


    Qoppa | Nov 19, 2016 4:35:36 PM | 11
    btw, the "inside job" theory goes quite nicely with what we know about alleged traces to "Russians":

    https://www.wired.com/2016/07/heres-know-russia-dnc-hack/

    The following week, two cybersecurity firms, Fidelis Cybersecurity and Mandiant, independently corroborated Crowdstrike's assessment that Russian hackers infiltrated DNC networks, having found that the two groups that hacked into the DNC used malware and methods identical to those used in other attacks attributed to the same Russian hacking groups.

    But some of the most compelling evidence linking the DNC breach to Russia was found at the beginning of July by Thomas Rid, a professor at King's College in London, who discovered an identical command-and-control address hardcoded into the DNC malware that was also found on malware used to hack the German Parliament in 2015. According to German security officials, the malware originated from Russian military intelligence. An identical SSL certificate was also found in both breaches.

    Sooooo .... these "traces" all show known Russian methods (whether true or not). If they are known they can be faked and used by someone else.


    Now who is the no. 1 organisation, worldwide, in having and being capable to use such information?


    @b, your speculation gets better and better the more one thinks about it.


    IhaveLittleToAdd | Nov 19, 2016 4:58:27 PM | 12
    I'm out of my depth on cyber forensics, but would the NSA, and thus Clapper, know who hacked and leaked these documents? Or would the NSA be in the dark, as they suggest?

    Just watched Oliver Stone's "Snowden". Awesome. Can't believe after seeing it that Clapper has survived all these years. Just another Hoover.

    Posted by: Mina | Nov 19, 2016 5:18:42 PM | 13

    Just watched Oliver Stone's "Snowden". Awesome. Can't believe after seeing it that Clapper has survived all these years. Just another Hoover.

    Posted by: Mina | Nov 19, 2016 5:18:42 PM | 13

    Manne | Nov 19, 2016 6:35:17 PM | 14
    Sheer conspiracy talk, besides b are wrong on Assange, Assange know who leaked it and have denied that a nation is behind it!

    james | Nov 19, 2016 6:50:23 PM | 15
    thanks b.. i like the idea of it being an inside job.. makes a lot of sense too.

    i like @3 jens question about the timing as a possible aid to understanding this better.

    @4 gordiva comment - everyone hacks everyone comment..ditto. it's another form of warfare and a given in these times..

    i agree with @6 paveway, and while it sounds trite, folks who don't look after their own health can blame all the doctors.. the responsibility for the e mail negligence rests with hillary and her coterie of bozos..

    @7 carol. i agree.

    @8 jr.. did you happen to notice a few posts missing from the thread from yesterday and who it was that's been removed? hint : poster who made the comment "more popcorn" is no longer around. they have a new handle today..

    @20 manne.. you can say whatever you want and be speculative too, but i don't share your view on assange knowing who leaked it..

    stumpy | Nov 19, 2016 7:00:28 PM | 16
    Except that you have to consider the targeting. I've suspected an insider all along, given the pre-packaged spin points coordinated with the release vectors. Not that the Russies, Pakistanis, or Chinese wouldn't know more about the US than the US knows about itself, but the overall nuance really hits the anti-elitist spurned sidekick chord. This clashes a bit with b's interagency pissing match scenario, but, then again, you step on the wrong tail... Someone didn't get their piece of pie, or equally valid, someone really really disapproves of the pie's magnitude and relative position on the table.

    Curious how Weenergate led to the perfectly timed 650K emails on that remarkably overlooked personal device.

    MadMax2 | Nov 19, 2016 7:01:17 PM | 17
    @20 Manne
    Yes I think on this case Assange does know, if I remember correctly, he spoke to RT and said something to the effect of 'it's not Russia, we don't reveal our sources but if the DNC found out who it was they would have "egg on their faces"' ...and easy access, copy, paste, send job, my hunch it was the DNC staffer who was suicided.

    Manne | Nov 19, 2016 7:05:51 PM | 18
    James

    Its what Assange himself says, do your homework, as someone else said here, Wikileaks wont reveal the source, that doesnt mean they dont know who leaked it.

    Hoarsewhisperer | Nov 19, 2016 7:05:53 PM | 19
    Is Trump that much of a deep thinker? Rebellious teenager who chooses anyone that the last administration didn't like seems more plausible to me. It doesn't matter who they are or what their record is. I don't think Trump plans to surrender any of his undeserved power to anyone. He'll be running the whole show. They'll do what he wants or be shown the door.
    Posted by: Carol Davidek-Waller | Nov 19, 2016 3:18:02 PM | 7

    I agree.
    Trump's got charm and a good memory and doesn't need to be a deep thinker in order to network efficiently and listen carefully. Nor does he need to be a mathematician to figure out that 1 + 1 = 2.

    james | Nov 19, 2016 7:07:22 PM | 20
    @24 manne.. okay, thanks..

    Oddlots | Nov 19, 2016 7:32:04 PM | 21
    Has anyone else got the feeling that much of the panic inside Washington is due to the possibility that the crimes of the Obama administration might be exposed?

    One of the most uncanny moments I've experienced watching the Syria crisis unfold is seeing the "Assad gasses his people" operation launched, fail miserably, then - mostly - interest is lost. I know: the lie, once asserted, has done most of its work already, debunked or not. I also understand that the western press is so in the tank for the establishment, so "captured" that it shouldn't surprise anyone that no follow up is offered. My point is, rather, that if you think back over just the Ukrainian and Syrian debacle the amount of dirt that could be exposed by a truly anti-establishment figure in the White House is mind boggling.

    Just off the top of my head:

    - the sabotage of the deal to save the Ukrainian constitutional order brokered by Putin, Merkel and Hollande c/o of the excuisitely timed and staged sniper shootings (otherwise known as the "most obvious coup in history")
    - the farce that is the MH17 inquiry (and the implication: another false flag operation with a cut-out that killed, what was it, 279 innocents?)
    - the Kherson pogrom and the Odessa massacre
    - the targeting of both Libya and Syria with outright lies and with all the propaganda perfectly reflecting the adage that, in dis- info operations, the key is to accuse your enemies of all the crimes you are committing or planning to
    - highlights of the above might include: Robert Ford's emails scheming to create "paranoia" in Damascus while completely justifying same; the "rat-lines" and Ghoutta gas operation; the farcically transparent White Helmets Psy-op *

    And on and on...

    If you or the institution that pays you had a closet full to bursting with skeletons like this and you were facing an incoming administration that seems to relish and flaunt it's outsider status wouldn't you be freaking out?

    To ice the cake the latest Freudian slip is the crusade against "fake news." Seriously, if I were in their shoes that's the last phrase I would want people ruminating over. I think it was R. D. Laing who said "we always speak the truth." One way or another.


    * This comes with the delicious irony that the operation's own success offers proof of the adage that sometimes you can succeed too well. The fact that the Omran photo was plastered across every paper in the west is good evidence of how completely "fake" our news has become. My favourite is this farcical interview between Amanpour and Lavrov: https://youtu.be/Tx8kiQyEkHc

    MadMax2 | Nov 19, 2016 7:53:11 PM | 22
    @27 Oddlots
    Most of those are pretty easy picking under a firm rule of law - plenty of underling rats willing to squeal with even gentle pressure, I'm sure.

    His legacy is horrific.

    Obama taught constitutional law for 12 years... It would be sweet, sweet poetry to see him nailed... his 'white papers', formed in secret courts that no one can see, no oversight in the light of day... phony legal documents that allowed him to incinerate fellow humans via drone without charge, without trial...

    Some brother, some nobel prize...

    Circe | Nov 19, 2016 8:37:46 PM | 23
    95% or more of the individuals Trump is considering for his administration, including those already picked have a deep-seated obsession with Iran. This is very troubling. It's going to lead to war and not a regular war where 300,000 people die. This is a catastrophic error in judgment I don't give a sh...t who makes such an error, Trump or the representative from Kalamazoo! This is so bad that it disqualifies whatever else appears positive at this time.

    And one more deeply disturbing thing; Pompeo, chosen to head the CIA has threatened Ed Snowden with the death penalty, if Snowden is caught, and now as CIA Director he can send operatives to chase him down wherever he is and render him somewhere, torture him to find out who he shared intelligence with and kill him on the spot and pretend it was a foreign agent who did the job. He already stated before he was assigned this powerful post that Snowden should be brought back from Russia and get the death penalty for treason.

    Pompeo also sided with the Obama Administration on using U. S. military force in Syria against Assad and wrote this in the Washington Post: "Russia continues to side with rogue states and terrorist organizations, following Vladimir Putin's pattern of gratuitous and unpunished affronts to U.S. interests,".

    That's not all, Pompeo wants to enhance the surveillance state, and he too wants to tear up the Iran deal.

    Many of you here are extremely naïve regarding Trump.

    Jackrabbit | Nov 19, 2016 8:53:09 PM | 24
    James @21 I noticed the different handle but b hasn't commented on the attack. I assumed that this meant that b didn't know for sure who did the attack.

    As I wrote, rufus/Ron made himself the prime suspect when he described the attack as an attempt to shut down his anti-Trump message. Some of us thought that it might be a lame attempt to discredit rufus but only "Ron" thought that the attack was related to him.

    If one doesn't believe - as I do - that Ron = rufus then you might be less convinced that rufus did the deed.

    Gaianne | Nov 19, 2016 9:43:45 PM | 25
    @20 Manne--

    Yes, it is important to remember that Assange, though he did not state that he knew who provided the DNC emails, implied that he did, and further implied--but did not state--that it was Seth Rich. Assange's statement came shortly after Rich's death by shooting. Assange stated he specifically knew people had people had risked their lives uploading material, implying that they had in fact lost them.

    --Gaianne

    Jackrabbit | Nov 19, 2016 10:20:57 PM | 26
    b's speculation has the ring of truth. I've often wondered if Trump was encouraged to run by a deep-state faction that found the neocons to be abhorrent and dangerous.
    Aside: I find those who talk about "factions" in foreign policy making to be un-credible. Among these were those that spoke of 'Obama's legacy'. A bullshit concept for a puppet.The neocons control FP. And they could only be unseated if a neocon -unfriendly President was elected.

    Trump is turning animosity away from Russia and toward Iran. But I doubt that it will result in a shooting war with Iran. The 'deep-state' (arms industry and security agencies) just wants a foreign enemy as a means of ensuring that US govt continues to fund security agencies and buy arms.

    And really, Obama's "peace deal" with Iran was bogus anyway. It was really just a placeholder until Assad could be toppled. Only a small amount of funds were released to Iran, and US-Iranian relations have been just as bad as they were before the "peace deal". So all the hand-wringing about Trump vs. Iran is silly.

    What is important is that with Iran as the nominal enemy du jour plus Trump's campaign pledge to have the "strongest" military (note: every candidate was for a strong military) , the neocons have no case to make that Trump is weak on defense.

    And so it is interesting that those that want to undermine Trump have resorted to the claim that he is close to Jews/Zionists/Israel or even Jewish himself. Funny that Trump wasn't attacked like that before the election, huh?

    The profound changes and profound butt-hurt lead to the following poignant questions:

    >> Have we just witnessed a counter-coup?

    >> Isn't it sad that, in 2016(!), the only check on elites are other elite factions? An enormous cultural failure that has produced a brittle social fabric.

    >> If control of NSA snooping power is so crucial, why would ANY ruling block ever allow the another to gain power?

    Indeed, the answer to this question informs one's view on whether the anti-Trump protests are just Democratic Party ass-covering/distraction or a real attempt at a 'color revolution'.

    ben | Nov 19, 2016 11:33:40 PM | 27
    Plausible as hell b.

    b said also.."Rogers support for the new cold war will also gain him favor with the various weapon industries which will eventually beef up his pension."


    That's the long game for most of the "Hawks" in DC. Perpetual war is most profitable.

    And, that game transcends both parties.

    Circe | Nov 19, 2016 11:52:44 PM | 28
    @32

    What is important is that with Iran as the nominal enemy du jour plus Trump's campaign pledge to have the "strongest" military (note: every candidate was for a strong military), the neocons have no case to make that Trump is weak on defense.

    Oh please! Trump is stacking his cabinet with Iran-obsessed Islam haters! Nominal enemy , my ass! And was every candidate for spending a Trillion more on defense??? Did you even read Trump's plan to build up the military?

    You do Netanyahu proud with your deflection. What? Nothing regarding Pompeo's blistering comments on Russia or Ed Snowden?

    Why are you trying to diminish the threat to Iran with the hawks, Islam-haters, and Iran-obsessed team that Trump cobbled together so far?

    Trump's Israel adviser David Friedman is known to be more extreme than even Netanyahu.

    No doubt Netanyahu has unleashed an army of IDF hasbara to crush criticism of Trump and his Iran-obsessed cabinet because he must be elated with his choices and wants to make them palatable to the American sheeple.

    Netanyahu is the first leader Trump spoke with on the phone. Trump praised Netanyahu from day one. PNAC and Clean Break were war manifestos for rearranging the Middle East with the ultimate goal of toppling Iran.

    Trump and his cabinet are all about tearing up the deal and assuming a much more hostile position with Iran. Tearing up the deal is a precursor to a casus belli. What more proof is there that Trump is doing the bidding of Zionist Neocons??? Oh, but you don't want more, do you?

    Your comment reeks of duplicity and sophistry.

    psychohistorian | Nov 20, 2016 1:28:45 AM | 29
    I always try to "follow the money" concept.

    As chipnik noted in a comment, Iran is one of the only countries that is yet to be under the control of private finance (see my latest Open Thread comments, please)

    I personally see all this as obfuscation covering for throwing Americans under the bus by the global plutocrats. The elite can see, just like us, that the US empire's usefulness is beyond its "sold by" date and are acting accordingly. America and its Reserve Currency status are about to crash and the elites are working to preserve their supra-national private finance base of power/control while they let America devolve to who knows what level.

    Too much heat and not enough light here...or if you prefer, the noise to signal ratio is highly skewed to noise.

    psychohistorian | Nov 20, 2016 1:31:46 AM | 30
    And in support of my noise to signal comment there is this comment I made recently in the MoA Fake News posting:

    So is this real or fake news? Trump meeting with folks this week to expand his personal business interests in India....EGAD!

    http://www.ebhsoc.org/journal/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/6/6

    Crimes involving moral turpitude have an inherent quality of baseness, vileness, or depravity with respect to a person's duty to another or to society in general.

    Given the above Trump would not be allowed to immigrate to the US.....just saying...

    Manne | Nov 20, 2016 3:50:10 AM | 31

    Assange: No state actor behind the leak.
    http://fortune.com/2016/11/03/julian-assange-wikileaks-russia-podesta-emails/

    the pair | Nov 20, 2016 3:55:42 AM | 32
    the shadowbrokers say they have NSA malware/tools and to prove it after their auction was met with crickets riding tumbleweeds they released some teaser info on NSA servers used for proxy attacks and recon. of course a few just happened to be "owned" boxes in russia (and china and some other places for that matter). add their russian IP addresses to some (mostly useless) sigantures associated with supposedly russian-designed malware and you've got some good circumstantial evidence.

    also: an email address associated with one or more attacks is from a russian site/domain but whoever registered was directed to the .com domain instead of the .ru one. this probably means someone got sloppy and didn't remember to check their DNS for fail.

    in general these hacks look less like russians and more like someone who wants to look like russians. the overpaid consultants used by the DNC/clinton folks can put "bear" in the names and claim that a few bits of cyrillic are a "slam dunk" but all the "evidence" is easily faked. not that anyone in the "deep state" would ever fake anything.

    Harry | Nov 20, 2016 5:35:50 AM | 33
    @ Jackrabbit | 26

    Trump is turning animosity away from Russia and toward Iran.

    I worry about it as well. Trump said he'll tear up nuclear agreement, and the people he is choosing also have rabid anti-Iranian agenda.

    Nice start for Trump:

    Thursday US House voted to stop civilian aircraft sales to Iran by both Boeing and Airbus.

    Few days before - US extending economic sanctions against Iran through 2026.

    Of course Trump can block it, but will he? Even if he does, he might blackmail Iran for something in return, etc. Iran is by no means off the hook for neocons and Israel, and I wouldnt be surprised if Trump follows the suit.

    Trump will (or might) have better relations with Russia, but this cordiality doesnt extend to Iran. Or as Jackrabbit says, US neocons will simply switch the targeted state and Iran may soon become "worse threat to humanity than ISIS", again.

    FecklessLeft | Nov 20, 2016 7:12:24 AM | 34
    @33

    I doubt separating the animosity towards Russia and Iran is even possible. Truth be told his comments towards Russia during the election seemed more like he was woefully unaware of the reality of the Russo-American situation in the Mideast than about being ready to negotiate major US power positions and accept Russia as anything more than enemy. Sounded very off the cuff to me. Maybe he thought he'd 'get along great with Putin' at the time but after realizing later that means making nice with Iran and giving up a large measure of US influence in the MENA he has reconsidered and taken the party line. It'd certainly be understandable for a noncareer politician. I'd imagine he'd be more interested now in currying favour with the MIC and the typical Republican party hawks than with Russia/Putin given his statements on military spending. Back when I saw him bow down at the altar of AIPAC earlier in the season I had trouble reconciling that with how he hoped to improve relationships with Russia at the same time given their radical differences wrt their allies. He's made a lot of those type of statements too, it was hard to read where he stood on most any issue during election season.

    I imagine as he's brought into the fold and really shown the reality of how US imperialist power projection he'll change his mind considerably. I think we, as readers and amateur analysts of this type of material, take for granted how hard some of this knowledge is to come by without looking for it directly. When we hear someone is going to make nice with Russia we want to think "well he says that as he must surely recognize the insanity and destructive forces at work." Maybe it's more of a case where the person speaking actually thinks we're in Syria to fight ISIS - that they have very little grasp of how things really work over there.

    In my eyes the names he's been considering are reason for much worry for those hoping Trump would be the one to usher in a multipolar world and end the cold war. I never had much hope in that regard (but I'm still praying for the best).

    Oui | Nov 20, 2016 7:45:56 AM | 35
    Figment of imagination ...

    Putin has been supporting right-wing movements across the West in order to weaken NATO

    Care to back this statement with arguments, examples ar a link to an excellent article?

    Looking at most of "New Europe", it's the other way around ... fascist states allied with Nazi Germany against communism, participating in massacres of Jewish fellow citizens and functioning as a spearhead for US intelligence against communism after the defeat of Nazi Germany – see Gladio. Now used by the CIA in the coup d'état in Ukraine in Februari 2014.

    Ahhh ... searched for it myself, a paper written earlier in 2016 ... how convenient!

    Putinism and the European Far Right | IMR|

    The paper, authored by Alina Polyakova , Ph.D., deputy director of the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council , was originally presented at the 2015 ASEEES Annual Convention.

    Policy set by the Atlantic Council years ago: make Russia a pariah state . Written about it many times. BS and more western propaganda. The West has aligned itself with jihadists across the globe, Chechnya included. Same as in Afghanistan, these terrorists were called "freedom fighters". See John McCain in northern Syria with same cutthroats.

    Absolutely outrageous! See her twitter account with followers/participants Anne Applebaum and former and now discredited Poland's FM Radoslaw Sikorski .

    Pitiful and so uninformed!

    Posted earlier @BT - To the Stake .. Burn the Heretic

    Yonatan | Nov 20, 2016 7:58:10 AM | 36
    "Emails of the DNC and of Clinton's consigliere John Podesta were hacked and leaked. Additionally emails from Clinton's private email server were released. All these influenced the election in favor of Trump."

    Not necessarily so. An informal poll of people in blue collar flyover country about their voting intentions prior to the election expressed 4 common concerns

    i) The risk of war.
    ii) The Obamacare disaster especially recent triple digit percent increase in fees.
    iii) Bringing back jobs.
    iv) Punishing the Democrat Party for being indistinguishable from the Republicans.

    http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/when-shouting-stops.html

    Newsboy | Nov 20, 2016 8:23:05 AM | 37
    Fascists usually start off doing a lot of good work in the honeymoon-period.
    Here we go!

    Jackrabbit | Nov 20, 2016 9:03:25 AM | 38
    Circe @28

    We shouldn't take Trump's bluster at face value. For example, Trump said that he'd eliminate Obamacare. Now he has backed off that saying that some elements of Obamacare are worthwhile.

    Trump called for a strong military while attacking Hillary as "trigger happy" . The implication is clear - Trump would not be looking for wars like Hillary would.

    That the Israeli head of state is one of the first foreign leaders that any President-elect speaks to is no surprise. That you harp on what is essentially nonsense is telling.

    In my view Trump is not anti-Jewish. He is anti-neocon/anti-Zionist. As Bannon said, America has been getting f*cked.

    john | Nov 20, 2016 9:18:04 AM | 39
    Oddlots @ 21 says:

    To ice the cake the latest Freudian slip is the crusade against "fake news."

    i see it more as another mindfucking meme than a Freudian slip. another paean to Discordia, the goddess of chaos. we've lived with 'fake news,' heretofore advertised by reliable sources , since forever. baptizing this bastardized melange only sinks us deeper into dissonant muck.

    Jules | Nov 20, 2016 10:12:03 AM | 40
    One would hope if that is true - Trump recognises this and fires him as well rather than promoting him.

    However, if he were instrumental in getting Trump elected it is understandable if Trump decided to promote him.

    It's well-known and clear Trump rewards those who have done him favours.

    Let us hope it is not true.

    The first thing Trump must do when elected is declassify all material related to MH17. This can be done in late January/ February as one of his first orders of business.

    It's important to do this quickly - at least before the Dutch Elections in March 2017.

    #MH17truth

    If Trump does this he will do a number of things.

    1 - Likely reveal that it was the Ukrainians who were involved in shooting down MH17. I say likely because it's possible this goes deeper than just Ukraine - if that's the case - more the better.

    2. He will destroy the liar Porky Poroshenko and his corrupt regime with him. He will destroy Ukraine's corrupt Government's relationship with Europe.

    3. He will destroy the sell-out traitor to his own people Mark Rutte of Netherlands. This will ensure an election win for a key Trump ally - Geert Wilders.

    If Rutte is discredited for using the deaths of 200 Dutch citizens for his own political gain - he is finished and might end up in jail.

    4. He will destroy Merkel utterly. Her chances of re-election (which she just announced she will stand!) will be utterly destroyed.

    5. He will restory Russia-USA relations in an instant.

    Trump must also do this ASAP because this is the kind of thing that could get him killed if he doesn't do it ASAP when he's inaugurated.

    Of course - until then - he should keep his mouth shut about it - but the rest of us should be shouting it all around the Internet.

    #MH17truth
    #MH17truth
    #MH17truth
    #MH17truth
    #MH17truth

    Then - after that - he can move to do the same for September 11.

    MH17 must come first ASAP because of the Dutch Elections and the chance to remove that globalist traitor to his own people Rutte.

    Denis | Nov 20, 2016 10:19:43 AM | 41
    b: "Let me know how plausible you find the tale."

    Very, very, very plausible. Yes! (Fist-pump)

    And very well documented, too. Sort of like the theory that 9/11 was carried out by the Boy Scouts of America. After all, the boost in jingoism and faux-patriotism gave the BSA a boost in revenue and membership, so that pretty well proves it, eh?

    And if you dig deep enough I'm sure you'll find that on 9/10 the BSA shorted their stocks in United.

    Yo! (Double fist-pump)

    Jules | Nov 20, 2016 10:35:24 AM | 42
    Re: Posted by: Oddlots | Nov 19, 2016 7:32:04 PM | 21

    Totally agree Oddlots and that is why Trump must be on the front foot immediately.

    Exposing MH17 and destroying Poroshenko, Rutte & Merkel - and Biden & Obama by the way and a bunch of others is absolutely key.

    Blow MH17 skyhigh and watch Russia-USA relations be restored in a nanosecond.

    It will be especially sweet to watch the Dutch traitor to his own people Rutte destroyed in the midst of an election campaign such that he might end up in jail charged with treason and replaced by Geert Wilders - the Dutch Donald Trump if ever there was one - within a matter of weeks.

    However, a word of caution, it is precisely because of these possibilities that there has to be a high chance Trump will be assassinated.

    Pence would not walk that line. Not at all.

    There is no doubt Trump's life is in danger. I hope he has enough good people around him who will point the finger in the right direction if and when it happens.

    Because frankly I doubt it.

    juliania | Nov 20, 2016 10:37:15 AM | 43
    I think it's a bit of a stretch. First of all, there are other, deeper areas of investigative matters concerning previous governments of the US, impeachable offenses and international crimes - remember when Nancy Pelosi took impeachment off the table? Not to mention, what did happen in Benghazi and why? It wouldn't matter who did that hacking of those emails- it's a bit like the exposure of the White House tapes in Nixon's presidency. We didn't worry about who revealed that - we went to the issues themselves. I think that is what Trump is doing as he brings people to his home for conversations. It is the opposite of Obama's 'moving forward, not looking back'. Trump is going to look back. It's not about reinstating the cold war; it's about gathering information.

    Do we want another Obama? I don't think so.


    Jules | Nov 20, 2016 10:43:57 AM | 44
    Re: Posted by: Jackrabbit | Nov 19, 2016 10:20:57 PM | 26

    I think Saudi Arabia are the ones who should be scared. Trump has implied before he knows who is responsible for September 11.

    My guess is he wants to expose Saudi Arabia and the Bush Family.

    Ever wondered why the Bushes hate and appear frightened of Trump? Because they understand he will expose their complicity in September 11 and potentially have them locked up.

    Or perhaps he'll let Dubya off claiming he didn't know in return for a favour and lock up Dick Cheney instead. Quite possible.

    The Saudis will get thrown down the river and lose any assets they hold in US Dollars - a significant amount I believe!

    Sucks to be a Saudi Royal right about now - they better liquidate their US assets ASAP if they have any brains.

    lysias | Nov 20, 2016 10:49:04 AM | 45
    Retired UK ambassador Craig Murray said on his Web site, after meeting with Assange and then traveling to Washington where he met with former NSA officials, that he was 100 percent sure that Wikileaks's source was not the Russians and also suggested that the leaks came from inside the U.S. government.

    lysias | Nov 20, 2016 10:52:19 AM | 46
    Pursue the truth about 9/11, and you'll also find guilty paties in Israel (as well as Pakistan). Is Trump willing to do that?

    lysias | Nov 20, 2016 10:54:41 AM | 47
    Guilty parties

    Jules | Nov 20, 2016 11:02:05 AM | 48
    Re: Posted by: lysias | Nov 20, 2016 10:52:19 AM | 46

    That would seem to be the truth wouldn't it, but I doubt he'd go that far down the rabbit hole? How would that serve him?

    He'd go as far down as Saudi Arabia & Pakistan - and yes, that would serve his purpose for "enemies".

    It would also serve Israel's interests. I can't imagine he'd go as far as to expose Israel - why would he? His life would then be in danger!

    james | Nov 20, 2016 11:49:01 AM | 49
    @24 jr.. i found the rs guy to be quite repugnant..rufus never came across quite the same way to me, but as always - i could be wrong! i see pac is gone today and been replaced with another name, lol.. and the beat goes on.. b has deleted posts and must be getting tired of them too.

    @31 manne.. thanks.. does that rule out an insider with the nsa/cia as well?

    @34 fecklessleft.. i agree with your last paragraph..

    @36 yonatan.. i agree with that alternative take myself..

    @40 jules.. would be nice to see happen, but most likely an exercise in wishful thinking.. sort of the same with your @44 too.. the saudis need to be taken down quite a few notches.. the usa/israel being in bed with the headchopper cult has all the wrong optics for suggesting anything positive coming from usa/israel..


    Robert Beal | Nov 20, 2016 12:04:35 PM | 50
    #1 election story, from 3 (indirectly 4) separate investigative journalists.

    Also, see Sputnik comments at bottom of:

    https://sputniknews.com/radio_the_bradcast/201611171047576289-us-election-exit-polls/

    h | Nov 20, 2016 12:11:40 PM | 51
    b says 'Next we [can speculate] - Trump offers Rogers the Clapper job. He would replace the boss that wanted him fired.' There, fixed it.

    There appears to be a growing canyon in the intelligence world with some wanting to rid the Office of the National Intelligence agency altogether, while others are lobbying for it to remain.

    Recall the 50+ intelligence analysts who went on record that the higher ups within the spying apparatus were cooking the books on Syria and the Islamic State - http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/09/exclusive-50-spies-say-isis-intelligence-was-cooked.html

    Remember when Obama referred to the rise of the Islamic State as the 'JV team'? That nonchalant attitude by Obama towards the growing threat of the head choppers in Iraq and Syria was squarely placed on senior management within the intelligence community -

    "Two senior analysts at CENTCOM signed a written complaint sent to the Defense Department inspector general in July alleging that the reports, some of which were briefed to President Obama, portrayed the terror groups as weaker than the analysts believe they are. The reports were changed by CENTCOM higher-ups to adhere to the administration's public line that the U.S. is winning the battle against ISIS and al Nusra, al Qaeda's branch in Syria, the analysts claim."

    Who knows, Rogers may very well have been one in senior management who encouraged these 50 analysts to come forward. Maybe the IG investigation is wrapping up and at least internally, the senior management who made intel reports to Obama full of 'happy talk' have been identified and are now leaving on their own.

    Maybe Rogers is a 'White Hat' as is being suggested by the CTH - https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2016/11/19/shadow-fight-angst-within-obama-admin-as-intel-community-white-hats-align-w-trump/

    Circe | Nov 20, 2016 1:25:22 PM | 52
    @38

    We shouldn't take Trump's bluster at face value. For example, Trump said that he'd eliminate Obamacare. Now he has backed off that saying that some elements of Obamacare are worthwhile.

    For crying out loud! I don't give a rat's ass about Obamacare when he outlined a plan to boost the military by a trillion dollars and stacks his cabinet with crazy Iran-obsessed hawks who want to start a world war over effing Iran! And you're deflecting this with freakin' Obamacare -- It's speaks volumes about your credibility!

    Trump is anti-Zionist??? Ha! His adviser to Israel David Friedman is an extreme right-wing Zionist! Or do you just prefer to completely ignore fact and reality???

    And Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo can't stand Putin and their comments and record are there - FACT!

    And Trump didn't only tell Hillary he was going to build up the military; he outlined it later in his plan with facts and figures and it's going to cost about a Trillion dollars, so quit comparing it to a gradual phasing out of Obamacare!

    Okay, you know what? I see right through your little game. Unless you have something cogent with factual backup; I don't wanna read your responses based on pure fantasy and deflection. I look at the cold, hard facts and reality. I look at who Trump is surrounding himself with rabid Islam-haters obsessed with going after Iran and extremist Zionist loons and hawks like Pompeo and Pence making disturbing comments on Russia and Snowden and Trump's plan. So quit pretending you're not trying to obscure fact with fiction meant to deceive!

    Quadriad | Nov 20, 2016 1:37:31 PM | 53
    #23 Circe

    "...and not a regular war where 300,000 people die..."

    - Regular? So, you're calling an aggression on Syria just a 'Regular' war, on par with the course? The very least the Americans have to do, including those given the 'Nobel Peace Prize' (a bloody joke if there ever was one)? And those regular wars are needed to, what, regularly feed and the US MIC Beast? So... Obama and Hillary were just getting on with the inevitable?

    Your other observations regarding Pompeo are more meaningful, but I think you underestimate the power of groupthink under the Clinton-Bush-Obama continuous administration complex. Anyway, if Pompeo doesn't wish to get "reassigned", he might be better off unmounting the neocon horse mindset and getting on better with the Tea Party dogma, where the enemies of thy enemies are more likely to be seen as friends then frenemies.

    #34 Feckless Left

    In a sense you are right, he is not a career politician and he might be underestimating the depth of the abyss. Yet, he has far more street cred than you seem to be giving him credit for. An honest, naive idealist, he is certainly not...

    Lozion | Nov 20, 2016 1:51:14 PM | 54
    Circe, I have addressed your panic about Iran in another thread and you failed to reply so again:

    "Even if true that the future administration would shift its focus against Iran, what can they accomplish militarily against it? Nought. SAA & ISA would send militias to support Iran, nothing would prevent Russia from using Hamedan airbase just as it uses Hmeimim and deploy S-400 et al systems to bolster Iran's already existing ones. Plus on what grounds politically could they intervene? Nobody is buying Bibi's "Bomb" bs seriously anymore. Forget it, with Syria prevailing Iran is safe.."

    Jackrabbit | Nov 20, 2016 1:57:06 PM | 55
    @Circe

    If Trump is so friendly with Zionists, why did they go crazy when Bannon was named as a senior adviser?

    And, neocon angst about the Trump Administration is well summed up by Cohen's tweet :

    After exchange w Trump transition team, changed my recommendation: stay away. They're angry, arrogant, screaming "you LOST!" Will be ugly.

    S.H.E. | Nov 20, 2016 2:03:31 PM | 56
    Oddlots #21. insightful. you ignored the entire list on the financial side, but they are linked through the profound mutual support between Israel and Wall Street.

    I have been really surprised at the lack of discussion of BHO's impromptu post-election tour of Germany and Greece. It seems to me Egypt flipped and it was met with silence, because WashDC must be secured before the neocons can respond. But the two countries that are game-set-match are Germany and Greece. The Greek navy with German support is a great power in the Mediterranean. How convenient to keep them at each other's throats for a decade. I think BHO was trying desperately to keep them onside. But he would either have to promise them something that he can no longer deliver after Jan 20th...or he has to clue them in to a different timeline than the one we think is playing out. Anyone have a idea why the Prez had to go and talk to Merkel and Tsipras *without intermediaries?*

    Nick | Nov 20, 2016 2:22:33 PM | 57
    Today Putin meeting Obama in Peru. Like, you lost nigga!
    https://cdnbr2.img.sputniknews.com/images/623/35/6233517.jpg

    TheRealDonald | Nov 20, 2016 2:47:05 PM | 58
    28

    Having now founded a central bank in every nation of the world, the Khazars have defeated the Pope and the Caliphate. Only Iran and North Korea don't have a Khazar central bank. And only Iran has the last stash of crown jewels and gold bullion that the Khazars don't already control.

    They want Iran as part of Greater Israel, and they hate Russia for driving them out after the fall of the Soviet Union. The Khazars control the American Union under a Red/Blue Star. Just talking ethnics, not race, religion or creed, since Hebrew is a religion of pure commercial convenience for the Khazars.

    US and IL are therefore aligned against IR and RU. Now we can get rid of all the race, religion or creed crap, and talk New Math set theory: {US,IL} ≠ {IR,RU}

    Who are {US,IL} sanctions against? {IR,RU}. In this new Trump' Administration: {TA} ⊆ {US,IL}, and {TA} ⊄ {IR,RU}. From a chess perspective, Putin just got Kieningered, because the Khazars would have everyone believe that {TA} ❤ {RU}, when in reality, {TA} ∩ {RU} = {Ø}.

    On to {IR}!!

    ben | Nov 20, 2016 2:55:01 PM | 59
    I'm fully expecting a radical change in rhetoric coming from Mr. Trump and his new team, but little else. The REAL movers and shakers who run the U$A have everything moving their direction right now, so why change? I expect "the Donald" to do as he's
    told, like every other POTUS in modern history. They'll let him screw the workers, but, not the REAL owners of the U$A( 1%).

    TheRealDonald | Nov 20, 2016 2:59:20 PM | 60
    55

    You don't know? Before he died, my father told me a trick. Once the bloom was off their marriage, his wife would deliberately provoke his heavy-handed management of the family, by doing whatever he didn't want. So he learned to always 'go crazy' over things, knowing that's exactly what she would do to spite him, ...and in that way, using 'reverse psychology', the Khazars would have you believe that they hate Trump, and Trump loves Russia. They're just putting the Maidan gears into motion.

    Like taking c__ from a (ಥ‸ಥ).

    Circe | Nov 20, 2016 3:14:41 PM | 61
    If Trump is considering Mitt Romney for SoS then you can bet his policy towards Russia will be hostile because the only reason Trump would put someone between himself and Putin, who repeatedly called Russia, America's No. 1 enemy, is because he wants a bad cop on Russia in the State Department, in spite of his supposed good cop remarks regarding Putin. In other words, he wants someone who can put it straight to Putin so he himself can pretend to be the good cop. If Trump were being honest regarding a softening in policy with Russia do you really believe he would ever consider someone like Romney for SoS??? Again, Mitt Romney has made the most scathing comments of anyone against Putin, and then calling Russia the number one geopolitical enemy of the U.S. . Many on the Democratic and even Republican side felt he went overboard and many have since called his comment prophetic and today Romney feels vindicated.

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/09/30/romney-again-makes-case-russia-most-dangerous-foe-amid-syrian-air-strikes.html

    Many analysts on the Democratic side and Republican side are calling Romney prophetic since he made that statement on Russia before Russia messed with U.S. plans for Syria.

    So, my point is this; it's possible, it's very possible that, Mike Pompeo, Trump's choice for CIA Director, who also has a hostile position towards Russia asked Trump to consider Romney because he know doubt also believes that Romney proved good foresight with that comment regarding Russia and urged Trump to give Romney a meeting.

    My 2nd point is this: quit trying to make Trump into what he's not when he's spelling it all out for you in black and white!

    It doesn't look good. This picture that's starting to develop is looking worse by the day. Look at who he's surrounding himself with; look at his actions and forget about his words. This man has sold ice to the eskimos in his business dealings. Look at the facts. Trump is not who you think he is and just because he made some comments favorable in Putin's regard doesn't mean he's not going to turn around and stick it to Putin a year or maybe a few years down the line. Kissinger told Fareed Zakaria today on GPS: One should not insist in nailing Trump to positions he took during the campaign.

    I already wrote that I believe Trump is using this fake softer strategy to get Russia to look sideways on a coming Resolution to invade Iran and then he's going to deal with Putin and Russia.

    If Trump picks someone like Romney for State; he'll have 3 individuals in the most important cabinet positions dealing with foreign policy and foreign enemies who will be hostile to Russia: VP, CIA Director and SoS. Therefore he would be sending his bad cop to deal with Russia and sending a message to Putin like: Don't put your money on whatever I said during the campaign, my positions are changing for the empire's benefit and strategic interests. And even if he doesn't choose Mitt, because on Breitbart where his base convenes they're up in arms about this meeting, I would still be wary of his direction because of the picks he's made already; the majority of his cabinet so far want war with Iran and his VP and CIA Director can't stand Putin and then looking at who's advising him, rabid Neocon Zionists like James Woolsey and David Friedman.

    Look at what Trump does, who he's meeting with, who he's choosing to surround himself with and quit hanging on what he said, because talk is cheap, especially coming from someone who's now in the inner circle of American power.

    @55

    Please don't give me one measly Cohen tweet as fact! The entire Zionist Organization of America came to Bannon's defense and he will be attending their gala! It's been made public everywhere; so quit obscuring the truth.

    @54

    Yes, Russia could come to Iran's defense considering Iran allowed for Russia's use of that air base for Syria and rescued one of the two Russian pilots shot down by Turkey, and is fighting al-Nusra shoulder to shoulder with Russia, but the empire has something up its sleeve to stop Russia from coming to the defense of Iran, should the U.S. and Israel decide to circumvent the Security Council. Something stinks; Trump is top loading his cabinet with crazy, Iran-obsessed hawks and his VP and CIA Direct also have no love for Putin. They're planning something against Iran and I know they're going to do something to tie Putin's hands. Something's up and it's going to lead to war beyond Syria. Look the Russians are already depleting resources in Syria; already that puts Russia in a weakened position. I don't know what they're planning but it's not good. The picture unfolding with Trump's cabinet is very disturbing.

    Circe | Nov 20, 2016 3:35:38 PM | 62
    There's another aspect and maybe it's significant and maybe not that could influence a change in Trump's position on Russia that would have also made him take the extreme step of meeting with Romney while considering the SoS position. Trump is getting the highest level of security briefings now that he's President-elect. You wanna bet that Russia and Putin are mentioned in over 50% of those briefings and ISIS, Iran and others get the other 50% collectively???

    Jackrabbit | Nov 20, 2016 3:41:53 PM | 63
    @Circe

    Hasbara hysteria to undermine Trump. Unrelenting bullshit and innuendo.

    What was Bannon talking about when he said that America is getting f*cked? Globalism vs. Nationalism. Who equates nationalism with nazism? Zionists. Who is butt-hurt over Trump Presidency? Zionists and neocons.

    Circe | Nov 20, 2016 3:47:15 PM | 64
    @63

    Unrelenting bullshit and innuendo.

    Yep, describes your weak deception to a T! ...like I'm going to hang on Bannon's word as gospel when he's going to be wining and dining with Zionists at the ZOA gala.

    Try again.

    Circe | Nov 20, 2016 3:54:39 PM | 65
    Oh, and one more thing: Zionists, FYI, relate very well with nationalists and supremacists since they got their own nationalist, supremacist operation in ISRAEL! So I'm only too sure they'll be commiserating and exchanging ideas on how best to secure their nationalist, supremacist vision for the empire. There's a whole lot of common ground for them to cover during the gala, and YOU CAN'T AND DIDN'T DENY THAT BANNON IS ATTENDING THE ZIONIST GALA! Did you???

    So again, quit dogging me, quit presuming I'm some undercover hasbara, that maybe you are, and spare me the bullshit.

    Circe | Nov 20, 2016 4:59:44 PM | 66
    As if we didn't need anymore proof of where Trump is taking the U.S.: Trump tweeted a comment highly praising General James Mattis after their meeting considering him for Secretary of Defense. This is a major, major red flag signalling a very troubling direction in Trump's foreign policy.

    Mattis served for two years as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. Although, he served under Obama, he was against the Iran deal and considers Iran more dangerous that ISIS!

    Mattis is nicknamed "mad-dog mattis" for a reason: he is an extreme hawk and he is MIC incorporated.

    But here's the kicker, Mattis like Pompeo, Pence and Romney has also made blistering comments against Russia, stating that Putin wants to break up NATO, sent "dogs and thugs" into Georgia and has been very critical of Putin's actions in Ukraine and Syria.

    At the beginning of the primaries, Neocons wanted Mattis as a candidate for the Presidency on the Republican side. I like how the following article describes just how much Neocon war hawks salivated over the thought of Mattis in the White House:

    http://original.antiwar.com/daniel-mcadams/2016/04/25/neocons-panting-president-mad-dog-mattis/

    Well folks, Mattis, the darling of Neocons, will be in the White House next to Trump advising him on war strategy! And worst of all this mad-dog Neocon war hawk is going to run the Pentagon, oversee a trillion-dollar military expansion and command the next world war!

    So are you convinced yet that Trump is perpetuating the Neocon PNAC/Clean Break plan or are you still totally blind???

    Harry | Nov 20, 2016 5:17:23 PM | 67
    More and more troubling news from Trump camp and his party, but lets not make snap judgements. We'll see soon enough.

    jfl | Nov 20, 2016 5:24:10 PM | 68
    @34 fl, 'In my eyes the names he's been considering are reason for much worry for those hoping Trump would be the one to usher in a multipolar world and end the cold war. I never had much hope in that regard (but I'm still praying for the best).'

    Trump is in it for Trump. He's a solipsist. We and our 'real world' doesn't exist for Trump. He lives in Trump Tower. The only things he cares about are his personal interests. He'll put in people to 'run the government' who will insulate him and his interests from the consequences of their actions and that'll keep him happy and them in their jobs, no matter the consequences for our 'imaginary' real world. We're back to the mad Caesars. Our government has been steadily walking away from us since Bush XLI. It's on the run now, we're up to Nero. We 'barbarians' need to take care of our real world in its absence, prepare ourselves to pick up the pieces when it's become so unrecognizable that it's finally disappeared.

    [Nov 19, 2016] The Democratic party lost its soul. Its time to win it back

    Notable quotes:
    "... For one thing, many vested interests don't want the Democratic party to change. Most of the money it raises ends up in the pockets of political consultants, pollsters, strategists, lawyers, advertising consultants and advertisers themselves, many of whom have become rich off the current arrangement. They naturally want to keep it. ..."
    "... For another, the Democratic party apparatus is ingrown and entrenched. Like any old bureaucracy, it only knows how to do what it has done for years. Its state and quadrennial national conventions are opportunities for insiders to meet old friends and for aspiring politicians to make contacts among the rich and powerful. Insiders and the rich aren't going to happily relinquish their power and perquisites, and hand them to outsiders and the non-rich. ..."
    "... I have been a Democrat for 50 years – I have even served in two Democratic administrations in Washington, including a stint in the cabinet and have run for the Democratic nomination for governor in one state – yet I have never voted for the chair or vice-chair of my state Democratic party. That means I, too, have had absolutely no say over who the chair of the Democratic National Committee will be. To tell you the truth, I haven't cared. And that's part of the problem. ..."
    "... Finally, the party chairmanship has become a part-time sinecure for politicians on their way up or down, not a full-time position for a professional organizer. In 2011, Tim Kaine (who subsequently became Hillary Clinton's running mate in the 2016 election) left the chairmanship to run, successfully, for the Senate from Virginia. ..."
    "... The chair then went to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a Florida congresswoman who had co-chaired Clinton's bid for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008. This generated allegations in the 2016 race that the Democratic National Committee was siding with Clinton against Bernie Sanders – allegations substantiated by leaks of emails from the DNC. ..."
    "... So what we now have is a Democratic party that has been repudiated at the polls, headed by a Democratic National Committee that has become irrelevant at best, run part-time by a series of insider politicians. It has no deep or broad-based grass-roots, no capacity for mobilizing vast numbers of people to take any action other than donate money, no visibility between elections, no ongoing activism. ..."
    Nov 19, 2016 | www.theguardian.com

    For one thing, many vested interests don't want the Democratic party to change. Most of the money it raises ends up in the pockets of political consultants, pollsters, strategists, lawyers, advertising consultants and advertisers themselves, many of whom have become rich off the current arrangement. They naturally want to keep it.

    For another, the Democratic party apparatus is ingrown and entrenched. Like any old bureaucracy, it only knows how to do what it has done for years. Its state and quadrennial national conventions are opportunities for insiders to meet old friends and for aspiring politicians to make contacts among the rich and powerful. Insiders and the rich aren't going to happily relinquish their power and perquisites, and hand them to outsiders and the non-rich.

    Most Americans who call themselves Democrats never hear from the Democratic party except when it asks for money, typically through mass mailings and recorded telephone calls in the months leading up to an election. The vast majority of Democrats don't know the name of the chair of the Democratic National Committee or of their state committee. Almost no registered Democrats have any idea how to go about electing their state Democratic chair or vice-chair, and, hence, almost none have any influence over whom the next chair of the Democratic National Committee may be.

    I have been a Democrat for 50 years – I have even served in two Democratic administrations in Washington, including a stint in the cabinet and have run for the Democratic nomination for governor in one state – yet I have never voted for the chair or vice-chair of my state Democratic party. That means I, too, have had absolutely no say over who the chair of the Democratic National Committee will be. To tell you the truth, I haven't cared. And that's part of the problem.

    Nor, for that matter, has Barack Obama cared. He basically ignored the Democratic National Committee during his presidency, starting his own organization called Organizing for America. It was originally intended to marshal grass-roots support for the major initiatives he sought to achieve during his presidency, but morphed into a fund-raising machine of its own.

    Finally, the party chairmanship has become a part-time sinecure for politicians on their way up or down, not a full-time position for a professional organizer. In 2011, Tim Kaine (who subsequently became Hillary Clinton's running mate in the 2016 election) left the chairmanship to run, successfully, for the Senate from Virginia.

    The chair then went to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a Florida congresswoman who had co-chaired Clinton's bid for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008. This generated allegations in the 2016 race that the Democratic National Committee was siding with Clinton against Bernie Sanders – allegations substantiated by leaks of emails from the DNC.

    So what we now have is a Democratic party that has been repudiated at the polls, headed by a Democratic National Committee that has become irrelevant at best, run part-time by a series of insider politicians. It has no deep or broad-based grass-roots, no capacity for mobilizing vast numbers of people to take any action other than donate money, no visibility between elections, no ongoing activism.

    [Nov 16, 2016] The New Red Scare: Reviving the art of threat inflation

    Notable quotes:
    "... Reviving the art of threat inflation ..."
    "... "Welcome to the world of strategic analysis," Ivan Selin used to tell his team during the Sixties, "where we program weapons that don't work to meet threats that don't exist." Selin, who would spend the following decades as a powerful behind-the-scenes player in the Washington mandarinate, was then the director of the Strategic Forces Division in the Pentagon's Office of Systems Analysis. "I was a twenty-eight-year-old wiseass when I started saying that," he told me, reminiscing about those days. "I thought the issues we were dealing with were so serious, they could use a little levity." ..."
    Nov 16, 2016 | marknesop.wordpress.com
    et Al , November 16, 2016 at 2:51 am
    Harpers Magazine via Antiwar.com: The New Red Scare
    http://harpers.org/archive/2016/12/the-new-red-scare/?single=1

    Reviving the art of threat inflation

    By Andrew Cockburn

    "Welcome to the world of strategic analysis," Ivan Selin used to tell his team during the Sixties, "where we program weapons that don't work to meet threats that don't exist." Selin, who would spend the following decades as a powerful behind-the-scenes player in the Washington mandarinate, was then the director of the Strategic Forces Division in the Pentagon's Office of Systems Analysis. "I was a twenty-eight-year-old wiseass when I started saying that," he told me, reminiscing about those days. "I thought the issues we were dealing with were so serious, they could use a little levity."

    ####

    While I do have some quibbles with the piece (RuAF pilots are getting much more than 90 hours a year flight time & equipment is overrated and unaffordable in any decent numbers), it is pretty solid.

    [Oct 31, 2016] Obama lied: he knew about Hillarys secret server and wrote to her using a pseudonym

    Oct 31, 2016 | stateofthenation2012.com
    _ _ _

    For the uninitiated this breakdown essentially says that President Barack Obama is stone-cold guilty of crimes and cover-ups that would make Watergate look like a walk in the park .

    "How Is This Not Classified?"- Obama Used A Pseudonym In Emails With Hillary, FBI Data Dump Reveals

    In fact, Obama is so deeply involved with the criminal workings of State that he had no choice but to lie about his knowledge of Clinton's private server and personal email account. This is why Emailgate is so HUGE- it's a massive cover-up of the greatest crimes EVER committed by the US Government . And Obama lied his way all through the never-ending conspiratorial saga. As follows:

    VIDEO: Barack Obama Outright Lies To The American People On National TV About Clinton's Private Email

    [Oct 30, 2016] Computer seized in Weiner probe prompts FBI to take new steps in Clinton email inquiry

    Why thousands of emails were forwarded to unsecured computer shared by Abedin with her husband?
    How they were forwarded, were they forwarded individually or as a batch operation ?
    How many of them are those 30K deleted by Hillary "private" emails ?
    Does this batch contains any of previously discovered classified emails?
    What was the purpose of forwarding those emails to home computer.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Somebody at the F.B.I. must have picked up on the fact that the "FIX" was exposed hence on Friday an announcement was made by the F.B.I. that they had found further e-mails, I suspect that all the e-mails will have to be re-examined in the light of the lenient views taken by some F.B. I. Officers taken at the first pass or some more deletions will of necessity have to take place. ..."
    "... Meanwhile Clinton is shouting and screaming at the F.B.I. because she now knows that a new fix will be very difficult or impossible in the light of the revealed information and her "charity donations" of over $800,000 have not only been wasted but have exposed her flank! ..."
    "... ...the agents discovered the existence of tens of thousands of emails, some of them sent between Ms. Abedin and other Clinton aides, according to senior law enforcement officials ..."
    "... Nevertheless, how do you forward tens of thousands of emails? I don't think it can be a batch operation, they must have been forwarded individually. And what of the 30,000 destroyed (by Clinton) emails? ..."
    "... "We don't know what this means yet except that it's a real bombshell. And it is unthinkable that the Director of the FBI would take this action lightly, that he would put this letter forth to the Congress of the United States saying there is more information out there about classified e-mails and call it to the attention of congress unless it was something requiring serious investigation. So that's where we are..." ..."
    Oct 30, 2016 | www.washingtonpost.com
    Don Smith 4:38 PM EDT
    The other day I was reading an article which was talking about two "charity donations" given to the wife of an F.B.I. Officer involved in the e-mail investigation by "friends of the Clinton's".

    The article was very low key it's author briefly wondered if the officer concerned should have excused himself from the investigation. I also thought it strange that the officers interest had not been declared. Some time later I was reading about details concerning the e-mails sent from Clinton's staff to members of the F.B.I. ,basically what was happening was that the security rating of the information contained in non deleted mails was being talked down, at which point for me at least alarm bells were ringing loud and clear but I did not expect there to be any reaction. O.K. So I'm that cynical.

    Somebody at the F.B.I. must have picked up on the fact that the "FIX" was exposed hence on Friday an announcement was made by the F.B.I. that they had found further e-mails, I suspect that all the e-mails will have to be re-examined in the light of the lenient views taken by some F.B. I. Officers taken at the first pass or some more deletions will of necessity have to take place.

    Meanwhile Clinton is shouting and screaming at the F.B.I. because she now knows that a new fix will be very difficult or impossible in the light of the revealed information and her "charity donations" of over $800,000 have not only been wasted but have exposed her flank!

    CanardNoir 2:20 PM EDT [Edited]
    My Fellow Americans - Here is what the NYT is reporting in contrast to the WaPost's email count of more than 1,000, in terms of an actual number of emails to be reviewed:

    "...the agents discovered the existence of tens of thousands of emails, some of them sent between Ms. Abedin and other Clinton aides, according to senior law enforcement officials."

    Subsequently, that could change what the initial investigation by the Bureau had to look at this summer, and the understanding that all of the parties acknowledge that about 30k emails were deleted. So the "tens of thousands" may be duplicates or perhaps copies of the "thumb-drive" that one of HRC's lawyers was said to have been given?

    At any rate, this must bring into play at least 18 U.S. Code § 2071 - Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally - and raise the question about whether conflicting DOJ internal "policy" has any affect on any of the Administration's current or former appointees, in terms of their "oath of office" or moving forward. And that would bring 5 U.S. Code § 3331 - Oath of office - into play as well as the 5-year statute of limitations.

    We're likely still "Doomed" - so don't get too happy just yet, because EPA could still disallow "draining" anything as a result of the Clean Water Act, as amended.

    CanardNoir 2:41 PM EDT
    And here's the Sec. 2071 reason "why":

    (b) "Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States..."

    Rick B. 1:57 PM EDT
    Time to appoint Patrick Fitzgerald as special counsel
    9:57 AM EST

    [Edited] Lynch had to recuse herself after meeting with Bill Clinton. Had there not been information showing intent to violate espionage laws, Comey would have never acted. The fact is she is a criminal and cannot be elected . Image an elected Hillary who is impeached. The USA deserves better than a this and must turn the Clintons out to pasture forever.

    Avatar666 8:23 AM EST

    The FBI used to be a respected agency. Now, not so much. Working for, and in collusion with Obama, Loretta Lynch, the Clinton's and the media makes their "investigation" suspect, to say the least.

    Avatar666 8:07 AM EST

    Hillary "will say anything and do anything" (Obama's words, not mine) to get elected. Trying to blame her malfeasance on the FBI is simply stupid. She is so obsessed with money and power that she openly states "I have spent my life helping children and women". Right. Like when she was an 8 year Senator who only introduced 3 bills naming a couple highways and a bank. Her followers are dupes and dunces and we can only hope they don't outnumber rationally thinking people.

    Kathleen Galt 5:31 AM EST

    To think that Weiner and who knows who else had access to U.S. National Security information on the Weiner/Abedin computer. Sure sounds like the FBI is after Abedin not Clinton.

    Dems loved Comey when he slapped Clinton on the wrist for playing loose with U.S. National Security on her email server. Now those same Dems want to burn Comey at the stake.

    Let's not forget how Comey has come to be such a respected official
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic...
    In vivid testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Comey said he alerted FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and raced, sirens blaring, to join Ashcroft in his hospital room, arriving minutes before Gonzales and Card. Ashcroft, summoning the strength to lift his head and speak, refused to sign the papers they had brought. Gonzales and Card, who had never acknowledged Comey's presence in the room, turned and left.
    ad_icon

    The sickbed visit was the start of a dramatic showdown between the White House and the Justice Department in early 2004 that, according to Comey, was resolved only when Bush overruled Gonzales and Card. But that was not before Ashcroft, Comey, Mueller and their aides prepared a mass resignation, Comey said. The domestic spying by the National Security Agency continued for several weeks without Justice approval, wheresthechow 2:27 AM EST The Clinton's are just so amazing in their cavalier above-the-law attitude that they can't even renovate their house without breaking the law.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/us/politics/chap...

    wwrfla 2:59 AM EST

    [Edited] "The Case Against Hillary Clinton"...as written by Christopher Hitchens.

    https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&...

    Truer words have never been written.

    #NeverHillary!!! #BernieOrBust!!!

    dcammer 10/29/2016 9:31 PM EST

    Mr. Weiner has not aged well.....and it is not over....avoid park benches do not visit remote areas.....People you and I know may have a Boat moored in a slip at a Dock or a Yacht club that's Normal Americana....Yet A.G.Loretta Lynch was waiting on the Tarmac in her Jet Plane as Bill Clinton leaves His Jet Plane to chat with Loretta ....this is an area of privilege far above yacht club status....and this meeting broke several laws very quickly...so the A.G. has no authority to comment on what the head of F.B.I. has done regarding The Weiner Email discovery and whatever Bill had swindled for future favors or past I.O.U's has now become a waste of AA jet fuel for the,"IN", crowd.....Hillary is starting to look a little like Mr.Weiner; facial tension ,gaunt,hollow cheeks,terse lips,Bill was supposed to take care of all this....right?Now Mr. Comey had taken the J. Edgar Hoover pledge to Serve and protect and that would have been us under all other circumstances.....but he has to be loyal to his associates for they are the top 2% of the entire population and they deserve to be treated as the most important the bureau has....what transpired on the first pass left them in Mayberry P.D. limbo and will never happen could someone help Loretta Lynch to see the light or the exit sign ....Please

    711810943 10/29/2016 10:56 PM EST

    Yep, we're definitely talking about the battle of the twin dumpster fires here...

    Celebrity gossip trumps policy, if you'll forgive the expression. But what can you expect in a country that can name three Kardashian sisters, but not one foreign head of state.

    Hmmm... Those deck chairs need rearranging... See ya...

    canaffordit 10/29/2016 9:09 PM EST

    Laptop or PC is property of US once claissified info discovered. 18USC 798, right? Who says a warrant is needed to seize, protect? No so. And, for sure, they will read, use of which may or may not be impeded thereby. Still, there is allot to investigate, incl. numerous apparent violations of ethics in govt. act, etc, failures to disclose gifts / income, etc.

    RTDP 10/29/2016 8:29 PM EST

    The Clintons run a morally corrupt RICO that holds itself above the law. With Obama's support, the Justice Dept., IRS, FBI, State Dept. have aided and abetted the Clinton corruption of our government. This illustrates Hayek's point in The Road To Serfdom that when very powerful government institutions are created, "the worst rise to the top". Public power and money attract the least scrupulous, least honest, most power hungry, and most determined. Though Clinton's cabal publicly poses themselves as humanitarian progressives, the Doug Band statement of operations among Teneo, CGI, the Foundation, and the Clintons presents the underlying purpose of selling influence and the crony capital structure devised to split the proceeds. The Clinton Foundation operates outside the law. So where's the MSM, the IRS, the FBI, Justice...what justice?

    See: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/10/a_...

    Kathleen Galt 5:31 AM EDT

    To think that Weiner and who knows who else had access to U.S. National Security information on the Weiner/Abedin computer. Sure sounds like the FBI is after Abedin not Clinton.

    Dems loved Comey when he slapped Clinton on the wrist for playing loose with U.S. National Security on her email server. Now those same Dems want to burn Comey at the stake.

    Let's not forget how Comey has come to be such a respected official
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic...
    In vivid testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Comey said he alerted FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and raced, sirens blaring, to join Ashcroft in his hospital room, arriving minutes before Gonzales and Card. Ashcroft, summoning the strength to lift his head and speak, refused to sign the papers they had brought. Gonzales and Card, who had never acknowledged Comey's presence in the room, turned and left.
    ad_icon

    The sickbed visit was the start of a dramatic showdown between the White House and the Justice Department in early 2004 that, according to Comey, was resolved only when Bush overruled Gonzales and Card. But that was not before Ashcroft, Comey, Mueller and their aides prepared a mass resignation, Comey said. The domestic spying by the National Security Agency continued for several weeks without Justice approval, he said.

    "I was angry," Comey testified. "I thought I just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me."

    tjonathan 10/29/2016 7:38 PM EDT

    Watergate's Carl Bernstein: FBI Wouldn't Reopen A Probe Unless It Is "A Real Bombshell"

    HappyInSF 10/29/2016 7:09 PM EDT

    [Edited] In a previous release of information as a result of a Freedom of Information suit, it became known that Huma Abedin had forwarded emails from Clinton's private email server, to Ms. Abedin's personal yahoo email account.

    The new bit of news today, is that the FBI found TENS OF THOUSANDS of Clinton related emails on Weiner's (shared with Abedin?) laptop. I understand that Mrs. Clinton was SOS for four years.

    Nevertheless, how do you forward tens of thousands of emails? I don't think it can be a batch operation, they must have been forwarded individually. And what of the 30,000 destroyed (by Clinton) emails?

    The only thing that makes sense, is that the newly discovered emails include some of the missing emails. As Carl Bernstein (one of the two original Post reporters who broke the Watergate story, which led to Nixon's resignation) said yesterday:

    "We don't know what this means yet except that it's a real bombshell. And it is unthinkable that the Director of the FBI would take this action lightly, that he would put this letter forth to the Congress of the United States saying there is more information out there about classified e-mails and call it to the attention of congress unless it was something requiring serious investigation. So that's where we are..."

    [Oct 29, 2016] Why such the abrupt reversal by Comey, who by all indications is Obama man and helped to squash the investigation?

    Notable quotes:
    "... So we have a traitor as POTUS that is not only corrupt, but compromised...and a woman that is a serial liar, perjured herself multiple times at the Hearing whom is running for POTUS. ..."
    Oct 29, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com
    Fred C. Dobbs : October 29, 2016 at 02:08 PM
    (You would suppose that the FBI director is under the control of the Justice Department, but evidently not.)

    Officials warned FBI head about decision on e-mails
    http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/10/29/officials-warned-fbi-head-about-decision-mails/AsSTVmOMuZFsg7xnOTmcSK/story.html?event=event25

    Sari Horwitz - Washington Post - October 29, 2016

    WASHINGTON - Senior Justice Department officials warned the FBI that Director James B. Comey's decision to notify Congress about renewing the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server was not consistent with long-standing practices of the department, according to officials familiar with the discussions.

    ... ... ...

    im1dc -> Fred C. Dobbs... , October 29, 2016 at 02:13 PM
    Comely went off the farm all on his own and must answer for his actions. Simple as that.

    BTW, imo this will not impact the outcome of the Election November 8th.

    likbez -> im1dc... October 29, 2016 at 05:29 PM
    "Comely went off the farm all on his own and must answer for his actions. Simple as that."

    IMHO that's extremely naïve. Such a "career limiting move"(CLM) in Washington-speak almost never done "on his own". Exception are whistleblowers like William Binney, who already decided for themselves that "this is the last stand" and are ready to face consequences.

    Few Washington bureaucrats want to became outcasts within the administration, even the lame duck administration. Bureaucracy, at the end, is just another flavor of a political coalition and they tend to cling to power by whatever means possible including criminal.

    Moreover, Comey so far was viewed as an "Obama man" who abruptly squashed the "emailgate" investigation instead of expanding it investigating Bill Clinton for his "accidental" meeting with Loretta Lynch and possibly putting the old fogey on the bench for the obstruction of justice. And who at the end granted immunity to all key members of Clinton entourage including Huma Abedin who proved to be, security wise, not the sharpest tool in the shed.

    See http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Political_skeptic/Neocons/Hillary/Emailgate/understanding_hillary_clinton_email_scandal.shtml

    So why such the abrupt reversal?

    The only plausible explanation that I see is that Comey action reflects a deep split within the USA elite including internal cracks and pressure within FBI brass (possibly from rank-and-file investigators, who understand what's going on) as for viability Hillary as the next POTUS.

    I would ask you a very simple question: do you really want a POTUS that has, say, 80% probability to be impeached by the House during the first year of his/her administration?

    And any security specialist will tell you that Hillary creation of "shadow IT" within the State Department is a crime. The behavior that would never be tolerated not only in super-secretive State Department (which recently assumed some functions previously performed by CIA), but in any large corporation.

    It also might well be that there are new highly compromising evidence (not necessary from Wiener case) which changed the "grand calculation".

    Here is an interesting post that I recently come across:
    http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/10/27/team-clinton-head-emails-published-wikileaks-mood/#comment-2971488944

    DoruSlinger✓ᵀᴿᵁᴹᴾ

    Wikileaks needs to get this out (I have not verified the info sent to me last night):

    So here's the REAL story.​ ​

    Amb. Stevens was sent to Benghazi post haste in order to retrieve US made Stinger missiles supplied to Ansar al Sharia without Congressional oversight or permission.

    Hillary brokered the deal through Stevens and a private arms dealer named Marc Turi. Then some of the shoulder fired missiles ended up in Afghanistan used against our own military. It was July 25th, 2012 when a Chinook helicopter was taken down by one of our own Stingers, but the idiot Taliban didn't arm the missile and the Chinook didn't explode, but had to land anyway.

    An ordnance team recovered the serial number off the missile which led back to a cache of Stingers being kept in Qatar by the CIA

    Obama and Hillary were now in full panic mode and Stevens was sent in to retrieve the rest of the Stingers. This was a "do-or-die" mission, which explains the stand down orders given to multiple commando teams.

    It was the State Dept, not the CIA that supplied them to our sworn enemies, because Petraeus wouldn't supply these deadly weapons due to their potential use on commercial aircraft. Then, Obama threw Gen. Petraeus under the bus after he refused to testify that he OK'd the BS talking points about a spontaneous uprising due to a Youtube video.

    Obama and Hillary committed treason...and THIS is what the investigation is all about, why she had a private server, (in order to delete the digital evidence), and why Obama, two weeks after the attack, told the UN that the attack was because of a Youtube video, even though everyone knew it was not.

    Further...the Taliban knew that this administration aided and abetted the enemy without Congressional approval when Boehner created the Select Cmte, and the Taliban began pushing the Obama Administration for the release of 5 Taliban Generals. Bowe Bergdahl was just a pawn...everyone KNEW he was a traitor.

    So we have a traitor as POTUS that is not only corrupt, but compromised...and a woman that is a serial liar, perjured herself multiple times at the Hearing whom is running for POTUS.

    Only the Dems, with their hands out, palms up, will support her. Perhaps this is why no military aircraft was called in because the administration knew our enemies had Stingers.

    [Oct 25, 2016] Joint Statement from the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security

    Notable quotes:
    "... Wait just a damn minute. Why is the DNI telling THE RUSSIANS what the USIC suspects? Wouldn't that blunt the capability for taking counter measures? Unless... red herring? ..."
    "... The problem with "the Russians" tale is that the Podesta emails are rather weak sauce. Is there anyone paying close attention that didn't know HRC's camp had influential contacts in the media and the DNC and used them to their advantage? ..."
    "... Indeed. So far there is a little of note in the leaked emails. They confirm, among the other things we already knew: ..."
    "... The Clintonites don't think very highly of Sanders. ..."
    "... They have a lot of trusted friends in the media - some *very* trusted embeds. ..."
    "... There is a difference between what Clinton says in public and what she really believes. ..."
    "... They didn't want to release the content of the Goldman Sachs speeches because the contents included a lot of Clinton pandering and rear-kissing to banksters. ..."
    "... Podesta is an influential man, and a lot of people email him to use his influence and for help them. ..."
    "... Presumably, if US intelligence is so confident about Russian government methods, motivations, tactics, tic tacs and techniques they also should have a pretty damn good idea about what is still out there and also would have the means to disrupt its dissemination, if necessary. ..."
    "... In other words, don't hold yer breath. ..."
    "... "First of all the fact that intelligence community issue a statement on such a matter is very strange." ..."
    "... Weapons of Mass Destruction! We have irrefutable evidence! Yellowcake! ..."
    "... Keith B. Alexander:"Those who would want to weave the story that we have millions or hundreds of millions of dossiers on people, is absolutely false… From my perspective, this is absolute nonsense." ..."
    "... "Two U.S. representatives accused Clapper of perjury for telling a congressional committee in March 2013, that the NSA does not collect any type of data at all on millions of Americans. One senator asked for his resignation, and a group of 26 senators complained about Clapper's responses under questioning. Media observers have described Clapper as having lied under oath, having obstructed justice, and having given false testimony." ..."
    "... We have something like what Marxists call "revolutionary situation" when the elite loses control of "peons". And existence of Internet made MSM propaganda far less effective that it would be otherwise. ..."
    "... That's why they resort to war propaganda tricks. ..."
    Oct 25, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com

    Sandwichman -> Sandwichman ... October 24, 2016 at 09:58 AM

    DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE
    WASHINGTON, DC 20511

    October 07, 2016

    Joint Statement from the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security

    https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/215-press-releases-2016/1423-joint-dhs-odni-election-security-statement

    The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow-the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.

    Sandwichman -> Sandwichman ...

    is confident that... are consistent with...

    Wait just a damn minute. Why is the DNI telling THE RUSSIANS what the USIC suspects? Wouldn't that blunt the capability for taking counter measures? Unless... red herring?

    Look! Over there!

    Sandwichman -> EMichael... , October 24, 2016 at 10:39 AM
    The problem with "the Russians" tale is that the Podesta emails are rather weak sauce. Is there anyone paying close attention that didn't know HRC's camp had influential contacts in the media and the DNC and used them to their advantage?

    I'm shocked, shocked that there is backroom power politics going on in a political campaign!

    The upshot of the WikiLeaks Podesta emails is to DISCREDIT WIKILEAKS as an independent source of disclosure.

    Why would Putin want to do that?

    Why would CLAPPER want to do that?

    Dan Kervick -> Sandwichman ... , October 24, 2016 at 01:54 PM
    Indeed. So far there is a little of note in the leaked emails. They confirm, among the other things we already knew:

    1. The Clintonites don't think very highly of Sanders.

    2. They have a lot of trusted friends in the media - some *very* trusted embeds.

    3. There is a difference between what Clinton says in public and what she really believes.

    4. They didn't want to release the content of the Goldman Sachs speeches because the contents included a lot of Clinton pandering and rear-kissing to banksters.

    5. Podesta is an influential man, and a lot of people email him to use his influence and for help them.

    DeDude -> EMichael... , October 24, 2016 at 10:52 AM
    Here is a better outline of the whole thing

    http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a49791/russian-dnc-emails-hacked/

    "One of the first leaked files had been modified on a computer using Russian-language settings by a user named "Feliks Dzerzhinsky." Dzerzhinsky was the founder of the Cheka, the Soviet secret police"

    The Russian connect was not "revealed" by NSA alone and the evidence for anybody who understand computers and "trails" is quite strong.

    The fact that the initial "leaks" were not such a big deal was no surprise. Given Julian's desperate need to not get Clinton into the white house, you would expect him to save the most juicy stuff until a few days before the election.

    Sandwichman -> DeDude... , October 24, 2016 at 12:25 PM
    From the Esquire article: "Matt Tait, a former GCHQ operator... was particularly prolific. Hours after the first Guccifer 2.0 dump, on the evening of June 15, Tait found something curious."

    For the record, "GCHQ" does not refer to the magazine, Gentlemen's Quarterly.

    anne -> Sandwichman ... , October 24, 2016 at 12:40 PM
    For the record, "GCHQ" does not refer to the magazine, Gentlemen's Quarterly.

    [ I prefer to think it does, and even if not it probably should so refer. ]

    Dan Kervick -> DeDude... , October 24, 2016 at 01:11 PM
    I wonder what those juicy leaks are?
    Sandwichman -> Dan Kervick... , October 24, 2016 at 02:10 PM
    Presumably, if US intelligence is so confident about Russian government methods, motivations, tactics, tic tacs and techniques they also should have a pretty damn good idea about what is still out there and also would have the means to disrupt its dissemination, if necessary.

    In other words, don't hold yer breath.

    Dan Kervick -> Sandwichman ... , October 24, 2016 at 03:52 PM
    Well, I assume Podesta has given somebody all of his emails, so they can compare against what is already released and see what is to come. I think their only defense against it is to try to discredit whatever it is ahead of time.
    DeDude -> Dan Kervick... , October 24, 2016 at 04:00 PM
    Only your imagination is the limit - since they are not real. But we will most likely never know since even Assange knows that he can only lose this one.
    Dan Kervick -> DeDude... , October 24, 2016 at 02:09 PM
    Wow, amazing that the founder of the "secret" police would leak emails with his digital fingerprints all over them.
    Sandwichman -> Dan Kervick... , October 24, 2016 at 02:12 PM
    That Dzerzhinsky! Such a joker!
    DeDude -> Dan Kervick... , October 24, 2016 at 03:54 PM
    No he would be the exact person to make such a mistake. After looking at them he would not have the technical expertise to understand that he had left a fingerprint.
    likbez -> Sandwichman ... , -1
    Sandwinchment,

    First of all the fact that intelligence community issue a statement on such a matter is very strange. There is executive branch and three letter agencies should generally keep their mouth shut and allow others to voice the concerns, etc.

    This might be a sigh of complete disorganization of executive branch with intelligence agencies becoming a power players. Kind of "Deep State" morphing into "surface state".

    There are might be also multiple valid reasons for disclosing such a sensitive information:

    1. I want your money stupid Pinocchio.
    2. Smoke screen to hide their own nefarious activities and/or blunders within the USA. Actually existence of Hillary private server is somewhat incompatible with the existence of NSA.
    3. This is one thing when Podesta using gmail. It's quite another when the Secretary of state uses "bathroom server" with incompetent or semi-competent tech staff and completely clueless entourage.
    4. Pre-emptive strike reflecting some internal struggle within US Intelligence community itself with a neocon faction going "all in" to force the viewpoint, and more aggressive toward Russia stance, which might not be shared by others.
    5. Please note that CIA and DOD are fighting each other in Iraq and Syria to a certain extent.
    6. Increase Anti-Russian hysteria, which helps Hillary as a candidate of neocon establishment.
    7. Russians might recently uncover some nefarious activities (I heard FSB did discover compromised computers in some ministries) and this is the preparation for the blowback.

    There might be more. You never know.

    Sandwichman -> likbez... , October 24, 2016 at 12:31 PM
    "First of all the fact that intelligence community issue a statement on such a matter is very strange."

    Yep.

    Second, the fact that intelligence community issue a statement on such a matter is very strange.

    Last but not least, the fact that intelligence community issue a statement on such a matter is very strange.

    Did I mention that the fact that intelligence community issue a statement on such a matter is very strange?

    anne -> Sandwichman ... , October 24, 2016 at 10:12 AM
    The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts....

    -- Joint Statement from the Department of Homeland Security
    and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security

    [ "Consistent with the methods and motivations..." is a shocking supposition to be made public, but we have been subject to such suppositions, seemingly with increasing frequency, for these last 15 years. ]

    Sandwichman -> anne... , October 24, 2016 at 10:30 AM
    Weapons of Mass Destruction! We have irrefutable evidence! Yellowcake!

    Keith B. Alexander:"Those who would want to weave the story that we have millions or hundreds of millions of dossiers on people, is absolutely false… From my perspective, this is absolute nonsense."

    ...

    Senator Wyden: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"

    DNI Clapper"No, sir."

    Senator Wyden: "It does not?"

    DNI Clapper:"Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly."

    The [IN]operative word there was "collect" which in NSAspeak does not mean... collect.

    http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2016/10/donald-loves-trikileaks.html

    anne -> Sandwichman ... , October 24, 2016 at 06:12 PM
    Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost if you KEEP IT A SECRET!

    Why didn't you tell the world, eh?

    [ Worth reading and reading and reading. ]

    Julio -> anne... , October 24, 2016 at 01:24 PM
    Not shocking anymore. It is, after all, consistent with the methods and motivations of our rulers.
    anne -> Julio ... , October 24, 2016 at 02:52 PM
    [ "Consistent with the methods and motivations..." is a shocking supposition to be made public, but we have been subject to such suppositions, seemingly with increasing frequency, for these last 15 years. ]

    Not shocking anymore. It is, after all, consistent with the methods and motivations of our rulers.

    [ Understood. ]

    Sanjait -> Sandwichman ... , October 24, 2016 at 10:35 AM
    Some paranoid claptrap to go along with your usual anti intellectualism.

    Interestingly, with your completely unrelated non sequitur, you've actually illustrated something that does relate to Krugmans post. Namely that there are wingnuts among us. They've taken over the Republican Party, but the left has some too. Fortunately though the Democratic Party hasn't been taken over by them yet, and is still mostly run by grown ups.

    Sandwichman -> Sanjait... , October 24, 2016 at 10:42 AM
    I am confident that what you say here is consistent with your methods and motivations.
    likbez -> Sandwichman ... , October 24, 2016 at 06:05 PM
    "I am confident that what you say here is consistent with your methods and motivations."

    Pretty consistent, I agree. IMHO Sanjait might belong to the category that some people call the "Vichy left" – essentially people who are ready to sacrifice all principles to ensure their 'own' prosperity and support the candidate who intends to protected it, everybody else be damned.

    Very neoliberal approach if you ask me. Ann Rand would probably be proud for this representative of "creative class".

    Essentially the behavior the we've had for the last 8 years with the king of "bait and switch".

    Sandwichman -> Sanjait... , October 24, 2016 at 10:47 AM
    More "paranoid claptrap" (or should that be Clappertrap?):

    Edward Snowden: "...the breaking point was seeing the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, directly lie under oath to Congress. … Seeing that really meant for me there was no going back."

    Peter K. -> Sandwichman ... , October 24, 2016 at 11:43 AM
    "Two U.S. representatives accused Clapper of perjury for telling a congressional committee in March 2013, that the NSA does not collect any type of data at all on millions of Americans. One senator asked for his resignation, and a group of 26 senators complained about Clapper's responses under questioning. Media observers have described Clapper as having lied under oath, having obstructed justice, and having given false testimony."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_R._Clapper

    Oliver Stone's movie was pretty good.

    I agree with you that the hacked email are pretty "weak sauce" for the Russians to risk a confrontation with the sole super power.

    It's possible given that Putin was upset over Hillary backing the pro-democracy movement publically in recent elections.

    likbez -> DrDick... , October 24, 2016 at 11:55 AM
    My impression is that Trump_vs_deep_state is more about dissatisfaction of the Republican base with the Republican brass (which fully endorsed neoliberal globalization), the phenomenon somewhat similar to Sanders.

    Working class and lower middle class essentially abandoned DemoRats (Clinton democrats) after so many years of betrayal and "they have nowhere to go" attitude.

    Looks like they have found were to go this election cycle and this loss of the base is probably was the biggest surprise for neoliberal Democrats.

    Now they try to forge the alliance of highly paid professionals who benefitted from globalization("creative class"), financial speculators and minorities. Which does not look like a stable coalition to me.


    Some data suggest that among unions which endorsed Hillary 3 out of 4 members will vote against her. And that are data from union brass. Lower middle class might also demonstrate the same pattern this election cycle.

    In other words both Parties are now split and have two mini-parties inside. I am not sure that Sanders part of Democratic party would support Hillary. The wounds caused by DNC betrayal and double dealing are still too fresh.

    We have something like what Marxists call "revolutionary situation" when the elite loses control of "peons". And existence of Internet made MSM propaganda far less effective that it would be otherwise.

    That's why they resort to war propaganda tricks.

    [Oct 25, 2016] Whatever it is, its a bunch of scams, lies and public manipulation schemes

    "One of your prime objectives," J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime F.B.I. director, said in one memo, "should be to neutralize ... the New Left movement."
    Notable quotes:
    "... First of all the fact that intelligence community issue a statement on such a matter is very strange. There is executive branch and three letter agencies should generally keep their mouth shut and allow others to voice the concerns, etc. ..."
    "... Where this kind of high level foreign policy is involved, the US government and intelligence services blew their cred with me long ago. I disbelieve them now on as a strong and resilient prior. ..."
    economistsview.typepad.com
    likbez said in reply to Sandwichman... October 24, 2016 at 11:21 AM

    Sandwinchment,

    First of all the fact that intelligence community issue a statement on such a matter is very strange. There is executive branch and three letter agencies should generally keep their mouth shut and allow others to voice the concerns, etc.

    This might be a sigh of complete disorganization of executive branch with intelligence agencies becoming a power players. Kind of "Deep State" morphing into "surface state".

    There are might be also multiple valid reasons for disclosing such a sensitive information:

    1. I want your money stupid Pinocchio.
    2. Smoke screen to hide their own nefarious activities and/or blunders within the USA. Actually existence of Hillary private server is somewhat incompatible with the existence of NSA.
    3. This is one thing when Podesta using gmail. It's quite another when the Secretary of state uses "bathroom server" with incompetent or semi-competent tech staff and completely clueless entourage.
    4. Pre-emptive strike reflecting some internal struggle within US Intelligence community itself with a neocon faction going "all in" to force the viewpoint, and more aggressive toward Russia stance, which might not be shared by others.
    5. Please note that CIA and DOD are fighting each other in Iraq and Syria to a certain extent.
    6. Increase Anti-Russian hysteria, which helps Hillary as a candidate of neocon establishment.
    7. Russians might recently uncover some nefarious activities (I heard FSB did discover compromised computers in some ministries) and this is the preparation for the blowback.

    There might be more. You never know.

    Reply Monday,

    Dan Kervick -> likbez... October 24, 2016 at 01:14 PM

    I can't claim that a mere mortal like me actually has the slightest clue what is really going on. All I will hazard is that, whatever it is, it's a bunch of scams, lies and public manipulation schemes.

    Where this kind of high level foreign policy is involved, the US government and intelligence services blew their cred with me long ago. I disbelieve them now on as a strong and resilient prior.

    [Oct 24, 2016] Weapons of Mass Destruction! We have irrefutable evidence! Yellowcake!

    This strange statement of DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE means direct involvement of Us intelligence agencies in the US election.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Not to worry. The "Intelligence Community" (USIC) has it all figured out. ..."
    "... Step one: discredit the whistle blowers by sending hacked emails to WikiLeaks and blaming Russia. Step two: collect mountains of data without oversight Step three: ?? anne -> Sandwichman ... , October 24, 2016 at 12:10 PM Step one: discredit the whistle blowers by sending hacked emails to WikiLeaks and blaming Russia. Step two: collect mountains of data without oversight Step three: ?? [ Step three could be terrifying if the new Washington and media Cold Warriors and McCarthyists continue on their way. Democrats have become wild, militarist Republicans on foreign affairs, so where is any counter to come from? ..."
    "... TIME, the Economist, and the New Yorker have all now published covers portraying Putin as a scary, Evil menace ..."
    "... This could be a poster for a horror movie. But it's just the sane, sober, centrist @TheEconomist, doing what they do best ..."
    "... The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow-the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities. ..."
    "... The problem with "the Russians" tale is that the Podesta emails are rather weak sauce. Is there anyone paying close attention that didn't know HRC's camp had influential contacts in the media and the DNC and used them to their advantage? ..."
    "... The upshot of the WikiLeaks Podesta emails is to DISCREDIT WIKILEAKS as an independent source of disclosure. ..."
    "... http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a49791/russian-dnc-emails-hacked/ "One of the first leaked files had been modified on a computer using Russian-language settings by a user named "Feliks Dzerzhinsky." Dzerzhinsky was the founder of the Cheka, the Soviet secret police" ..."
    "... From the Esquire article: "Matt Tait, a former GCHQ operator... was particularly prolific. Hours after the first Guccifer 2.0 dump, on the evening of June 15, Tait found something curious." For the record, "GCHQ" does not refer to the magazine, Gentlemen's Quarterly. ..."
    "... First of all the fact that intelligence community issue a statement on such a matter is very strange. ..."
    "... The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts.... ..."
    "... Weapons of Mass Destruction! We have irrefutable evidence! Yellowcake! ..."
    "... Keith B. Alexander: "Those who would want to weave the story that we have millions or hundreds of millions of dossiers on people, is absolutely false… From my perspective, this is absolute nonsense." ..."
    "... Senator Wyden: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" ..."
    "... DNI Clapper "No, sir." ..."
    "... Historically it was the USA that started cyberwar and who developed the most advanced capabilities in this space. Remember the worm which tried to subvert functionality of Iranian centrifuges electronics using specially designed malware and Trojans like Flame? ..."
    "... So the first suspect should internal (kind of Snowden II), not external. There was also a story with an alternative viewpoint: http://www.amtvmedia.com/why-nsa-may-have-leaked-dnc-emails/ ..."
    "... There were also rumors about FOXACID - The NSA's hacking program getting into DNC hands. http://investmentwatchblog.com/warning-trump-fans-be-careful-possible-leaked-info-on-plans-to-attack-trump-supporters/ ..."
    "... Sanjait might belong to the category that some people call the "Vichy left" – essentially people who are ready to sacrifice all principles to ensure their 'own' prosperity and support the candidate who intends to protected it, everybody else be damned. ..."
    "... Very neoliberal approach if you ask me. Ann Rand would probably be proud for this representative of "creative class". ..."
    "... More "paranoid claptrap" (or should that be Clappertrap?): Edward Snowden: "...the breaking point was seeing the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, directly lie under oath to Congress. … Seeing that really meant for me there was no going back." ..."
    "... "Two U.S. representatives accused Clapper of perjury for telling a congressional committee in March 2013, that the NSA does not collect any type of data at all on millions of Americans. One senator asked for his resignation, and a group of 26 senators complained about Clapper's responses under questioning. Media observers have described Clapper as having lied under oath, having obstructed justice, and having given false testimony." ..."
    "... My impression is that that key issue is as following: a vote for Hillary is a vote for the War Party and is incompatible with democratic principles. ..."
    "... In other words no real Democrat can vote for Hillary. ..."
    Oct 24, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com
    It's Trump's party, so cry if you want to:
    It's Trump's Party, by Paul Krugman, NY Times : ...Everyone who endorsed Mr. Trump in the past owns him now... And voters should realize that voting for any Trump endorser is, in effect, a vote for Trump_vs_deep_state, whatever happens at the top of the ticket.

    .... ... ...

    Sandwichman : , October 24, 2016 at 09:50 AM

    Not to worry. The "Intelligence Community" (USIC) has it all figured out.
    Sandwichman -> Sandwichman ... , October 24, 2016 at 09:55 AM
    Step one: discredit the whistle blowers by sending hacked emails to WikiLeaks and blaming Russia.

    Step two: collect mountains of data without oversight

    Step three: ??

    anne -> Sandwichman ... , October 24, 2016 at 12:10 PM
    Step one: discredit the whistle blowers by sending hacked emails to WikiLeaks and blaming Russia.

    Step two: collect mountains of data without oversight

    Step three: ??

    [ Step three could be terrifying if the new Washington and media Cold Warriors and McCarthyists continue on their way. Democrats have become wild, militarist Republicans on foreign affairs, so where is any counter to come from? ]

    anne -> Sandwichman ... , October 24, 2016 at 12:12 PM
    Crazily preparing us for Step three:

    https://twitter.com/barryeisler/status/789620951663063040

    Barry Eisler ‏@barryeisler

    This could be a poster for a horror movie. But it's just the sane, sober, centrist @TheEconomist, doing what they do best

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CvVLw8PVYAAaLQX.jpg

    5:14 PM - 21 Oct 2016

    anne -> anne... , October 24, 2016 at 12:25 PM
    When I need to be reminded of just how afraid of the new McCarthyists I have to be, I will look to the crazily prejudiced cover of The Economist and remember that I have yet to come across a complaint by any academic economist.

    No matter though, as I keep promising I will be naming names. I have my list, and am steadily writing down names to name and name names from morning to evening I surely will.

    anne -> Sandwichman ... , October 24, 2016 at 12:13 PM
    https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/789839468933025796

    Michael Tracey @mtracey

    TIME, the Economist, and the New Yorker have all now published covers portraying Putin as a scary, Evil menace

    Barry Eisler @barryeisler

    This could be a poster for a horror movie. But it's just the sane, sober, centrist @TheEconomist, doing what they do best

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CvVLw8PVYAAaLQX.jpg

    7:42 AM - 22 Oct 2016

    Sandwichman -> Sandwichman ... , October 24, 2016 at 09:58 AM
    DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE
    WASHINGTON, DC 20511

    October 07, 2016

    Joint Statement from the Department of Homeland Security
    and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security

    https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/215-press-releases-2016/1423-joint-dhs-odni-election-security-statement

    The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow-the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.

    Sandwichman -> Sandwichman ... , October 24, 2016 at 10:03 AM
    is confident that... are consistent with...

    Wait just a damn minute.

    Why is the DNI telling THE RUSSIANS what the USIC suspects? Wouldn't that blunt the capability for taking counter measures? Unless... red herring?

    Look! Over there!

    Sandwichman -> EMichael... , October 24, 2016 at 10:39 AM
    The problem with "the Russians" tale is that the Podesta emails are rather weak sauce. Is there anyone paying close attention that didn't know HRC's camp had influential contacts in the media and the DNC and used them to their advantage?

    I'm shocked, shocked that there is backroom power politics going on in a political campaign!

    The upshot of the WikiLeaks Podesta emails is to DISCREDIT WIKILEAKS as an independent source of disclosure.

    Why would Putin want to do that? Why would CLAPPER want to do that?

    DeDude -> EMichael... , October 24, 2016 at 10:52 AM
    Here is a better outline of the whole thing

    http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a49791/russian-dnc-emails-hacked/ "One of the first leaked files had been modified on a computer using Russian-language settings by a user named "Feliks Dzerzhinsky." Dzerzhinsky was the founder of the Cheka, the Soviet secret police"

    The Russian connect was not "revealed" by NSA alone and the evidence for anybody who understand computers and "trails" is quite strong.

    The fact that the initial "leaks" were not such a big deal was no surprise. Given Julian's desperate need to not get Clinton into the White house, you would expect him to save the most juicy stuff until a few days before the election.

    Sandwichman -> DeDude... , October 24, 2016 at 12:25 PM
    From the Esquire article: "Matt Tait, a former GCHQ operator... was particularly prolific. Hours after the first Guccifer 2.0 dump, on the evening of June 15, Tait found something curious." For the record, "GCHQ" does not refer to the magazine, Gentlemen's Quarterly.
    likbez -> Sandwichman ... , October 24, 2016 at 11:21 AM
    Sandwinchmen,

    First of all the fact that intelligence community issue a statement on such a matter is very strange. There is executive branch and three letter agencies should generally keep their mouth shut and allow others to voice the concerns, etc.

    This might be a sigh of complete disorganization of executive branch with intelligence agencies becoming a power players. Kind of "Deep State" morphing into "surface state".

    There are might be also multiple valid reasons for disclosing such a sensitive information:

    1. I want your money stupid Pinocchio.
    2. Smoke screen to hide their own nefarious activities and/or blunders within the USA. Actually existence of Hillary private server is somewhat incompatible with the existence of NSA.
    3. This is one thing when Podesta using gmail. It's quite another when the Secretary of state uses "bathroom server" with incompetent or semi-competent tech staff and completely clueless entourage.
    4. Pre-emptive strike reflecting some internal struggle within US Intelligence community itself with a neocon faction going "all in" to force the viewpoint, and more aggressive toward Russia stance, which might not be shared by others.
    5. Please note that CIA and DOD are fighting each other in Iraq and Syria to a certain extent.
    6. Increase Anti-Russian hysteria, which helps Hillary as a candidate of neocon establishment.
    7. Russians might recently uncover some nefarious activities (I heard FSB did discover compromised computers in some ministries) and this is the preparation for the blowback.

    There might be more. You never know.

    DeDude -> likbez... , October 24, 2016 at 11:29 AM
    "such a sensitive" "Russians might recently uncover"

    Holy Moly - why don't you just write it in Russian and let us use a translation app to get your peddling straightened out.

    This is so funny even "Sandwinchment" will have to admit the Russian connection.

    likbez -> DeDude... , October 24, 2016 at 12:03 PM
    Don't be a Hillary shill. This is a serious issue that need real pro and contra arguments not your Ad Hominum attacks
    Sandwichman -> likbez... , October 24, 2016 at 12:31 PM
    "First of all the fact that intelligence community issue a statement on such a matter is very strange."

    Yep.

    Second, the fact that intelligence community issue a statement on such a matter is very strange.

    Last but not least, the fact that intelligence community issue a statement on such a matter is very strange.

    Did I mention that the fact that intelligence community issue a statement on such a matter is very strange?

    anne -> Sandwichman ... , October 24, 2016 at 10:12 AM
    The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts....

    -- Joint Statement from the Department of Homeland Security
    and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security

    [ "Consistent with the methods and motivations..." is a shocking supposition to be made public, but we have been subject to such suppositions, seemingly with increasing frequency, for these last 15 years. ]

    Sandwichman -> anne... , October 24, 2016 at 10:30 AM
    Weapons of Mass Destruction! We have irrefutable evidence! Yellowcake!

    Keith B. Alexander: "Those who would want to weave the story that we have millions or hundreds of millions of dossiers on people, is absolutely false… From my perspective, this is absolute nonsense."

    ...

    Senator Wyden: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"

    DNI Clapper "No, sir."

    Senator Wyden: "It does not?"

    DNI Clapper: "Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly."

    The [IN]operative word there was "collect" which in NSAspeak does not mean... collect.

    http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2016/10/donald-loves-trikileaks.html

    DeDude -> anne... , October 24, 2016 at 11:00 AM
    Not shocking at all unless you are ignorant about tracing and analyzing hacks. The traces and approaches are like fingerprints. Nobody in the business have any doubts that the Russians did this - but they will never give you the details of how they got to that conclusion, because this is a public website and the hacking wars are like the missile wars, if the other side knows what you got they can counter it and make your job harder.
    likbez -> DeDude... , October 24, 2016 at 11:42 AM
    You might be a little bit naïve as for traces.

    The first rule of such activities on state level is to pretend that you are somebody else deliberately leaving false clues (IP space, keyboard layout, etc), everything that you call traces.

    Historically it was the USA that started cyberwar and who developed the most advanced capabilities in this space. Remember the worm which tried to subvert functionality of Iranian centrifuges electronics using specially designed malware and Trojans like Flame?

    So the first suspect should internal (kind of Snowden II), not external. There was also a story with an alternative viewpoint: http://www.amtvmedia.com/why-nsa-may-have-leaked-dnc-emails/

    There were also rumors about FOXACID - The NSA's hacking program getting into DNC hands. http://investmentwatchblog.com/warning-trump-fans-be-careful-possible-leaked-info-on-plans-to-attack-trump-supporters/

    Using botnets essentially gives anybody substantial freedom about what IP space you want to use. You can pretend to be Russian if you want to and use computers from Russian IP space.

    Sanjait -> Sandwichman ... , October 24, 2016 at 10:35 AM
    Some paranoid claptrap to go along with your usual anti intellectualism.

    Interestingly, with your completely unrelated non sequitur, you've actually illustrated something that does relate to Krugmans post. Namely that there are wingnuts among us. They've taken over the Republican Party, but the left has some too. Fortunately though the Democratic Party hasn't been taken over by them yet, and is still mostly run by grown ups.

    Sandwichman -> Sanjait... , October 24, 2016 at 10:42 AM
    I am confident that what you say here is consistent with your methods and motivations.

    likbez -> Sandwichman... October 24, 2016 at 06:05 PM

    "I am confident that what you say here is consistent with your methods and motivations."

    Pretty consistent, I agree. IMHO Sanjait might belong to the category that some people call the "Vichy left" – essentially people who are ready to sacrifice all principles to ensure their 'own' prosperity and support the candidate who intends to protected it, everybody else be damned.

    Very neoliberal approach if you ask me. Ann Rand would probably be proud for this representative of "creative class".

    Essentially the behavior the we've had for the last 8 years with the king of "bait and switch".

    Sandwichman -> Sanjait... , October 24, 2016 at 10:47 AM
    More "paranoid claptrap" (or should that be Clappertrap?): Edward Snowden: "...the breaking point was seeing the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, directly lie under oath to Congress. … Seeing that really meant for me there was no going back."
    DeDude -> Sandwichman ... , October 24, 2016 at 11:43 AM
    Private hackers may be tired of all this Russia friendly "measured response" from the US government and take the matter of retaliation into their own hands.

    http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/22/technology/russian-foreign-ministry-hacked/index.html

    Peter K. -> Sandwichman ... , October 24, 2016 at 11:43 AM
    "Two U.S. representatives accused Clapper of perjury for telling a congressional committee in March 2013, that the NSA does not collect any type of data at all on millions of Americans. One senator asked for his resignation, and a group of 26 senators complained about Clapper's responses under questioning. Media observers have described Clapper as having lied under oath, having obstructed justice, and having given false testimony." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_R._Clapper

    Oliver Stone's movie was pretty good. I agree with you that the hacked email are pretty "weak sauce" for the Russians to risk a confrontation with the sole super power. It's possible given that Putin was upset over Hillary backing the pro-democracy movement publically in recent elections.

    likbez : , October 24, 2016 at 12:00 PM
    My impression is that that key issue is as following: a vote for Hillary is a vote for the War Party and is incompatible with democratic principles.

    She is way too militant, and is not that different in this respect from Senator McCain. That creates a real danger of unleashing the war with Russia.

    Trump with all his warts gives us a chance to get some kind of détente with Russia.

    In other words no real Democrat can vote for Hillary.

    [Oct 24, 2016] I wonder if the various powers that be assembled some kind of Committee to Defend the Liberal Order when Trump began to make noises about re-assessing Nato.

    Notable quotes:
    "... I wonder if the various powers that be assembled some kind of "Committee to Defend the Liberal Order" when Trump began to make noises about re-assessing Nato ..."
    "... A very interesting and pretty plausible hypothesis... That actually is the most deep insight I got from this interesting discussion. In such case intelligence agencies are definitely a part of "Committee to Defend the Liberal Order" which is yet another explanation of their strange behavior. ..."
    "... it's a bunch of scams, lies and public manipulation schemes. ..."
    Oct 24, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com

    Dan Kervick -> Sandwichman ...

    I wonder if the various powers that be assembled some kind of "Committee to Defend the Liberal Order" when Trump began to make noises about re-assessing Nato. Reply Monday, October 24, 2016 at 02:11 PM

    likbez -> Dan Kervick..., October 24, 2016 at 06:34 PM

    Dan,

    > ...some kind of "Committee to Defend the Liberal Order" when Trump began to make noises about re-assessing Nato.

    A very interesting and pretty plausible hypothesis... That actually is the most deep insight I got from this interesting discussion. In such case intelligence agencies are definitely a part of "Committee to Defend the Liberal Order" which is yet another explanation of their strange behavior.

    Thank you --

    Dan Kervick -> likbez... October 24, 2016 at 01:14 PM , 2016 at 01:14 PM
    I can't claim that a mere mortal like me actually has the slightest clue what is really going on. All I will hazard is that, whatever it is, it's a bunch of scams, lies and public manipulation schemes.

    Where this kind of high level foreign policy is involved, the US government and intelligence services blew their cred with me long ago. I disbelieve them now on as a strong and resilient prior.

    [Oct 21, 2016] Dennis Kucinich FBI Investigation of Hillary Clinton Was Fixed in Her Favor

    Notable quotes:
    "... Instead of the investigative process being focused on achieving justice, Kucinich says it was "a very political process" that had "everything to do with the 2016 presidential election" in which Clinton is the Democratic nominee. Kucinich elaborates that "the executive branch of government made an early determination that no matter what came up that there was no way that Hillary Clinton was going to have to be accountable under law for anything dealing with the mishandling of classified information." ..."
    Oct 18, 2016 | The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity

    Speaking Monday on Fox News with host Neil Cavuto, former Democratic presidential candidate and United States House of Representatives Member from Ohio Dennis Kucinich opined that, from early on, the US government's investigation of Hillary Clinton for mishandling confidential information while she was Secretary of State was fixed in her favor.

    Instead of the investigative process being focused on achieving justice, Kucinich says it was "a very political process" that had "everything to do with the 2016 presidential election" in which Clinton is the Democratic nominee. Kucinich elaborates that "the executive branch of government made an early determination that no matter what came up that there was no way that Hillary Clinton was going to have to be accountable under law for anything dealing with the mishandling of classified information."

    Watch Kucinich's complete interview here: watch-v=K00frqv-XI8

    [Oct 20, 2016] Quotes from the Wikileaks stash of Hillary Clinton speeches and emails from her campaign chair John Podesta.

    Notable quotes:
    "... Clinton also says that the no-fly zone bombing in Syria she is arguing for "would kill a lot of Syrians" - all for humanitarian reasons of course. ..."
    "... While this military/para-military operation is moving forward, we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia , which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region. ..."
    "... Not new - the 2012 DIA analysis provided as much , and more, - but these email's prove that Clinton was and is well aware that U.S. allies are financing the radical Islamists in Syria and Iraq. ..."
    Oct 12, 2016 | www.moonofalabama.org

    ... ... ...

    Quotes from the Wikileaks stash of Hillary Clinton speeches and emails from her campaign chair John Podesta.

    Clinton in a 2013 speech to the Jewish United Fund Advance & Major Gifts Dinner (via The Intercept ):

    [Arming moderates has] been complicated by the fact that the Saudis and others are shipping large amounts of weapons-and pretty indiscriminately-not at all targeted toward the people that we think would be the more moderate, least likely, to cause problems in the future, ...

    Clinton also says that the no-fly zone bombing in Syria she is arguing for "would kill a lot of Syrians" - all for humanitarian reasons of course.

    The following was written by Podesta, a well connected former White House Chief of Staff, in an 2014 email to Clinton. As introduction Podesta notes: "Sources include Western intelligence, US intelligence and sources in the region.":

    While this military/para-military operation is moving forward, we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia , which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.

    Not new - the 2012 DIA analysis provided as much , and more, - but these email's prove that Clinton was and is well aware that U.S. allies are financing the radical Islamists in Syria and Iraq.

    [Oct 14, 2016] 18 US 2071: Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally

    Oct 14, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com

    hooligan2009 Oct 14, 2016 9:18 AM

    still no mention of the clincher - that proves the entire democrat party has no respect for the office of president - or any other government office for that matter..

    stay on target!!!

    (b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be

    disqualified from holding any office under the United States .

    As used in this subsection, the term "office" does not include the office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States."
    (Source: 18 U.S. Code § 2071 – Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally )

    [Oct 14, 2016] American intelligence claims (without providing evidence) that Russian intelligence is behind the Clinton email hacks is nothing less that attempts of American intelligence to manipulate the election

    Notable quotes:
    "... the danger that he presents is shaking the rats from under the carpet. ..."
    "... Yet the NYT keeps reporting that American intelligence asserts (without providing evidence) that Russian intelligence is behind the Clinton email hacks, and this is nothing less that attempts of American intelligence to manipulate the election. ..."
    "... I'm afraid, when it comes to end-of-the-Republic stuff, it's worse when your own intelligence guys are trying to manipulate the election than when their intelligence guys are. ..."
    Oct 14, 2016 | crookedtimber.org

    dax 10.14.16 at 7:52 am 141

    I'll begin with the necessary avowal that I think Trump is a clown, and dangerous, and I hope he goes down to a record defeat.

    But still… the danger that he presents is shaking the rats from under the carpet.

    How many times have I read that Russian intelligence is trying to manipulate the American election? And that this is a Very Bad Thing?

    Yet the NYT keeps reporting that American intelligence asserts (without providing evidence) that Russian intelligence is behind the Clinton email hacks, and this is nothing less that attempts of American intelligence to manipulate the election.

    And I'm afraid, when it comes to end-of-the-Republic stuff, it's worse when your own intelligence guys are trying to manipulate the election than when their intelligence guys are.

    [Oct 13, 2016] Were the US intelligence agencis the source of grabbing pussy tape for Clinton compaign as a way to protect funding

    Notable quotes:
    "... 2018 and 2020 will be interesting indeed, assuming HRC hasn't started WW3 by then. ..."
    "... Speaking of which, Ray McGovern warns against the sabre-rattling over Syria and the calls for "no fly zones" in CounterPunch today: ..."
    "... For instance, Russian defense spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov warned on Oct. 6 that Russia is prepared to shoot down unidentified aircraft – including any stealth aircraft – over Syria. It is a warning that I believe should be taken seriously ..."
    "... It's true that experts differ as to whether the advanced air defense systems already in Syria can bring down stealth aircraft, but it would be a mistake to dismiss this warning out of hand. Besides, Konashenkov added, in a telling ex-ante-extenuating-circumstance vein, that Russian air defense "will not have time to identify the origin" of the aircraft. ..."
    "... In other words, U.S. aircraft, which have been operating in Syrian skies without Syrian government approval, could be vulnerable to attack with the Russian government preemptively warning that such an incident won't be Moscow's fault. ..."
    "... Bush & Cheney & Co were horrific enough with their neocon games in the Mideast, but their actions seem mild compared with the latest anti-Russian lunatic talk by Clinton and her neocon pals. Really scary. ..."
    "... Yes the entire situation with out-of-touch imperialist aristocrats blindly blundering their way to Sarajevo Aleppo has a very reminiscent feel to it…an easy chapter to write in the future history books. ..."
    "... This should terrify everyone. I wish we would elect someone who says we should sit down and talk to our biggest rivals, not just provoke them to world war. But oh I forgot he said vulgar things about women 15 years ago. ..."
    "... sexual misconduct in the oval office-while president ..."
    "... while being the leader of our country! ..."
    "... I have a hierarchy of reactions to issues and I just can't seem to put vulgar language above the ultimate vulgarity of world war for profit. ..."
    "... I can't seem to care more about people with hurt feelings than people with their heads blown off because a Saudi billionaire or arms manufacturer just had to have some more ka-ching. There is nothing more vulgar than that. ..."
    Oct 13, 2016 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

    Bush family tranditionaly is very well connnected with CIA and they are not fund of Trump, that's for sure...

    Pavel October 12, 2016 at 2:28 pm

    re WikiLeaks: adding to the endless hypocrisy and double standards over Trump's "grabbing pussy" remarks and HRC & Co's behaviour:

    * Hillary herself wondered about extrajudicially killing Assange by droning. In what world is that considered permissible?

    * It seems that the Clinton campaign's Catholic "outreach" person was involved in a prostitution ring. So that's all good.

    I'm starting to think Trump might yet pull this off. The Clinton camp must be terrified and trying desperately to see what else might come out. If only Bernie had agreed to run with Jill Stein… I honestly think they might have won. In any case the Republican party is going down in flames, and after the Podesta leaks the Dems will have absolutely ZERO credibility and not much of a mandate. 2018 and 2020 will be interesting indeed, assuming HRC hasn't started WW3 by then.

    Speaking of which, Ray McGovern warns against the sabre-rattling over Syria and the calls for "no fly zones" in CounterPunch today:

    We analysts were responsible for picking up warnings from Moscow and other key capitals that the U.S. news media often missed or downplayed, much as the major news outlets today are ignoring the escalation of warnings from Russia over Syria.

    For instance, Russian defense spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov warned on Oct. 6 that Russia is prepared to shoot down unidentified aircraft – including any stealth aircraft – over Syria. It is a warning that I believe should be taken seriously .

    It's true that experts differ as to whether the advanced air defense systems already in Syria can bring down stealth aircraft, but it would be a mistake to dismiss this warning out of hand. Besides, Konashenkov added, in a telling ex-ante-extenuating-circumstance vein, that Russian air defense "will not have time to identify the origin" of the aircraft.

    In other words, U.S. aircraft, which have been operating in Syrian skies without Syrian government approval, could be vulnerable to attack with the Russian government preemptively warning that such an incident won't be Moscow's fault.

    –Russian Throws Down the Gauntlet: Fly at Your Own Risk

    Bush & Cheney & Co were horrific enough with their neocon games in the Mideast, but their actions seem mild compared with the latest anti-Russian lunatic talk by Clinton and her neocon pals. Really scary.

    OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL October 12, 2016 at 3:02 pm

    Yes the entire situation with out-of-touch imperialist aristocrats blindly blundering their way to Sarajevo Aleppo has a very reminiscent feel to it…an easy chapter to write in the future history books.

    This should terrify everyone. I wish we would elect someone who says we should sit down and talk to our biggest rivals, not just provoke them to world war. But oh I forgot he said vulgar things about women 15 years ago.

    Jess October 12, 2016 at 4:25 pm

    "Why do so many men claim that's what men do typically (not universally)?"

    Because it's usually true of most men at one time or another in their lives. For all the talk (and the reality) about women being treated as second rate, they do have enormous power; the power to reject. And reject they do. You can be the nicest guy in the world, but if you're not her type, if there's no chemistry or you're not her "caliber", down in flames you go. It's not necessarily mean on her part, it's just reality. And it's not just looks or money that is a consideration. You can be a nice, successful guy at a time in her life when she's attracted to the rebellious, slightly "dangerous", exciting "bad boy".

    This can be frustrating. And it's magnified when you grow up being taught that you can do anything if you just try hard enough. But that's just it; you can't. Guys want to be rich and successful (like Trump) or rich/successful/famous, because that's the inside track to the most elite women. Except that even then, it's no guarantee. Look at all the women who wouldn't get involved with Trump if they were marooned on an island and he was the only man. All his fame, all his money, and They. Just. Aren't. Interested. And it's the same with virtually every guy whose name isn't Tom Brady. So like I said, it breeds frustration - sometimes soul-crushing frustration - which is displayed in crude anger.

    hunkerdown October 12, 2016 at 8:33 pm

    Jess, and, thanks to political correctness, there are a dwindling number of venues where one might seek to build lateral relationships, especially of the romantic or life partner sort, and a dwindling amount of discretionary time to spend in those venues. Never mind the most elite women - ten-year-olds with bottle-blonde updos and optional silicone-enhanced "chopped chicken parts" are actually kinda gross - the less elite but still very aspirational Modern woman's standards and policies are too high (unrealistic, as the less aspirational might put it) for the life partner market to clear without externalizing something.

    "Because it's usually true of most men at one time or another in their lives."

    And therefore SIN, or whatever the symbol manipulators might prefer to call it, and therefore PENANCE (payable in 3 easy installments), and THEN absolution. We do know how path dependence cramps the American liberal's style and their group narcissism.

    "When we're an empire, we create our own reality."

    crittermom October 12, 2016 at 9:27 pm

    Jess–
    It works both ways. Men also have the power to reject, & they do.

    Your own wording of "that's the inside track to the most elite women" (my emphasis) seems to say that a woman must be beautiful in figure and face to attract a man.
    So what's different about a woman wanting a man who is nice looking with a nice body?
    None.
    It's just two different views, depending on gender.

    Regarding what Trump supposedly said/did many years ago, even as a woman, I still find the fact Hellary's husband was engaged in sexual misconduct in the oval office-while president -even more disgusting.

    I saw/see that as a huge slap in the face and a big FU to the entire nation that he would conduct himself in such a way while being the leader of our country!
    He couldn't even keep it zipped while sitting in the WH? How dare he!

    At least Trump wasn't our freakin' PRESIDENT when he said/did those things.

    Yet Bill's behavior is still a 'hush-hush' subject because he's a Clinton, it seems. (Or because people don't want to be on that 'Clinton' list and disappear?)

    No, I do not support Trump or his actions or manners or ego.
    But since it's being made such a big deal, then I'd like to see all the facts about Bill brought up again in the way he acted while leading this country.

    THEN maybe all these 'distractions' would end and we could get down to policies!
    Until then, which it appears will never happen, this 'election' is a sick joke, at best.

    JTMcPhee October 12, 2016 at 9:54 pm

    Just for fun and some context, "Philandering Presidents": http://www.funtrivia.com/en/World/Philandering-Presidents-13741.html

    human October 12, 2016 at 4:52 pm

    It's a great big, diverse world out there. Saudi women can be beheaded for saying, "no," and western women are castigated for saying, "yes."

    Once again, it's all about the distraction.

    Pavel October 12, 2016 at 5:10 pm

    Yes, but at least Hillary has come out boldly against the Saudi persecution of women, gays, and other races, has denounced the Saudi genocide in Yemen, and fought vigorously as Secretary of State to ensure arms including cluster bombs and white phosphorus were not sold to a regime with such a dreadful human rights record. And the Clinton Foundation displayed their "whiter than white" sense of ethics by returning the millions of dollars of Saudi donations.

    And Trump's words from 11 years ago were much worse than anything the Saudis did, in any case.

    OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL October 12, 2016 at 4:55 pm

    I have a hierarchy of reactions to issues and I just can't seem to put vulgar language above the ultimate vulgarity of world war for profit.

    Try as I might, I can't seem to care more about people with hurt feelings than people with their heads blown off because a Saudi billionaire or arms manufacturer just had to have some more ka-ching. There is nothing more vulgar than that.

    [Oct 12, 2016] NSA whistleblower says DNC hack was not done by Russia, but by US intelligence

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... Stated Binney: "Now what he (Mueller) is talking about is going into the NSA database, which is shown of course in the (Edward) Snowden material released, which shows a direct access into the NSA database by the FBI and the CIA Which there is no oversight of by the way. So that means that NSA and a number of agencies in the U.S. government also have those emails." ..."
    "... "Yes," he responded. "That would be my point. They have them all and the FBI can get them right there." ..."
    "... And the other point is that Hillary, according to an article published by the Observer in March of this year, has a problem with NSA because she compromised Gamma material. Now that is the most sensitive material at NSA. And so there were a number of NSA officials complaining to the press or to the people who wrote the article that she did that. She lifted the material that was in her emails directly out of Gamma reporting. That is a direct compromise of the most sensitive material at the NSA. So she's got a real problem there. So there are many people who have problems with what she has done in the past. So I don't necessarily look at the Russians as the only one(s) who got into those emails. ..."
    "... GAMMA compartment, which is an NSA handling caveat that is applied to extraordinarily sensitive information (for instance, decrypted conversations between top foreign leadership, as this was). ..."
    Oct 12, 2016 | theduran.com
    Binney also proclaimed that the NSA has all of Clinton's deleted emails, and the FBI could gain access to them if they so wished. No need for Trump to ask the Russians for those emails, he can just call on the FBI or NSA to hand them over.

    Breitbart reports further

    Binney referenced testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in March 2011 by then-FBI Director Robert S. Mueller in which Meuller spoke of the FBI's ability to access various secretive databases "to track down known and suspected terrorists."

    Stated Binney: "Now what he (Mueller) is talking about is going into the NSA database, which is shown of course in the (Edward) Snowden material released, which shows a direct access into the NSA database by the FBI and the CIA Which there is no oversight of by the way. So that means that NSA and a number of agencies in the U.S. government also have those emails."

    "So if the FBI really wanted them they can go into that database and get them right now," he stated of Clinton's emails as well as DNC emails.

    Asked point blank if he believed the NSA has copies of "all" of Clinton's emails, including the deleted correspondence, Binney replied in the affirmative.

    "Yes," he responded. "That would be my point. They have them all and the FBI can get them right there."

    Binney surmised that the hack of the DNC could have been coordinated by someone inside the U.S. intelligence community angry over Clinton's compromise of national security data with her email use.

    And the other point is that Hillary, according to an article published by the Observer in March of this year, has a problem with NSA because she compromised Gamma material. Now that is the most sensitive material at NSA. And so there were a number of NSA officials complaining to the press or to the people who wrote the article that she did that. She lifted the material that was in her emails directly out of Gamma reporting. That is a direct compromise of the most sensitive material at the NSA. So she's got a real problem there. So there are many people who have problems with what she has done in the past. So I don't necessarily look at the Russians as the only one(s) who got into those emails.

    The Observer defined the GAMMA classification:

    GAMMA compartment, which is an NSA handling caveat that is applied to extraordinarily sensitive information (for instance, decrypted conversations between top foreign leadership, as this was).

    Zerohedge has some background on Binney , who is about as rock solid a security analyst as you could get.

    Over a year before Edward Snowden shocked the world in the summer of 2013 with revelations that have since changed everything from domestic to foreign US policy but most of all, provided everyone a glimpse into just what the NSA truly does on a daily basis, a former NSA staffer, and now famous whistleblower, William Binney, gave excruciating detail to Wired magazine about all that Snowden would substantiate the following summer.

    We covered it in a 2012 post titled " We Are This Far From A Turnkey Totalitarian State" – Big Brother Goes Live September 2013." Not surprisingly, Binney received little attention in 2012 – his suggestions at the time were seen as preposterous and ridiculously conspiratorial. Only after the fact, did it become obvious that he was right. More importantly, in the aftermath of the Snowden revelations, what Binney has to say has become gospel.

    Binney was an architect of the NSA's surveillance program. He became a famed whistleblower when he resigned on October 31, 2001, after spending more than 30 years with the agency. He referenced testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in March 2011 by then-FBI Director Robert S. Mueller in which Meuller spoke of the FBI's ability to access various secretive databases "to track down known and suspected terrorists."

    [Sep 28, 2016] It is not that we do not trust the agents, we do not trust the FBI leadership

    Notable quotes:
    "... Only three references to Comey as a "Treas-Weasel" appear in a Google search. ..."
    "... Are there no longer any "deep throats" left at the FBI? Because now would be an excellent opportunity for one of them to start making phone calls – but to who? Greenwald maybe? He seems to be the only investigative journalist left but he doesn't even live in this country .. ..."
    Sep 28, 2016 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
    Roger Smith September 28, 2016 at 2:45 pm

    Re: (Pop Goes the) Weasels

    "I knew there were going to be all kinds of rocks thrown, but this organization and the people who did this are honest, independent people."

    Well Comey, it is not that we do not trust the agents, we do not trust the leadership. If any of the underground reports I have seen are indications, the agents were trying and struggling to do their jobs.

    Reply
    Jim Haygood September 28, 2016 at 2:53 pm

    Only three references to Comey as a "Treas-Weasel" appear in a Google search.

    All three are on naked capitalism in July 2016. And I know who did it.

    *peers out window for suspicious unmarked vehicles*

    Reply
    justanotherprogressive September 28, 2016 at 3:01 pm

    Are there no longer any "deep throats" left at the FBI? Because now would be an excellent opportunity for one of them to start making phone calls – but to who? Greenwald maybe? He seems to be the only investigative journalist left but he doesn't even live in this country ..

    Jen September 28, 2016 at 3:11 pm

    Just do a data dump on Reddit. We already know the FBI won't look there.

    crittermom September 28, 2016 at 4:33 pm

    Roger Smith–

    " it is not that we do not trust the agents, we do not trust the leadership."

    Perfectly stated. Nailed it!

    Sooo ..I wonder how those low-ranking soldiers in the military are faring using the same defense?

    I remain infuriated that nothing happened to her. I now have yet another head (Comey) I want to see in my front yard guillotine. Grrrrrrr

    Reply
    cwaltz September 28, 2016 at 5:57 pm

    http://lunaticoutpost.com/thread-693407.html

    Still seeing jail time ..they aren't super special snowflakes like Clinton.

    [Sep 26, 2016] Clinton Campaign Manager Unable to Answer Questions on Hillary Coverup Operation

    It was a cover up operation. No questions about that. Such instruction by a person under any investigation clearly mean tha attempt of cover up...
    Notable quotes:
    "... There was a document dump on Friday, that we learned from the FBI that an IT contractor managing Hillary Clinton's private email server made reference to the "Hillary coverup operation" in a work ticket. He used those words after a senior Clinton aide asked him to automatically delete emails after 60 days. This IT worker certainly sounded like he was covering something up, no? ..."
    "... The FBI dumped another 189 pages of documents pertaining to Clinton's use of an unsecured private server during her time as Secretary of State online Friday, with one note about a "coverup" raising eyebrows: ..."
    "... After reviewing an email dated December 11, 2014 with the subject line 'RE: 2 items for IT support,' and a December 12, 2014 work ticket referencing email retention changes and archive/email cleanup, [redacted] stated his reference in the email to ' the Hilary [sic] coverup [sic] operation ' was probably due to the requested change to a 60 day email retention policy and the comment was a joke. ..."
    "... "The fact an IT staffer maintaining Clinton's secret server called a new retention policy designed to delete emails after 60 days a 'Hillary coverup operation' suggests there was a concerted effort to systematically destroy potentially incriminating information. It's no wonder that at least five individuals tied to the email scandal, including Clinton's top State Department aide and attorney Cheryl Mills, secured immunity deals from the Obama Justice Department to avoid prosecution," said Trump spokesman Jason Miller in a statement on Friday. ..."
    "... Comey told the House Oversight Committee on July 7 that the FBI "did not find evidence sufficient to establish that she knew she was sending classified information beyond a reasonable doubt to meet that - the intent standard" while claiming that prosecuting Clinton for gross negligence would perpetuate a "double standard." ..."
    Sep 26, 2016 | Breitbart
    CNN anchor Jake Tapper confronted Hillary Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook Sunday over an IT worker handling her private email server joking in a 2014 email about a "Hillary coverup operation," with Mook dodging the question and blaming Republicans for "selectively leaking documents."

    TAPPER: There was a document dump on Friday, that we learned from the FBI that an IT contractor managing Hillary Clinton's private email server made reference to the "Hillary coverup operation" in a work ticket. He used those words after a senior Clinton aide asked him to automatically delete emails after 60 days. This IT worker certainly sounded like he was covering something up, no?

    MOOK: Look, Jake, I'm - first of all I'm glad you asked that question. A lot of this stuff is swirling around in the ether. It's important to pull back and look at the facts here. The FBI did a comprehensive and deep investigation into this. And at the conclusion of that, FBI Director Comey came out and said to the world that there was no case here, that they have no evidence of wrongdoing on Hillary's part.

    TAPPER: So what's the "Hillary coverup operation" that the IT worker was referring to?

    MOOK: Well, well, but this is - but this is - this is the perfect example of what's going on here. Republicans on the House side are selectively leaking documents for the purpose of making Hillary look bad. We've asked the FBI to release all information that they've shared with Republicans so they can get the full picture. But again, I would trust the career professionals at the FBI and the Justice Department who looked into this matter, concluded that was no case, than I would Republicans who are selectively leaking information.

    The FBI dumped another 189 pages of documents pertaining to Clinton's use of an unsecured private server during her time as Secretary of State online Friday, with one note about a "coverup" raising eyebrows:

    After reviewing an email dated December 11, 2014 with the subject line 'RE: 2 items for IT support,' and a December 12, 2014 work ticket referencing email retention changes and archive/email cleanup, [redacted] stated his reference in the email to ' the Hilary [sic] coverup [sic] operation ' was probably due to the requested change to a 60 day email retention policy and the comment was a joke.

    The Trump campaign quickly leapt on the FBI's findings.

    "The fact an IT staffer maintaining Clinton's secret server called a new retention policy designed to delete emails after 60 days a 'Hillary coverup operation' suggests there was a concerted effort to systematically destroy potentially incriminating information. It's no wonder that at least five individuals tied to the email scandal, including Clinton's top State Department aide and attorney Cheryl Mills, secured immunity deals from the Obama Justice Department to avoid prosecution," said Trump spokesman Jason Miller in a statement on Friday.

    Comey told the House Oversight Committee on July 7 that the FBI "did not find evidence sufficient to establish that she knew she was sending classified information beyond a reasonable doubt to meet that - the intent standard" while claiming that prosecuting Clinton for gross negligence would perpetuate a "double standard."

    [Sep 26, 2016] It was Obama who pardoned Hillary by exerting pressure on FBI

    Notable quotes:
    "... Were I advising Trump I would have him cite the two criminal codes the FBI decided not to pursue..... by title and section. The rest of the questioning is inconsequential in relation to the huge favor the FBI gave Mrs. Clinton. ..."
    "... Might be a wrong advice. This would be more directed at Obama, then Hillary. It was Obama who pardoned Hillary by exerting pressure on FBI. ..."
    Sep 26, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com
    ilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs... , Sunday, September 25, 2016 at 09:39 AM
    Were I advising Trump I would have him cite the two criminal codes the FBI decided not to pursue..... by title and section. The rest of the questioning is inconsequential in relation to the huge favor the FBI gave Mrs. Clinton.
    likbez -> ilsm... , -1
    ilsm,

    "...two criminal codes the FBI decided not to pursue....."

    Might be a wrong advice. This would be more directed at Obama, then Hillary. It was Obama who pardoned Hillary by exerting pressure on FBI.

    [Sep 24, 2016] Hillary Emailgate How One Twitter User Proved The Intent That The FBI Missed After Months Investigating

    Sep 24, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com
    Zero Hedge

    Earlier this week, a twitter user named " Katica " seemingly proved the "intent" of the Hillary campaign to destroy and/or tamper with federal records by revealing the Reddit thread of Paul Combetta (aka the "Oh Shit" guy; aka "stonetear"). But what's most crazy about this story is that "Katica" was able to discover the greatest "bombshell" of the entire Hillary email scandal with just a couple of internet searches while the FBI, with unlimited access to government records, spent months "investigating" this case and missed it all . The only question now is whether the FBI "missed" this evidence because of gross incompetence or because of other motivating factors ?

    Now, courtesy of an opinion piece posted on The Daily Caller , we know exactly how "Katica" pieced her "bombshell" discovery together... the folks at the FBI may want to take some notes.

    Per the twitter discussion below with @RepStevenSmith , "Katica" discovered Combetta's Reddit thread on September 16th. But while she suspected that Paul Combetta and the Reddit user known as "stonetear" were, in fact, the same person, she had to prove it...

    [Sep 22, 2016] The Hidden Smoking Gun the Combetta Cover-Up Clinton Email Investigation Timeline

    This is a really outstanding article.
    Notable quotes:
    "... When Samuelson described the sorting process in her FBI interview , she said that her first step was to find all the emails to or from Clinton and the people she regularly worked with in the State Department, and put all of those emails in the "work-related" category. ..."
    "... But from the Abedin emails released so far, about 200 are previously unreleased emails between her and Clinton . Anyone who looks at these can see that the vast majority, if not all, of them are work-related. ..."
    "... The Abedin emails released so far are only a small percentage of all her emails that are going to be released on a monthly basis well into 2017 . It is likely that Clinton's supposed 31,000 "personal" emails contain thousands of work-related emails to and from Abedin alone. Consider that only about 15% of the 30,000 Clinton emails released so far were between her and Abedin. ..."
    "... It is further worth noting that these emails were not handed over with the rest of Clinton's 30,000 work-related emails, despite clearly being work-related, but were somehow uncovered by the State Department inspector general 's office. Those very emails are good examples of the kind of material Clinton may have tried to keep secret by controlling the sorting process. ..."
    "... How many more headlines like that would there be if all 31,000 deleted emails became public before the November 2016 presidential election? It's easy to imagine a political motive for Clinton wanting to keep some work-related emails secret. ..."
    "... on or around December 2014 or January 2015 , Mills and Samuelson requested that [Platte River Networks (PRN) employee Paul Combetta] remove from their laptops all of the emails from the July and September 2014 exports. [Combetta] used a program called BleachBit to delete the email-related files so they could not be recovered." ..."
    "... With the emails of Mills and Samuelson wiped clean, and the old version of the server wiped clean, that left just two known copies of the emails: one on the new server, and one on the back-up Datto SIRIS device connected to the new server. ..."
    "... Mills was interviewed by the FBI in April 2016 . She claimed that in December 2014 , Clinton decided she no longer needed access to any of her emails older than 60 days . Note that this came not long after the State Department formally asked Clinton for all of her work-related emails, on October 28, 2014 . Mills told the FBI that she instructed Combetta to modify the email retention policy on Clinton's clintonemail.com email account to reflect this change. Emails older than 60 days would then be overwritten several times, wiping them just as effectively as BleachBit. ..."
    "... So although the retention policy change sounds like a mere technicality, in fact, Clinton passed the message through Mills that she wanted all her emails from when she was secretary of state to be permanently wiped. ..."
    "... Think about Clinton wanting to delete all her old "personal" emails. As a politician with a wide network of contributors and supporters, the information in them could be highly valuable for her. For instance, if a major donor contacted her, she probably would want to review their past correspondence before responding. She'd preserved these emails for nearly two years, but just when investigators started to demand to see them, she decided she didn't want ANY of them, and all traces of them should be permanently wiped. And yet we're supposed to believe the timing is just a coincidence? ..."
    "... New York Times ..."
    "... New York Times ..."
    "... According to what Combetta later told the FBI, at some point between these two calls, he had an "Oh shit!" moment and remembered that he'd forgotten to make the requested retention policy change back in December . So, even though he told the FBI that he was aware of the emails from Mills mentioning the Congressional request to preserve all of Clinton's emails, he took action. ..."
    "... the Datto backups of the server were also manually deleted during this timeframe ." ..."
    "... Already, Combetta's behavior is damning. He didn't just change the data retention policy, as Mills had asked him to do, causing them to be permanently deleted 60 days later. He immediately deleted all of Clinton's emails and then wiped them for good measure, and almost certainly deleted them from the Datto back-up device too. ..."
    "... To make matters worse for Combetta, on March 20, 2015 , the House Benghazi Committee sent a letter to Clinton's lawyer Kendall , asking Clinton to turn her server over to a neutral third party so it could be examined to see if any work-related emails were still on it. This was reported in the New York Times ..."
    "... However, despite all these clear signs that the emails should be preserved, not only did Combetta confess in an FBI interview that "at the time he made the deletions in March 2015 , he was aware of the existence of the preservation request and the fact that it meant he should not disturb Clinton's email data on the [server]," he said that " he did not receive guidance from other PRN personnel, PRN's legal counsel or others regarding the meaning of the preservation request." So he confessed to obstruction of justice and other possible crimes, all to the apparent benefit of Clinton instead of himself! ..."
    "... The FBI interviewed PRN's staff in September 2015. This almost certainly included Combetta and Bill Thornton, because they were the only two PRN employees actively managing Clinton's server. ..."
    "... The fact that the FBI falsely claimed Combetta was only interviewed twice grows in importance given a recent New York Times ..."
    "... Then, in May 2016 , he completely changed his story. He said that in fact he did make the deletions in late March 2015 after all, plus he'd wiped her emails with BleachBit, as described earlier. He also confessed to being aware of the Mills email with the preservation request. ..."
    "... New York Times ..."
    "... For the FBI to give Combetta an immunity deal and then still not learn if he had been told to delete the emails by anyone working for Clinton due to a completely legally indefensible "attorney-client privilege" excuse is beyond belief. It would make sense, however, if the FBI was actually trying to protect Clinton from prosecution instead of trying to find evidence to prosecute her. ..."
    "... In one Reddit post , he asked other server managers: "I may be facing a very interesting situation where I need to strip out a VIP's (VERY VIP) email address from a bunch of archived email that I have both in a live Exchange mailbox, as well as a .pst file. Basically, they don't want the VIP's email address exposed to anyone, and want to be able to either strip out or replace the email address in the to/from fields in all of the emails we want to send out. Does anyone have experience with something like this, and/or suggestions on how this might be accomplished?" ..."
    "... Recall how Clinton allegedly claimed she didn't want to keep any of her deleted emails. It looks like that wasn't true after all. It sounds exactly as if Mills or someone else working for Clinton told him to make it look like all the "personal" emails were permanently deleted due to the 60 day policy change, while actually keeping copies of emails they still wanted. ..."
    "... New York Times ..."
    "... First off, it's interesting that he said he did "a bunch" of "email filters and cleanup," because what has been reported by the FBI is that he only made a copy of all of Clinton's email and sent them off to be sorted in late July 2014 . That fits with his July 2014 Reddit post where he was trying to modify somebody's email address. ..."
    "... For now, let us turn back to events in the fall of 2015 . In mid-August 2015 , Senator Ron Johnson (R) asked for and got a staff-level briefing from PRN about the management of Clinton's server, as part of Republican Congressional oversight of the FBI's investigation. It seems very likely that Combetta was a part of that briefing, or at least his knowledge heavily informed the briefing, because again only two PRN employees actively managed her server, and he was one of them. ..."
    "... The dishonesty or ignorance of PRN in this time period can be clearly seen due to a September 12, 2015 Washington Post ..."
    "... Datto expressed a willingness to cooperate. But because Datto had been subcontracted by PRN to help manage Clinton's server, they needed PRN's permission to share any information relating to that account. When PRN was first asked in early October 2015 , they gave permission. But about a week later, they changed their mind , forcing Datto to stay quiet. ..."
    "... But more importantly, consider what was mentioned in an NBC News ..."
    "... In an August 18, 2015 email, Combetta expressed concern that CESC, the Clinton family company, had directed PRN to reduce the length of time backups, and PRN wanted proof of this so they wouldn't be blamed. But he said in the email, "this was all phone comms [communications]." ..."
    "... On September 2, 2016 , the FBI's final report of their Clinton email investigation was released (along with a summary of Clinton's FBI interview). This report revealed the late March 2015 deletions for the first time. Combetta's name was redacted, but his role, as well as his immunity deal, was revealed in the New York Times ..."
    "... Chaffetz also wants an explanation from PRN how Combetta could refuse to talk to the FBI about the conference calls if the only lawyers involved in the call were Clinton's. ..."
    "... PRN employees Combetta and Thornton were also given subpoenas on September 8 , ordering them to testify at a Congressional hearing on September 13, 2016 . Both of them showed up with their lawyers, but both of them pled the Fifth , leaving many questions unanswered. ..."
    "... In a Senate speech on September 12, 2016 , Senator Charles Grassley (R) accused the FBI of manipulating which information about the Clinton email investigation becomes public . He said that although the FBI has taken the unusual step of releasing the FBI's final report, "its summary is misleading or inaccurate in some key details and leaves out other important facts altogether." He pointed in particular to Combetta's deletions, saying: "[T]here is key information related to that issue that is still being kept secret, even though it is unclassified. If I honor the FBI's 'instruction' not to disclose the unclassified information it provided to Congress, I cannot explain why." ..."
    "... Regarding the FBI's failure to inform Congressional oversight committees of Combetta's immunity deal, Representative Trey Gowdy (R) recently commented, "If there is a reason to withhold the immunity agreement from Congress-and by extension, the people we represent-I cannot think of what it would be." ..."
    "... The behavior of the FBI is even stranger. Comey was a registered Republican most of his life, and it is well known that most FBI agents are politically conservative. Be that as it may, if Comey made a decision beforehand based on some political calculation to avoid indicting Clinton no matter what the actual evidence was, that the FBI's peculiar behavior specifically relating to the Combetta deletions make much more sense. It would be an unprecedented and bold move to recommend indicting someone with Hillary Clinton's power right in the middle of her presidential election campaign. ..."
    "... In this scenario, the FBI having Combetta take the fall for the deletions while making a secret immunity deal with him is a particularly clever move to prevent anyone from being indicted. Note that Combetta's confession about making the deletions came in his May 2016 FBI interview, which came after Mills' April 2016 interview in which she claimed she'd never heard of any deletions. Thus, the only way to have Combetta take the fall for the deletions without Mills getting caught clearly lying to the FBI is by dodging the issue of what was said in the March 31, 2015 conference with a nonsensical claim of "attorney-client privilege." ..."
    "... I believe that criminal behavior needs to be properly investigated and prosecuted, regardless of political persuasion and regardless of the election calendar. Combetta clearly committed a crime and he even confessed to do so, given what he admitted in his last FBI interview. If he got a limited immunity deal instead of blanket immunity, which is highly likely, it still would be possible to indict and convict him based on evidence outside of his interviews. That would help explain why he recently pled the Fifth, because he's still in legal danger. ..."
    "... But more importantly, who else is guilty with him? Logic and the available evidence strongly suggest that Clinton's lawyer Cheryl Mills at least knew about the deletions at the time they happened. Combetta has already confessed to criminal behavior-and yet somehow hasn't even been fired by PRN. If he didn't at least tell Mills and the others in the conference call about the deletions, there would be no logical reason to assert attorney-client privilege in the first place. Only the nonsensical assertion of this privilege is preventing the evidence coming out that should lead to Mills being charged with lying to the FBI at a minimum. And if Mills knew, can anyone seriously believe that Clinton didn't know too? ..."
    Sep 22, 2016 | www.thompsontimeline.com
    To understand the 2015 deletions , we have to start further back in time, in June 2013 . Clinton had ended her four-year tenure as secretary of state earlier in 2013 , and she hired the Platte River Networks (PRN) computer company to manage her private email server. This was a puzzling hire, to say the least, because PRN was based in Denver, Colorado, far from Clinton's homes in New York and Washington, DC, and the company was so small that their office was actually an apartment in an ordinary apartment building with no security alarm system. The company wasn't cleared to handle classified information, nobody in it had a security clearance, and it hadn't even handled an important out of state contract before.

    PRN assigned two employees to handle the Clinton account: Paul Combetta and Bill Thornton . In late June 2013 , these two employees moved Clinton's server from her house in Chappaqua, New York, to an Equinix data center in Secaucus, New Jersey. They removed all the data from the server, moved it to a new server, and then wiped the old server clean. Both the new and old server were kept running at the data center. At the same time, PRN subcontracted Datto, Inc. , to back up the data on the new server. A Datto SIRIS S2000 was bought and connected to the server , functioning like an external hard drive to make periodic back-ups.

    ... ... ...

    Clinton's emails get sorted

    Fast forward to the middle of 2014 . The House Benghazi Committee was formed to investigate the US government's actions surrounding the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya , and soon a handful of emails were discovered relating to this attack involving Clinton's [email protected] email address. At this point, nobody outside of Clinton's inner circle of associates knew she had exclusively used that private email account for all her email communications while she was secretary of state, or that she'd hosted it on her own private email server.

    The Benghazi Committee began pressing the State Department for more relevant emails from Clinton. The State Department in turn began privately pressing Clinton to turn over all her work-related emails.

    Cheryl Mills (left) David Kendall (center) and Heather Samuelson (Credit: public domain)

    Cheryl Mills (left) David Kendall (center) and Heather Samuelson (Credit: public domain)

    Instead of turning over all her emails, Clinton decided to have them sorted into work-related and personal, and then only turn over the work-related ones. She gave this task to three of her lawyers : Cheryl Mills (Clinton's former chief of staff), David Kendall (Clinton's longtime personal lawyer), and Heather Samuelson (a relatively inexperienced State Department staffer during Clinton's tenure). It seems Samuelson did most of the sorting , even though she had no experience for this task nor any security clearance .

    It was decided that over 30,000 emails were work-related, and those were turned over to the State Department on December 5, 2014 . These have all since been publicly released, though with redactions. Another over 31,000 emails were deemed personal , and Clinton kept those. They were later deleted in controversial circumstances that this essay explores in detail.

    It has become increasingly clear in recent months that this sorting process was highly flawed. Clinton has said any emails that were borderline cases were given to the State Department, just to be on the safe side. But in fact, the FBI later recovered about 17,500 of Clinton's "personal" emails . It is probable no government agency has yet gone through all of these to officially determine which ones were work-related and which ones were not, but FBI Director James Comey has said that " thousands " were work-related.

    We can get a glimpse of just how flawed the sorting process was because hundreds of emails from Huma Abedin have been released in recent months, as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit . Abedin was Clinton's deputy chief of staff and still is one of her closest aides.

    When Samuelson described the sorting process in her FBI interview , she said that her first step was to find all the emails to or from Clinton and the people she regularly worked with in the State Department, and put all of those emails in the "work-related" category.

    But from the Abedin emails released so far, about 200 are previously unreleased emails between her and Clinton . Anyone who looks at these can see that the vast majority, if not all, of them are work-related. Many involve Abedin's state.gov government address, not her clintonemail.com private address, so how on Earth did Samuelson's sorting process miss those? It has even come to light recently that a small number of emails mentioning "Benghazi" have been found in the 17,500 recovered by the FBI, but Samuelson told the FBI she had specifically searched for all emails using that word.

    A sample of an email between Clinton and Abedin using her state.gove address. (Credit: public domain)

    A sample of an email between Clinton and Abedin using her state.gov address. (Credit: public domain)

    The Abedin emails released so far are only a small percentage of all her emails that are going to be released on a monthly basis well into 2017 . It is likely that Clinton's supposed 31,000 "personal" emails contain thousands of work-related emails to and from Abedin alone. Consider that only about 15% of the 30,000 Clinton emails released so far were between her and Abedin. If the rest of her deleted emails follow the same pattern as the Abedin ones, it is highly likely that the majority, and maybe even the vast majority, of Clinton's deleted "personal" emails in fact are work-related.

    ... ... ...

    FBI Director Comey has said he trusts that Clinton had made a sincere sorting effort, but the sheer number of work-related emails that keep getting discovered suggests otherwise. Furthermore, logic and other evidence also suggest otherwise. For instance, in home video footage from a private fundraiser in 2000 , Clinton talked about how she had deliberately avoided using email so she wouldn't leave a paper trail: "As much as I've been investigated and all of that, you know, why would I? I don't even want Why would I ever want to do email? Can you imagine?"

    Practical considerations forced her to start using email a few years later. But what if her exclusive use of a private email address on her own private server was not done out of " convenience " as she claims, but so she could retain control of them, only turning over emails to FOIA requests and later government investigators that she wanted to?

    Note also that in a November 2010 email exchange between Clinton and Abedin, Abedin suggested that Clinton might want to use a State Department email account due because the department computer system kept flagging emails from her private email account as spam. Clinton replied that she was open to some kind of change, but " I don't want any risk of the personal being accessible ." It is further worth noting that these emails were not handed over with the rest of Clinton's 30,000 work-related emails, despite clearly being work-related, but were somehow uncovered by the State Department inspector general 's office. Those very emails are good examples of the kind of material Clinton may have tried to keep secret by controlling the sorting process.

    Consider that out of the relatively small number of deleted emails that have been made public due to the Abedin monthly releases, a handful of them have created headlines about possible conflicts of interest between Clinton's secretary of state job and the Clinton Foundation . How many more headlines like that would there be if all 31,000 deleted emails became public before the November 2016 presidential election? It's easy to imagine a political motive for Clinton wanting to keep some work-related emails secret.

    ... ... ...

    The deletions begin

    Heather Samuelson (Credit: Getty Images)

    Heather Samuelson (Credit: Getty Images)

    This essay will explore this possibility more later. But if it is the case that she wanted to keep those 31,000 "personal" emails out of the public eye, she had obstacles to overcome. In 2014 , PRN had managerial control of both Clinton's new and old server. Thus, in July 2014 and again in September 2014 , PRN employee Combetta had to send copies of all the emails to the laptop of Clinton lawyer Cheryl Mills, and another copy to the laptop of Clinton lawyer Heather Samuelson, to be used for the sorting process.

    With the sorting done, if Clinton didn't want the public to ever see her deleted emails, you would expect all these copies of those emails to be permanently deleted, and that's exactly what happened. According to a later FBI report, " on or around December 2014 or January 2015 , Mills and Samuelson requested that [Platte River Networks (PRN) employee Paul Combetta] remove from their laptops all of the emails from the July and September 2014 exports. [Combetta] used a program called BleachBit to delete the email-related files so they could not be recovered."

    The FBI report explained, "BleachBit is open source software that allows users to 'shred' files, clear Internet history, delete system and temporary files, and wipe free space on a hard drive. Free space is the area of the hard drive that can contain data that has been deleted. BleachBit's 'shred files' function claims to securely erase files by overwriting data to make the data unrecoverable." BleachBit advertises that it can "shred" files so they can never be recovered again.

    With the emails of Mills and Samuelson wiped clean, and the old version of the server wiped clean, that left just two known copies of the emails: one on the new server, and one on the back-up Datto SIRIS device connected to the new server.

    Mills was interviewed by the FBI in April 2016 . She claimed that in December 2014 , Clinton decided she no longer needed access to any of her emails older than 60 days . Note that this came not long after the State Department formally asked Clinton for all of her work-related emails, on October 28, 2014 . Mills told the FBI that she instructed Combetta to modify the email retention policy on Clinton's clintonemail.com email account to reflect this change. Emails older than 60 days would then be overwritten several times, wiping them just as effectively as BleachBit.

    Clinton essentially said the same thing as Mills when she was interviewed by the FBI . Clinton also was interviewed by the FBI. According to the FBI summary of the interview, she claimed that after her staff sent the 30,000 work-related emails to the State Department on December 5, 2014 , "she was asked what she wanted to do with her remaining [31,000] personal emails. Clinton instructed her staff she no longer needed the emails."

    So although the retention policy change sounds like a mere technicality, in fact, Clinton passed the message through Mills that she wanted all her emails from when she was secretary of state to be permanently wiped.

    Think about Clinton wanting to delete all her old "personal" emails. As a politician with a wide network of contributors and supporters, the information in them could be highly valuable for her. For instance, if a major donor contacted her, she probably would want to review their past correspondence before responding. She'd preserved these emails for nearly two years, but just when investigators started to demand to see them, she decided she didn't want ANY of them, and all traces of them should be permanently wiped. And yet we're supposed to believe the timing is just a coincidence?

    But there was a problem with deleting them. Combetta later claimed that he simply forgot to make this change.

    More than two months passed, which meant all of Clinton's deleted emails should have been permanently wiped already. Meanwhile, the House Benghazi Committee and others were making more requests to see her emails . In January 2015 , a reporter even filed a FOIA request in court for all of her emails .

    Then, on March 2, 2015 , the headline on the front page of the New York Times was a story revealing that while Clinton was secretary of state, she had exclusively used a private email address hosted on her private server, thus keeping all of her email communications secret. This became THE big story of the month, and the start of a high-profile controversy that continues until today.

    On December 2, 2014 , the House Benghazi Committee had asked Clinton for all Benghazi-related emails from her personal email address. But one day after the New York Times blockbuster story, the committee sent Clinton a letter asking her to preserve ALL her emails from that address.

    Then, a day after that, on March 4, 2015 , the committee issued two subpoenas to her . One subpoena ordered her to turn over all emails relating to the Benghazi attack. The committee had already received about 300 such emails from the State Department in February 2015 , but after the Times story, the committee worried that the department might not have some of her relevant emails. (That would later prove to be the case, given the small number of Benghazi emails eventually recovered by the FBI.) The second subpoena ordered her to turn over documents it requested in November 2014 but still has not received from the State Department, relating to communications between Clinton and ten senior department officials.

    Cheryl Mills (Credit: Twitter)

    Cheryl Mills (Credit: Twitter)

    If Clinton had already deleted her emails to keep them from future investigators, these requests shouldn't have been a problem. On March 9, 2015 , Mills sent an email to PRN employees , including Combetta, to make sure they were aware of the committee's request that all of Clinton's emails be preserved. One can see this as a CYA ("cover your ass") move, since Mills would have believed all copies of Clinton's "personal" emails had been permanently deleted and wiped by this time. The Times story and the requests for copies of Clinton's emails that followed had seemingly come too late.

    But that wasn't actually the case, since Combetta had forgotten to make the deletions!


    Combetta deletes everything that is left

    Sitting behind Combetta is co-founder of Platte River Brent Allshouse (left) and PRN attorney, Ken Eichner. (Credit: CSpan)

    Sitting behind Combetta is co-founder of Platte River Brent Allshouse (left) and PRN attorney, Ken Eichner. (Credit: CSpan)

    According to a later Combetta FBI interview, he claimed that on March 25, 2015, there was a conference call between PRN employees , including himself, and some members of Bill Clinton's staff. (Hillary Clinton's private server hosted the emails of Bill Clinton's staff too, and one unnamed staffer hired PRN back in 2013 .) There was another conference call between PRN and Clinton staffers on March 31, 2015 , with at least Combetta, Mills, and Clinton lawyer David Kendall taking part in that later call.

    According to what Combetta later told the FBI, at some point between these two calls, he had an "Oh shit!" moment and remembered that he'd forgotten to make the requested retention policy change back in December . So, even though he told the FBI that he was aware of the emails from Mills mentioning the Congressional request to preserve all of Clinton's emails, he took action. Instead of simply making the retention policy change, which would have preserved the emails for another two months, he immediately deleted all of Clinton's emails from her server. Then he used BleachBit to permanently wipe them.

    The Datto SIRIS S2000 was used for back-up services. (Credit: Datto, Inc.)

    The Datto SIRIS S2000 was used for back-up services. (Credit: Datto, Inc.)

    However, recall that there was a Datto SIRIS back-up device connected to the server and periodically making copies of all the data on the server. Apparently, Combetta didn't mention this to the FBI, but the FBI found "evidence of these [server] deletions and determined the Datto backups of the server were also manually deleted during this timeframe ." The Datto device sent a records log back to the Datto company whenever any changes were made, and according to a letter from Datto to the FBI that later became public, the deletions on the device were made around noon on March 31, 2015 , the same date as the second conference call. (Although the server and Datto device were in New Jersey and Combetta was working remotely from Rhode Island, he could make changes remotely, as he or other PRN employees did on other occasions.)

    A recent Congressional committee letter mentioned that the other deletions were also made on or around March 31, 2015 . So it's probable they were all done at the same time by the same person: Combetta.

    Already, Combetta's behavior is damning. He didn't just change the data retention policy, as Mills had asked him to do, causing them to be permanently deleted 60 days later. He immediately deleted all of Clinton's emails and then wiped them for good measure, and almost certainly deleted them from the Datto back-up device too.

    The FBI's Clinton email investigation didn't formally begin until July 10, 2015 -more than two months after Combetta took those actions. However, State Department inspector general Steve Linick began investigating Clinton's email usage in April 2015 , and he could have given her an order to preserve all her documents-we don't know. Furthermore, CNN has reported that the FBI investigation actually began informally in late May 2015 , which is less than two months after the deletions. So Combetta could have prevented the State Department and/or the FBI from easily recovering all the emails in time.

    To make matters worse for Combetta, on March 20, 2015 , the House Benghazi Committee sent a letter to Clinton's lawyer Kendall , asking Clinton to turn her server over to a neutral third party so it could be examined to see if any work-related emails were still on it. This was reported in the New York Times and other media outlets.

    Then, on March 27, 2015 , Kendall replied to the committee in a letter that also was reported on by the Times and others that same day. Kendall wrote, "There is no basis to support the proposed third-party review of the server To avoid prolonging a discussion that would be academic, I have confirmed with the secretary's IT [information technology] support that no emails for the time period January 21, 2009 through February 1, 2013 reside on the server or on any back-up systems associated with the server."

    David Kendall (Credit: Above the Law)

    David Kendall (Credit: Above the Law)

    When Kendall mentioned Clinton's IT support, that had to have been a reference to PRN. So what actually happened? Did Kendall or someone else working for Clinton ask Combetta and/or other PRN employees if there were any emails still on the server in the March 25, 2015 conference call, just two days before he sent his letter? Did Combetta lie in that call and say they were already deleted and then rush to delete them afterwards to cover up his mistake? Or did someone working for Clinton tell or hint that he should delete them now if they hadn't been deleted already? We don't know, because the FBI has revealed nothing about what was said in that conference call or the one that took place a week later.

    However, despite all these clear signs that the emails should be preserved, not only did Combetta confess in an FBI interview that "at the time he made the deletions in March 2015 , he was aware of the existence of the preservation request and the fact that it meant he should not disturb Clinton's email data on the [server]," he said that " he did not receive guidance from other PRN personnel, PRN's legal counsel or others regarding the meaning of the preservation request." So he confessed to obstruction of justice and other possible crimes, all to the apparent benefit of Clinton instead of himself!


    Investigations and cover-ups

    This is perplexing enough already, but it gets stranger still, if we continue to follow the behavior of Combetta and PRN as a whole.

    An inside look at the Equinix facility in Secaucus, NJ. (Credit: Chang W. Lee / New York Time)

    An inside look at the Equinix facility in Secaucus, NJ. (Credit: Chang W. Lee / New York Time)

    By August 2015 , the FBI's Clinton investigation was in full swing, and they began interviewing witnesses and confiscating equipment for analysis. Because the FBI never empanelled a grand jury, it didn't have subpoena power, so it had to ask Clinton for permission to seize her server. She gave that permission on August 11, 2015 , and the server was picked up from the data center in New Jersey the next day . But remember that there actually were two servers there, an old one and a new one. All the data had been wiped from the old one and moved to the new one, so the new one was the more important one to analyze. But the FBI only picked up the old one.

    According to the FBI's final report, "At the time of the FBI's acquisition of the [server], Williams & Connolly [the law firm of Clinton's personal lawyer David Kendall] did not advise the US government of the existence of the additional equipment associated with the [old server], or that Clinton's clintonemail.com emails had been migrated to the successor [server] remaining at [the] Equinix [data center]. The FBI's subsequent investigation identified this additional equipment and revealed the email migration." As a result, the FBI finally picked up the new server on October 3, 2015 .

    It was bad enough that Clinton's lawyer wasn't forthcoming about this, especially since Clinton and her staff had switched to using new email accounts located on a different server with a different domain name in late 2014 , so the servers in question weren't urgently needed anymore. But who else could have told the FBI about the data getting transferred to the new server? PRN.

    A snippet from the invoice published by Complete Colorado on October 19, 2015. (Credit: Todd Shepherd / Complete Colorado) (Used with express permission from CompleteColorado.com. Do not duplicate or republish.)

    The FBI interviewed PRN's staff in September 2015. This almost certainly included Combetta and Bill Thornton, because they were the only two PRN employees actively managing Clinton's server.

    It's particularly important to know if Combetta was interviewed at this time. The FBI's final report clearly stated that he was interviewed twice, in February 2016 and May 2016 , and repeatedly referred to what was said in his "first interview" and "second interview." However, we luckily know that he was interviewed in September 2015 as well, because of a PRN invoice billed to Clinton Executive Service Corp. (CESC), a Clinton family company, that was made public later in 2015 . The invoice made clear that Combetta, who was working remotely from Rhode Island, flew to Colorado on September 14, 2015, and then "federal interviews" took place on September 15 . Combetta's rental car, hotel, and return airfare costs were itemized as well. As this essay later makes clear, PRN was refusing to cooperate with anyone else in the US government but the FBI by this time, so "federal interviews" can only mean the FBI.

    Bryan Pagliano (Credit: public domain)

    Bryan Pagliano (Credit: public domain)

    The fact that the FBI falsely claimed Combetta was only interviewed twice grows in importance given a recent New York Times report that the Justice Department gave Combetta some form of legal immunity .

    One other person in the investigation, Bryan Pagliano, was given immunity as well. But his immunity deal was leaked to the media and had been widely reported on since March 2016 . By contrast, Combetta's immunity wasn't even mentioned in the FBI's final report, and members of Congress were upset to first read about it in the Times , because they had never been told about it either.

    The mystery of this situation deepens when one looks at the FBI report regarding what Combetta said in his February 2016 and May 2016 interviews. In February 2016 , he claimed that he remembered in late March 2015 that he forgot to make the change to the email retention policy on Clinton's server, but that was it. He claimed he never did make any deletions. He also claimed that he was unaware of the March 9, 2015 email from Mills warning of the Congressional request to preserve all of Clinton's emails.

    Paul Combetta (Credit: public domain)

    Paul Combetta (Credit: public domain)

    Then, in May 2016 , he completely changed his story. He said that in fact he did make the deletions in late March 2015 after all, plus he'd wiped her emails with BleachBit, as described earlier. He also confessed to being aware of the Mills email with the preservation request.

    It still hasn't been reported when Combetta's immunity deal was made. However, it seems probable that this took place between his February 2016 and May 2016 interviews, causing the drastic change in his account. Yet, it looks that he still hasn't been fully honest or forthcoming. Note that he didn't confess to the deletion of data on the Datto back-up device, even though it took place at the same time as the other deletions. The FBI learned that on their own by analyzing the device.


    Attorney-client privilege?!

    More crucially, we know that Combetta has not revealed what took place in the second conference call between PRN and Clinton employees. Here is all the FBI's final report has to say about that: "Investigation identified a PRN work ticket, which referenced a conference call among PRN, Kendall, and Mills on March 31, 2015. PRN's attorney advised [Combetta] not to comment on the conversation with Kendall, based upon the assertion of the attorney-client privilege ."

    Paul Combetta (left) Ken Eichner (right) (Credit: CSpan)

    Sitting behind Paul Combetta at the House Oversight Committee hearing on September 13, 2016, is Platte River Networks attorney Ken Eichner. (Credit: CSpan)

    This is extremely bizarre. What "attorney-client privilege"?! That would only apply for communications between Combetta and his lawyer or lawyers. It's clear that Combetta's lawyer isn't Mills or Kendall. The New York Times article about the immunity deal made a passing reference to his lawyer, and, when Combetta showed up for a Congressional hearing on September 12 , he was accompanied by a lawyer who photographs from the hearing make clear is Ken Eichner, who has been the legal counsel for PRN as a whole regarding Clinton's server.

    Even if Combetta's lawyer Eichner was participating in the call, there is no way that should protect Combetta from having to tell what he said to Clinton employees like Mills or Kendall. If that's how the law works, criminals could simply always travel with a lawyer and then claim anything they do or say with the lawyer present is inadmissible as evidence due to attorney-client privilege. It's absurd.

    For the FBI to give Combetta an immunity deal and then still not learn if he had been told to delete the emails by anyone working for Clinton due to a completely legally indefensible "attorney-client privilege" excuse is beyond belief. It would make sense, however, if the FBI was actually trying to protect Clinton from prosecution instead of trying to find evidence to prosecute her.


    Combetta's Reddit posts

    A side-by-side shot of Combetta at the House Oversight Committee hearing (left) and a captured shot of Combetta as Stonetear (right). (Credit: CSpan and public domain)

    A photo comparison of Combetta at the House Oversight Committee hearing (left) and a captured shot of Combetta as stonetear (right). (Credit: CSpan and public domain)

    Furthermore, how much can Combetta be trusted, even in an FBI interview? It has recently come to light that he made Reddit posts under the username "stonetear." There can be no doubt this was him, because the details match perfectly, including him signing a post "Paul," having another social media account for a Paul Combetta with the username "stonetear," having a combetta.com website mentioning his "stonetear" alias, and even posting a photo of "stonetear" that matches other known photos of Combetta.

    In one Reddit post , he asked other server managers: "I may be facing a very interesting situation where I need to strip out a VIP's (VERY VIP) email address from a bunch of archived email that I have both in a live Exchange mailbox, as well as a .pst file. Basically, they don't want the VIP's email address exposed to anyone, and want to be able to either strip out or replace the email address in the to/from fields in all of the emails we want to send out. Does anyone have experience with something like this, and/or suggestions on how this might be accomplished?"

    The date of the post- July 24, 2014 -is very significant, because that was just one day after Combetta sent CESE (the Clinton family company) DVDs containing some of Clinton's emails , so Clinton's lawyers could start the sorting process. Also on July 23, 2014 , an unnamed PRN employee sent Samuelson and Mills the same emails electronically directly to their laptops.

    A response captured in the Reddit chat warning Combetta that what he wants to do is illegal. (Credit: Reddit)

    A response captured in the Reddit chat warning stonetear aka Combetta that what he wants to do could result in major legal issues. (Credit: Reddit)

    Popular software made by companies like Microsoft have tried to make it impossible for people to change email records, so people facing legal trouble can't tamper with emails after they've been sent. Thus, when Combetta posed his problem at Reddit, other Reddit users told him that what he wanted to do "could result in major legal issues." But that didn't deter him, and he kept asking for various ways to get it accomplished anyway.

    It isn't clear why Clinton would have wanted her email address removed from all her emails, since her exact address had already been exposed in the media back in March 2013 by the hacker known as Guccifer. One Gawker reporter even used it to email Clinton on March 20, 2013 : "[W] ere your emails to and from the [email protected] account archived according to the provisions of the President Records Act and Freedom of Information Act?" (Clinton never replied, maybe because it's clear in hindsight that an honest answer would have been "no.") But the fact that Combetta was willing to at least try to do this raises questions, especially his seeming willingness to do something illegal for his "VIP" customer Hillary Clinton.

    Combetta made another important Reddit post a few months later:

    "Hello- I have a client who wants to push out a 60 day email retention policy for certain users. However, they also want these users to have a 'Save Folder' in their Exchange folder list where the users can drop items that they want to hang onto longer than the 60 day window. All email in any other folder in the mailbox should purge anything older than 60 days (should not apply to calendar or contact items of course). How would I go about this? Some combination of retention and managed folder policy?"

    Another sample captured of Combetta as 'stonetear' asking Reddit users for help. (Credit: Reddit)

    Another question was captured of 'stonetear' aka Combetta asking Reddit users for technical help. (Credit: Reddit)

    Again, the timing is telling, because this post was made on December 10, 2014 . Recall that December 2014 (or January 2015 ) was when he deleted and then wiped Clinton's emails from the laptops of Mills and Samuelson. December also was the month that Mills asked him to change the retention policy on Clinton's server to 60 days , which is precisely the issue he was asking about in his Reddit post.

    A captured shot of Combetta's 'stonetear' GMail account with picture included. (Credit: public domain)

    A captured shot of Combetta's 'stonetear' Gmail account with picture included. (Credit: public domain)

    Recall how Clinton allegedly claimed she didn't want to keep any of her deleted emails. It looks like that wasn't true after all. It sounds exactly as if Mills or someone else working for Clinton told him to make it look like all the "personal" emails were permanently deleted due to the 60 day policy change, while actually keeping copies of emails they still wanted.

    Looking at Combetta's two Reddit posts detailed above, there are only two possibilities. One is that Combetta failed to disclose crucial information to the FBI, despite his immunity deal. The second is that he did, but the FBI didn't mention it in its final report. Either way, it's already clear that the FBI has failed to present the full story of Combetta's actions to the public. And how much of what Combetta has said can be trusted, even in his most recent and supposedly most forthcoming FBI interview?

    David DeCamillis (Credit: Twitter)

    David DeCamillis (Credit: Twitter)

    Remarkably, there is a hint that Combetta was being dishonest even before his late March 2015 deletions. On March 3, 2015 , one day after the front-page New York Times story revealing Clinton's use of a private server, PRN's vice president of sales David DeCamillis sent an email to some or all of the other PRN employees. The email has only been paraphrased in news reports so far, but he was already wondering what Clinton emails the company might be asked to turn over .

    Combetta replied to the email , "I've done quite a bit already in the last few months related to this. Her [Clinton's] team had me do a bunch of exports and email filters and cleanup to provide a .pst [personal storage file] of all of HRC's [Hillary Rodham Clinton's] emails to/from any .gov addresses. I billed probably close to 10 hours in on-call tickets with CESC related to it :)."

    First off, it's interesting that he said he did "a bunch" of "email filters and cleanup," because what has been reported by the FBI is that he only made a copy of all of Clinton's email and sent them off to be sorted in late July 2014 . That fits with his July 2014 Reddit post where he was trying to modify somebody's email address.

    But also, assuming that there aren't important parts to his email that haven't been mentioned by the media, consider what he didn't say. The topic was possibly turning over Clinton's emails, and yet by this time Combetta had already deleted and wiped all of Clinton's emails from the laptops of two Clinton lawyers and been asked to change the email retention policy on Clinton's server so that all her emails would be permanently deleted there too, and yet he didn't bother to mention this to anyone else at PRN. Why?

    We can only speculate based on the limited amount of information made public so far. But it seems as if Combetta was covering up for Clinton and/or the people working for her even BEFORE he made his late March 2015 deletions!


    Who knows about the deletions, and how?

    Senator Ron Johnson (Credit: John Shinkle / Politico)

    Senator Ron Johnson (Credit: John Shinkle / Politico)

    For now, let us turn back to events in the fall of 2015 . In mid-August 2015 , Senator Ron Johnson (R) asked for and got a staff-level briefing from PRN about the management of Clinton's server, as part of Republican Congressional oversight of the FBI's investigation. It seems very likely that Combetta was a part of that briefing, or at least his knowledge heavily informed the briefing, because again only two PRN employees actively managed her server, and he was one of them.

    Regardless of whether he was there or not, it is clear that PRN was not honest in the briefing. Almost nothing is publicly known about the briefing except that it took place. However, from questions Johnson asked PRN in later letters, one can see that he knew nothing about the March 2015 deletions by Combetta. In fact, just like the FBI, there is no indication he knew anything about the transfer of the data from the old server to the new in that time period, which would be a basic fact in any such briefing.

    Andy Boian (Credit: public domain)

    The dishonesty or ignorance of PRN in this time period can be clearly seen due to a September 12, 2015 Washington Post article. In it, PRN spokesperson Andy Boian said, " Platte River has no knowledge of the server being wiped ." He added, "All the information we have is that the server wasn't wiped." We now know that not only was this untrue, but a PRN employee did the wiping!

    This leads to two possibilities. One is that Combetta lied to his PRN bosses, so in September 2015 nobody else in PRN knew about the deletions he'd made. The other is that additional people at PRN knew, but they joined in a cover-up.

    At this point, it's impossible to know which of these is true, but one of them must be. PRN employees created work tickets and other documentary evidence of the work they made, so one would think the company leadership would have quickly learned about the deletions if they did any examination of their managerial actions to prepare for investigative briefings and interviews.

    But either way, PRN as a whole began acting as if there was something to hide. Although the company agreed to the briefing of Congressional staffers in mid-August 2015 , when Senator Johnson wanted to follow this up with interviews of individual PRN employees in early September, PRN said no . When Congressional committees began asking PRN for documents, they also said no, and kept saying no. Recently, as we shall see later, they've even defied a Congressional subpoena for documents.

    Austin McChord, founder and CEO of Datto, Inc. (Credit: Erik Traufmann / Hearst Connecticut Media)

    Austin McChord, founder and CEO of Datto, Inc. (Credit: Erik Traufmann / Hearst Connecticut Media)

    At the same time Congressional committees began asking PRN for documents and interviews, they made those requests to Datto as well.

    Datto expressed a willingness to cooperate. But because Datto had been subcontracted by PRN to help manage Clinton's server, they needed PRN's permission to share any information relating to that account. When PRN was first asked in early October 2015 , they gave permission. But about a week later, they changed their mind , forcing Datto to stay quiet.

    To make matters worse, in early November 2015 , PRN spokesperson Andy Boian gave a completely bogus public excuse about this, saying that PRN and Datto had mutually agreed it was more convenient for investigators to deal with just one company. Datto immediately complained in a letter sent to PRN and Senator Johnson that no such discussion or agreement between PRN and Datto had ever taken place.

    What is PRN hiding?


    The Datto cloud mystery

    There is another strange twist to Datto's involvement. Back in June 2013 when Datto was first subcontracted to help with backing up the server data, the Clinton family company CESC made explicit that they didn't want any of the data to be stored remotely . But due to some snafu or miscommunication, it turns out that in addition to local back-ups being stored on the Datto device connected to the server, Datto had been making periodic copies of the server data the whole time in the "cloud!" That means back-up copies of the data were being transferred over the Internet and stored remotely, probably on other servers controlled by Datto.

    Co-founders of PRN are Brent Allshouse (left) and Treve Suazo (right) (Credit: PRN)

    Co-founders of PRN are Brent Allshouse (left) and Treve Suazo (right) (Credit: PRN)

    PRN only discovered this in early August 2015 , around the time the roles of PRN and Datto had with the server began to be made public. PRN contacted Datto, told them to stop doing this, put all the data on a thumb drive, send it to them, and then permanently wipe their remote copies of the server data.

    It is unclear what happened after that. The FBI's final report mentions a Datto back-up made on June 29, 2013 , just after all the data had been moved from the old server to the new sever with the back-up, had been useful to investigators and allowed them to find some Clinton emails dating all the way back to the first two months of her secretary of state tenure. However, it isn't clear if this is due to the local Datto SIRIS device or the accidental Datto cloud back-up. Congressional committee letters show that they don't know either and have been trying to find out.

    Adding to the mystery, one would think that if Datto was making periodic back-ups either or both ways, the FBI would have been able to recover all of Clinton's over 31,000 deleted emails and not just 17,000 of them. Consider that when PRN employees sent Clinton's lawyers all of Clinton's emails to be sorted in July and September 2014 , they simply copied what was on the server at the time, which presumably was the same amount of emails from years earlier than had been there in June 2013 , and thus backed up by Datto many times.

    It's likely there are more twists to the cloud back-up story that have yet to be revealed.


    What did Clinton and her aides know about the deletions?

    Meanwhile, let's consider what Clinton and her aides may have known and when they knew it. When Mills was interviewed by the FBI in April 2016 , according to the FBI, "Mills stated she was unaware that [Combetta] had conducted these deletions and modifications in March 2015 ." Then, when Clinton was interviewed by the FBI in July 2016 , "Clinton stated she was unaware of the March 2015 email deletions by PRN."

    This is pretty hard to believe. Mills was and still is one of Clinton's lawyers, and even attended Clinton's FBI interview. So why wouldn't she have mentioned the deletions to Clinton between April and July 2016 , after she learned about them from the FBI's questions to her? One would think Clinton would have been extremely curious to know anything about the FBI's possible recovery of her deleted emails.

    Clinton making a joking wipe gesture while speaking at a town hall on August 18, 2015, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Credit: John Locher / The Associated Press)

    Clinton making a joking wipe gesture while speaking at a town hall on August 18, 2015, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Credit: John Locher / The Associated Press)

    But more importantly, consider what was mentioned in an NBC News report on August 19, 2015 . Clinton's campaign acknowledged "that there was an attempt to wipe [Clinton's] server before it was turned over last week to the FBI. But two sources with direct knowledge of the investigation told NBC News that the [FBI] may be able to recover at least some data."

    Is it plausible that people within Clinton's campaign knew this, and yet neither Mills nor Clinton did? How could that be? Note that just one day before the NBC News report, Clinton had been directly asked if her server had been wiped. She dodged the question by making the joke , " What-like with a cloth, or something?" Then she said she didn't "know how it works digitally at all." Despite the controversy at the time about the cloth joke, her spokesperson claimed one month later, "I don't know what 'wiped' means."

    It's highly likely the issue had to have been discussed with Clinton at the time, but there was a conscious effort not to have her admit to knowing anything, due to the on-going FBI investigation.

    But more crucially, how could anyone at all working for Clinton know about the deletions as far back as August 2015 ? Recall that this was within days of PRN giving a briefing to Congressional staffers and not telling them, and several weeks prior to a PRN public comment that there was no evidence the server had been wiped.

    Moreover, we have no evidence that the FBI knew about the deletions yet. Datto conducted an analysis of its device that had been attached to Clinton's new server, and in an October 23, 2015 email, told the FBI for the first time that deletions had taken place on that device on March 31, 2015 . Keep in mind that even in his February 2016 FBI interview, Combetta claimed that no deletions had taken place in that time frame. Does it make sense that he would have said that if he had reason to believe that PRN had been talking to Clinton's staff about it in the months before? (None of the interviews in the FBI"s investigations were done under oath, but lying to the FBI is a felony with a maximum five-year prison sentence.)

    A sample of the letter sent to the FBI by Datto attorney, Steven Cash on October 23, 2015. (Credit: House Science Committee)

    A sample of the email sent to the FBI by Datto attorney, Steven Cash on October 23, 2015. (Credit: House Science Committee)

    So, again, how could Clinton's campaign know about the wiping in August 2015 ? The logical answer is that it had been discussed in the conference call on March 31, 2015 , that took place within hours of the deletions.

    Paul Combetta (Credit: public domain)

    Paul Combetta (Credit: public domain)

    Perhaps Mills, Kendall, or someone else working for Clinton told Combetta to make the deletions, possibly during the first conference call on March 25, 2015 . If that is the case, there should be obstruction of justice charges brought against anyone involved. Or maybe Combetta did that on his own to cover his earlier mistake and then mentioned what he'd done in the second conference call. If either scenario is true, Mills should be charged with lying to the FBI for claiming in her FBI interview that she knew nothing about any of this. Clinton might be charged for the same if it could be proved what she knew and when.


    "Shady shit" and "Hillary's cover-up operation"

    But there's still more to this strange story. Somehow by October 5, 2015 , Senator Johnson got hold of a curious email exchange between Combetta and Thornton , and he mentioned it in a letter to PRN that got leaked to the public the next day. (Recall that Bill Thornton is the other PRN employee who actively managed Clinton's server.)

    Just as the email retention policy on the Clinton server was changed on the orders of people working for Clinton, so was the retention policy on the Datto device connected to the server, in the same time period.

    In an August 18, 2015 email, Combetta expressed concern that CESC, the Clinton family company, had directed PRN to reduce the length of time backups, and PRN wanted proof of this so they wouldn't be blamed. But he said in the email, "this was all phone comms [communications]."

    Paul Combetta (left) Bill Thornton (right) (Credit: AP)

    Paul Combetta (left) Bill Thornton (right) (Credit: The Associated Press)

    The next day , there was another email, this one written by Thornton to Combetta and possibly others in PRN . The email has the subject heading "CESC Datto." Thornton wrote: "Any chance you found an old email with their directive to cut the backup back in Oct-Feb. I know they had you cut it once in Oct-Nov, then again to 30 days in Feb-ish." (Presumably this refers to October 2014 through February 2015 .)

    Thornton continued: "If we had that email, then we're golden. [ ] Wondering how we can sneak an email in now after the fact asking them when they told us to cut the backups and have them confirm it for our records. Starting to think this whole thing really is covering up some shady shit. I just think if we have it in writing that they [CESC] told us to cut the backups, and we can go public with our statement saying we have had backups since day one, then we were told to trim to 30 days, it would make us look a WHOLE LOT better."

    Combetta replied: "I'll look again, but I'm almost positive we don't have anything about the 60 day cut. [ ] It's up to lawyer crap now, so just sit back and enjoy the silly headlines."

    As an aside, it's curious that Combetta made some unsolicited additional comments in that same email that was supportive of Clinton's position in the email controversy: "It wasn't the law to be required to use government email servers at the State Department, believe it or not. Colin Powell used an AOL address for communicating with his staff, believe it or not."

    If we take this email exchange at face value, then it appears that Clinton employees requested an email retention policy change that would result in more deletion of data on the Datto back-up device in the October to November 2014 time range. Keep in mind that the State Department formally asked Clinton for all of her work-related emails , on October 28, 2014 , after informally asking starting in July 2014 . Then, around February 2015 , Clinton employees asked for another change that would have resulted in more deletions. Plus, they did this on the phone, leaving no paper trail. Is it any wonder that Thornton wrote, "Starting to think this whole thing really is covering up some shady shit?"

    Details are lacking, but roughly around this time period, one unnamed PRN employee made a joke that they were "Hillary's cover-up operation ." That may have been much more accurate than they realized.


    The FBI speaks up, only raising more questions

    News about PRN went quiet for the first half of 2016 . Congressional committees kept asking PRN and Datto for more information (including another request for interviews in January 2016 ), and PRN kept saying no as well as not giving Datto permission to respond.

    James Comey (Credit: Fox News)

    James Comey (Credit: Fox News)

    Then, on July 5, 2016 , FBI Director James Comey gave a surprise public speech in which he announced he wouldn't recommend any criminal charges against Clinton or anyone else in the investigation. In the course of his speech, he said it was "likely" that some emails may have disappeared forever because Clinton's lawyers "deleted all emails they did not return to State, and the lawyers cleaned their devices in such a way as to preclude complete forensic recovery." But he said that after interviews and technical examination, "we believe our investigation has been sufficient to give us reasonable confidence there was no intentional misconduct in connection with that sorting effort."

    Trey Gowdy (Credit: Brendan Smialowski / Getty Images)

    Trey Gowdy (Credit: Brendan Smialowski / Getty Images)

    Two days later, on July 7, 2016 , Comey had to explain his decision in front of a Congressional committee. During that hearing, he was asked by Representative Trey Gowdy (R), "Secretary Clinton said neither she nor anyone else deleted work-related emails from her personal account. Was that true?"

    Comey replied: "That's a harder one to answer. We found traces of work-related emails in-on devices or in slack space. Whether they were deleted or whether when the server was changed out, something happened to them. There's no doubt that the work-related emails were removed electronically from the email system."

    Consider that response. By the time Comey made those comments, the FBI's final report had already been finished, the report that detailed Combetta's confession of deliberately deleting and then wiping all of Clinton's emails from her server. Comey was explicitly asked if "anyone" had made such deletions, and yet he said he wasn't sure. Comey should be investigated for lying to Congress! Had he revealed even the rough outlines of Combetta's late March 2015 deletions in his July 5, 2016 public speech or his Congressional testimony two days later , it would have significantly changed the public perception of the results of the FBI investigation. That also would have allowed Congressional committees to start focusing on this two months earlier than they did, enabling them to uncover more in the limited time before the November presidential election.

    The SECNAP Logo (Credit: SECNAP)

    Despite the fact that the Combetta deletions were still unknown, Congressional committees began putting increasing pressure on PRN anyway. On July 12, 2016 , two committees jointly wrote a letter to PRN , threatening subpoenas if they still refused to cooperate. The letter listed seven PRN employees they wanted to interview, including Combetta and Thornton. Similar letters went out to Datto and SECNAP. (SECNAP was subcontracted by PRN to carry out threat monitoring of the network connected to Clinton's server.)

    On August 22, 2016 , after all three companies still refused to cooperate, Representative Lamar Smith (R), chair of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology, issued subpoenas for PRN, Datto, and SECNAP .

    On September 2, 2016 , the FBI's final report of their Clinton email investigation was released (along with a summary of Clinton's FBI interview). This report revealed the late March 2015 deletions for the first time. Combetta's name was redacted, but his role, as well as his immunity deal, was revealed in the New York Times article published a few days later.


    Congressional investigators fight back

    160918ChanningPhillipspublic

    Channing Phillips (Credit: public domain)

    Since the report has been released, Congressional Republicans have stepped up their efforts to get answers about the Combetta mystery, using the powers of the committees they control. On September 6, 2016 , Representative Jason Chaffetz (R), chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wrote a letter to Channing Phillips , the US attorney for the District of Columbia. He asked the Justice Department to "investigate and determine whether Secretary Clinton or her employees and contractors violated statutes that prohibit destruction of records, obstruction of congressional inquiries, and concealment or cover up of evidence material to a congressional investigation." Clearly, this relates to the Combetta deletions.

    House Oversight Committee Chair Representative Jason Chaffetz. (Credit: Cliff Owen / The Associated Press)

    Representative Jason Chaffetz. (Credit: Cliff Owen / The Associated Press)

    On the same day , Chaffetz sent a letter to PRN warning that Combetta could face federal charges for deleting and wiping Clinton's emails in late March 2015 , due to the Congressional request to preserve them earlier in the month that he admitted he was aware of. Chaffetz also wants an explanation from PRN how Combetta could refuse to talk to the FBI about the conference calls if the only lawyers involved in the call were Clinton's.

    Chaffetz serves the FBI a subpoena during a House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee hearing on September 9, 2016. (Credit: ABC News)

    Chaffetz serves the FBI a subpoena during a House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee hearing on September 9, 2016. (Credit: ABC News)

    On September 9 , Chaffetz served the FBI a subpoena for all the unredacted interviews from the FBI's Clinton investigation, especially those of Combetta and the other PRN employees. This came after an FBI official testifying at a hearing remarkably suggested that Chaffetz should file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to get the documents, just like any private citizen can.

    On September 8, 2016 , Congressional committees served the subpoenas they'd threatened in August. PRN, Datto, and SECNAP were given until the end of September 12 to finally turn over the documents the committees had been requesting for year. Datto complied and turned over the documents in time. However, PRN and SECNAP did not.

    Representative Lamar Smith (Credit: public domain)

    Representative Lamar Smith (Credit: public domain)

    The next day, September 13 , Representative Lamar Smith (R) said , "just this morning SECNAP's [legal] counsel confirmed to my staff that the Clinton's private LLC [Clinton Executive Service Corp.] is actively engaged in directing their obstructionist responses to Congressional subpoenas."

    PRN employees Combetta and Thornton were also given subpoenas on September 8 , ordering them to testify at a Congressional hearing on September 13, 2016 . Both of them showed up with their lawyers, but both of them pled the Fifth , leaving many questions unanswered.


    An FBI cover-up?

    In a Senate speech on September 12, 2016 , Senator Charles Grassley (R) accused the FBI of manipulating which information about the Clinton email investigation becomes public . He said that although the FBI has taken the unusual step of releasing the FBI's final report, "its summary is misleading or inaccurate in some key details and leaves out other important facts altogether." He pointed in particular to Combetta's deletions, saying: "[T]here is key information related to that issue that is still being kept secret, even though it is unclassified. If I honor the FBI's 'instruction' not to disclose the unclassified information it provided to Congress, I cannot explain why."

    Senator Charles Grassley takes to the Senate floor on September 12, 2016. (Credit: CSpan))

    Senator Charles Grassley takes to the Senate floor on September 12, 2016. (Credit: CSpan)

    He also said there are dozens of completely unclassified witness reports, but even some of his Congressional staffers can't see them "because the FBI improperly bundled [them] with a small amount of classified information, and told the Senate to treat it all as if it were classified." The normal procedure is for documents to have the classified portions marked. Then the unclassified portions can be released. But in defiance of regulations and a clear executive order on how such material should be handled, "the FBI has 'instructed' the Senate office that handles classified information not to separate the unclassified information." As a result, Grassley claims: "Inaccuracies are spreading because of the FBI's selective release. For example, the FBI's recently released summary memo may be contradicted by other unclassified interview summaries that are being kept locked away from the public."

    He said he has been fighting the FBI on this, but without success so far, as the FBI isn't even replying to his letters.

    Thus, it seems that Comey failing to mention anything about the Combetta deletions in the July 7, 2016 Congressional hearing, even when directly asked about it, was no accident. Having the FBI report claim that Combetta was only interviewed twice when there is clear evidence of three interviews also fits a pattern of concealment related to the deletions.

    James Comey testifies to the House Benghazi Committee on July 7, 2016. (Credit: Jack Gruber / USA Today)

    James Comey testifies to the House Benghazi Committee on July 7, 2016. (Credit: Jack Gruber / USA Today)

    Regarding the FBI's failure to inform Congressional oversight committees of Combetta's immunity deal, Representative Trey Gowdy (R) recently commented, "If there is a reason to withhold the immunity agreement from Congress-and by extension, the people we represent-I cannot think of what it would be."

    Gowdy, who is a former federal prosecutor, also said on September 9 that there are two types of immunity Combetta could have received : use and transactional. "If the FBI and the Department of Justice gave this witness transactional immunity, it is tantamount to giving the triggerman immunity in a robbery case." He added that he is "stunned" because "It looks like they gave immunity to the very person you would most want to prosecute."

    This is as much as we know so far, but surely the story won't stop there. PRN has been served a new subpoena. It is likely the requested documents will be seized from them soon if they continue to resist.


    Taking the fall and running out the clock

    But why does PRN resist so much? Computer companies often resist sharing information with the government so their reputation with their clients won't be harmed. But defying a subpoena when there clearly are legitimate questions to be answered goes way beyond what companies normally do and threatens PRN's reputation in a different way. Could it be that PRN-an inexplicable choice to manage Clinton's server-was chosen precisely because whatever Clinton aide hired them had reason to believe they would be loyal if a problem like this arose?

    David DeCamillis (Credit: public domain)

    David DeCamillis (Credit: public domain)

    There is some anecdotal evidence to support this. It has been reported that PRN has ties to prominent Democrats . For instance, the company's vice president of sales David DeCamillis is said to be a prominent supporter of Democratic politicians, and once offered to let Senator Joe Biden (D) stay in his house in 2008 , not long before Biden became Obama's vice president. The company also has done work for John Hickenlooper, the Democratic governor of Colorado. And recall the email in which Combetta brought up points to defend Clinton in her email controversy, even though the email exchange was on a different topic.

    The behavior of the FBI is even stranger. Comey was a registered Republican most of his life, and it is well known that most FBI agents are politically conservative. Be that as it may, if Comey made a decision beforehand based on some political calculation to avoid indicting Clinton no matter what the actual evidence was, that the FBI's peculiar behavior specifically relating to the Combetta deletions make much more sense. It would be an unprecedented and bold move to recommend indicting someone with Hillary Clinton's power right in the middle of her presidential election campaign.

    It's naive to think that political factors don't play a role, on both sides. Consider that virtually every Democratic politician has been supportive of Clinton in her email controversy, or at least silent about it, while virtually every Republican has been critical of her about it or silent. Comey was appointed by Obama, and if the odds makers are right and Clinton wins in November , Comey will continue to be the FBI director under President Clinton. (Comey was appointed to a ten-year term, but Congress needs to vote to reappoint him after the election.) How could that not affect his thinking?

    Comey could be trying to run out the clock, first delaying the revelations of the Combetta's deletions as much as possible, then releasing only selected facts to diminish the attention on the story.

    In this scenario, the FBI having Combetta take the fall for the deletions while making a secret immunity deal with him is a particularly clever move to prevent anyone from being indicted. Note that Combetta's confession about making the deletions came in his May 2016 FBI interview, which came after Mills' April 2016 interview in which she claimed she'd never heard of any deletions. Thus, the only way to have Combetta take the fall for the deletions without Mills getting caught clearly lying to the FBI is by dodging the issue of what was said in the March 31, 2015 conference with a nonsensical claim of "attorney-client privilege."

    Unfortunately, if that is Comey's plan, it looks like it's working. Since the FBI's final report came out on September 2, 2016 , the mainstream media has largely failed to grasp the significance of Combetta and his deletions, focusing on far less important matters instead, such as the destruction of a couple of Clinton's BlackBerry devices with hammers-which actually was better than not destroying them and possibly letting them fall into the wrong hands.

    The House Benghazi Committee in session in 2015. (Credit: C-SPAN3)

    The House Benghazi Committee in session in 2015. (Credit: C-SPAN3)

    What happens next appears to largely be in the hands of Congressional Republicans, who no doubt will keep pushing to find out more, if only to politically hurt Clinton before the election. But it's also in the hands of you, the members of the general public. If enough people pay attention, then it will be impossible to sweep this controversy under the rug.

    I believe that criminal behavior needs to be properly investigated and prosecuted, regardless of political persuasion and regardless of the election calendar. Combetta clearly committed a crime and he even confessed to do so, given what he admitted in his last FBI interview. If he got a limited immunity deal instead of blanket immunity, which is highly likely, it still would be possible to indict and convict him based on evidence outside of his interviews. That would help explain why he recently pled the Fifth, because he's still in legal danger.

    Paul Combetta and Bill Thornton plead the Fifth on September 13, 2016. (Credit: CSpan)

    Paul Combetta and Bill Thornton plead the Fifth on September 13, 2016. (Credit: CSpan)

    But more importantly, who else is guilty with him? Logic and the available evidence strongly suggest that Clinton's lawyer Cheryl Mills at least knew about the deletions at the time they happened. Combetta has already confessed to criminal behavior-and yet somehow hasn't even been fired by PRN. If he didn't at least tell Mills and the others in the conference call about the deletions, there would be no logical reason to assert attorney-client privilege in the first place. Only the nonsensical assertion of this privilege is preventing the evidence coming out that should lead to Mills being charged with lying to the FBI at a minimum. And if Mills knew, can anyone seriously believe that Clinton didn't know too?

    As the saying goes, "it's not the crime, it's the cover up." This is an important story, and not just election season mudslinging. The public needs to know what really happened.

    Note to Readers!

    If you found this essay informative, check out the Clinton email investigation timeline , as well as the Clinton Foundation timeline , written and updated daily by the same author. Stay up to date with the newest timeline entries by checking out our Recently Added Entries page , and join our Facebook group for intelligent discussions about the latest breaking news throughout the day.

    [Sep 16, 2016] Whats The FBI Hiding That Triggered A Congressional Subpoena by Andrew Napolitano

    Notable quotes:
    "... Because many members of Congress do not believe that the FBI acted free of political interference, they demanded to see the full FBI files in the case, not just the selected portions of the files that the FBI had released. In the case of the House, the FBI declined to surrender its files, and the agent it sent to testify about them declined to reveal their contents. This led to a dramatic service of a subpoena by the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on that FBI agent while he was testifying - all captured on live nationally broadcast television. ..."
    "... According to Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the FBI violated federal law by commingling classified and unclassified materials in the safe room, thereby making it unlawful for senators to discuss publicly the unclassified material. ..."
    "... Imposing such a burden of silence on U.S. senators about unclassified materials is unlawful and unconstitutional. What does the FBI have to hide? Whence comes the authority of the FBI to bar senators from commenting on unclassified materials? ..."
    "... What is going on here? The FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton has not served the rule of law. The rule of law - a pillar of American constitutional freedom since the end of the Civil War - mandates that the laws are to be enforced equally. No one is beneath their protection, and no one is above ..."
    Sep 16, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com

    Zero Hedge (reprinted from LewRockwell.com )

    It is hard to believe that the FBI was free to do its work, and it is probably true that the FBI was restrained by the White House early on. There were numerous aberrations in the investigation. There was no grand jury; no subpoenas were issued; no search warrants were served. Two people claimed to have received immunity, yet the statutory prerequisite for immunity - giving testimony before a grand or trial jury - was never present.

    Because many members of Congress do not believe that the FBI acted free of political interference, they demanded to see the full FBI files in the case, not just the selected portions of the files that the FBI had released. In the case of the House, the FBI declined to surrender its files, and the agent it sent to testify about them declined to reveal their contents. This led to a dramatic service of a subpoena by the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on that FBI agent while he was testifying - all captured on live nationally broadcast television.

    Now the FBI, which usually serves subpoenas and executes search warrants, is left with the alternative of complying with this unwanted subpoena by producing its entire file or arguing to a federal judge why it should not be compelled to do so.

    On the Senate side, matters are even more out of hand. There, in response to a request from the Senate Judiciary Committee, the FBI sent both classified and unclassified materials to the Senate safe room. The Senate safe room is a secure location that is available only to senators and their senior staff, all of whom must surrender their mobile devices and writing materials and swear in writing not to reveal whatever they see while in the room before they are permitted to enter.

    According to Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the FBI violated federal law by commingling classified and unclassified materials in the safe room, thereby making it unlawful for senators to discuss publicly the unclassified material.

    Imposing such a burden of silence on U.S. senators about unclassified materials is unlawful and unconstitutional. What does the FBI have to hide? Whence comes the authority of the FBI to bar senators from commenting on unclassified materials?

    Who cares about this? Everyone who believes that the government works for us should care because we have a right to know what the government - here the FBI - has done in our names. Sen. Grassley has opined that if he could reveal what he has seen in the FBI unclassified records, it would be of profound interest to American voters.

    What is going on here? The FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton has not served the rule of law. The rule of law - a pillar of American constitutional freedom since the end of the Civil War - mandates that the laws are to be enforced equally. No one is beneath their protection, and no one is above

    Short Squeeze •Sep 16, 2016 12:12 PM

    My theory is that when Comey stated "no reasonable prosecutor would prosecute", he already knew of her health issues. Would a prosecutor go after someone with 6 months to live?

    saloonsf •Sep 16, 2016 12:03 PM

    That's not FBI's responsibilities-exposing the elites cupabilities. The FBI primary objective is to protect the elites and the system that benefit them.

    Atomizer •Sep 16, 2016 12:10 PM

    The wagons are circling around the Clinton Foundation. Chelsea's husband is going to get nicked.

    withglee •Sep 16, 2016 12:25 PM

    Sen. Grassley has opined that if he could reveal what he has seen in the FBI unclassified records, it would be of profound interest to American voters.

    So what's keeping Grassley from asking that those unclassified documents be taken from the room and laid on his desk. He is not allowed to talk about what he saw in the room. But for sure he is allowed to talk about unclassified documents laid upon his desk ... even if they were once in the room. If that wasn't the case, the government would just run every document through the room ... to give it official immunity from inspection and exposure.

    [Sep 16, 2016] Most interesting to me was confirmation that the server was breached. Unknown parties accessed it from TOR multiple times. From your link, an individual email account on the server was breached

    Notable quotes:
    "... The State Deptartment had been using Blackberries since 2006, and diplomats overseas had been using them for just as long. ..."
    "... Hillary Clinton didn't need to use a fancy NSA-approved smartphone to access classified data. Whenever she went overseas, she had a team of IT specialists who was able to provide her with ClassNet access, and they're able to do so without any technical support from a US Embassy. ..."
    "... The Exchange and BES software were likely purchased by Hillary '08, and properly licensed for that usage. But as far as after that.... ..."
    "... In a country where a standing governer running as VP could be found explicitly and intentionally using Yahoo email for the express purpose of avoiding FOIA on relevant government business, and there be no investigation whatsoever well. Let's just say there's an exceedingly strong whiff of double standards in the air. ..."
    "... Most interesting to me was confirmation that the server was breached. Unknown parties accessed it from TOR multiple times. From your link, an individual email account on the server was breached. ..."
    "... This happens all the time, for varying reasons, mostly due to a phishing compromise of the account, and occasionally due to password re-use and related vectors of compromise. While it's bad for the individual account's contents, it's absolutely irrelevant beyond that. ..."
    "... If that's the worst they can find then personally I'm actually impressed. I was expecting that the server(s) had been root/fully compromised at least once, given how they get perennially described. If that turns out to not be the case, then they've actually been run better and more securely than the State Department's [at least non-classified] servers, from all reports. ..."
    "... A 'breach' of an account is not a breach of the server. The account being access via TOR implies the user credentials were acquired through some means. Was this 'breached' account a classified account? ..."
    "... "multiple times" is 3 times in this case, and it wasn't the server that was breached, it was 1 person's email. ..."
    Sep 16, 2016 | arstechnica.com
    Ars Scholae -> Palatinae reply Sep 3, 2016 10:22 AM

    Hillary Clinton didn't need to use her own Blackberry. The State Deptartment had been using Blackberries since 2006, and diplomats overseas had been using them for just as long.

    Hillary Clinton didn't need to use a fancy NSA-approved smartphone to access classified data. Whenever she went overseas, she had a team of IT specialists who was able to provide her with ClassNet access, and they're able to do so without any technical support from a US Embassy.

    corsairmarks Smack-Fu Master, in training reply Sep 2, 2016 4:27 PM

    Quote: First, the Clintons had requested, according to a PRN employee interviewed by the FBI, that the contents of the server be encrypted so that only mail recipients could read the content. This was not done, largely so that PRN technicians could "troubleshoot problems occurring within user accounts," the FBI memo reports.

    Also, while the Clintons had requested only local backups, the Datto appliance initially also used Datto's secure cloud backup service until August of 2015. \

    Sounds like some of the problem was the contractor not following the procedures established by the client.

    Rommel102 Ars Praefectus et Subscriptor reply Sep 2, 2016 4:27 PM

    Popular Most interesting to me was confirmation that the server was breached. Unknown parties accessed it from TOR multiple times.

    Sean Gallagher IT Editor reply Sep 2, 2016 4:39 PM

    vcsjones wrote: I wonder what the odds are that all of the OS / Exchange / BES CALs were actually licensed correctly.

    The Exchange and BES software were likely purchased by Hillary '08, and properly licensed for that usage. But as far as after that....

    diaphanein Smack-Fu Master, in training reply Sep 2, 2016 4:51 PM Uxorious wrote:

    Just to clarify, the move to a hosted solution - with requested encryption - was initiated after Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State (January 21, 2009 – February 1, 2013) was completed in February, 2013, and FOIA requests were no longer applicable as she was no longer a government employee.

    I think that would depend on the scope of the migration. Did they migrate all of the history over to the hosted solution? i.e. Did they migrate the OS, Exchange and BES servers into PRN's datacenter? Or, did they start from scratch with a clean slate, fresh install and no data migration. If it's the former and not the latter, I'd be pretty damned certain it'd still be subject to FOIA requests.

    Rommel102 wrote:

    Most interesting to me was confirmation that the server was breached. Unknown parties accessed it from TOR multiple times. From your link, an individual email account on the server was breached.

    This happens all the time, for varying reasons, mostly due to a phishing compromise of the account, and occasionally due to password re-use and related vectors of compromise. While it's bad for the individual account's contents, it's absolutely irrelevant beyond that.

    If that's the worst they can find then personally I'm actually impressed. I was expecting that the server(s) had been root/fully compromised at least once, given how they get perennially described. If that turns out to not be the case, then they've actually been run better and more securely than the State Department's [at least non-classified] servers, from all reports.

    Look, getting all up in arms over crap like that link is why people like me are no longer convinced there's anything here worth paying attention to. I'm actually willing to listen if there's some kind of smoking gun, but that's some petty bullshit right there.

    taswyn Ars Tribunus Militum reply Sep 2, 2016 5:03 PM

    Popular ziegler wrote: Rommel102 wrote: Most interesting to me was confirmation that the server was breached. Unknown parties accessed it from TOR multiple times.

    Not sure why you are being down voted on newly revealed information that seems to confirm that one of the servers email accounts was breached.

    If you're down voting him, perhaps an explanation as to why?

    Do you say that "google's servers got breached" every time an individual email account on them is compromised?

    What he said is factually incorrect. The server was not breached. An individual email account was accessed. They're not the same thing. Not even an OS user level account. An email account.

    omniron Ars Praefectus reply Sep 2, 2016 5:13 PM Popular

    Rommel102 wrote: Most interesting to me was confirmation that the server was breached. Unknown parties accessed it from TOR multiple times.

    "multiple times" is 3 times in this case, and it wasn't the server that was breached, it was 1 person's email.

    Even if this person was clinton herself, we already know there was not much damaging information stored on this server. And considering this seems more like someone used a weak password or was phished, this is a vulnerability no matter what email provider you're using.

    aexcorp Ars Scholae Palatinae reply Sep 2, 2016 5:18 PM

    Danrarbc wrote: Rommel102 wrote: Danrarbc wrote: ziegler wrote: Rommel102 wrote: Most interesting to me was confirmation that the server was breached. Unknown parties accessed it from TOR multiple times.

    Not sure why you are being down voted on newly revealed information that seems to confirm that one of the servers email accounts was breached.

    If you're down voting him, perhaps an explanation as to why?
    Probably because we know DOJ email servers have also been breached. He's implying that her servers were less secure and somehow put information in harms way. History seems to show us that it wasn't at any more risk.

    I didn't imply that at all. Here we have fairly solid evidence that a breach of Hillary's server happened. That seems to contradict the FBI's stance, Comey's statement and testimony, and is a first as far as I know.

    And in comparison, the DOJs non-classified email systems were hacked. There is no evidence that the classified system ever was.

    A 'breach' of an account is not a breach of the server. The account being access via TOR implies the user credentials were acquired through some means. Was this 'breached' account a classified account?

    I could be wrong, but I think that all classified emails from DoD and State have to go through SIPRNet.

    If this was strictly respected, then Clinton's server should contain no classified information. In real-life, we saw that a few classified things went through her personal email system, so it wasn't fully respected, or some of the info was not yet classified.

    Sean Gallagher IT Editor reply Sep 2, 2016 5:21 PM

    Story Author Popular omniron wrote: Rommel102 wrote: Most interesting to me was confirmation that the server was breached. Unknown parties accessed it from TOR multiple times.

    "multiple times" is 3 times in this case, and it wasn't the server that was breached, it was 1 person's email.

    Even if this person was clinton herself, we already know there was not much damaging information stored on this server. And considering this seems more like someone used a weak password or was phished, this is a vulnerability no matter what email provider you're using.

    We're going to get into this in a story I'm currently writing (probably for next week, so it's not a Friday newsdumpster move). But it's worth noting THE ENTIRETY OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT'S UNCLAS EMAIL SYSTEM WAS PWNED FOR OVER A YEAR. I'm sorry, did I type that in all-caps? Also, between Chelsea Manning/ Wikileaks and the repeated hacks of State, the White House, etc between 2009 and 2014, it is highly likely that everything short of the TS/SAP stuff (and even some of that) that Clinton touched was already breached.

    This does not excuse Clinton and her staff's-I'm looking at you, Jake Sullivan-for the extreme error of passing Top Secret/ Special Access Program classified data back and forth over Blackberries and a non-governmental e-mail system. I would expect that Sullivan, at a minimum, will have his clearance revoked and he will not be getting a job as a national security adviser if Clinton wins the election. Or at least, I think that's a reasonable expectation.

    [Sep 05, 2016] Hillary Clinton email investigation: FBI notes reveal laptop and thumb drive missing

    Everything, absolutely everything demonstrates really terrifying level of incompetence: the transfer of emails to Apple laptop, to Gmail account, then transfer back to window system, handing of USB drive. Amazing level of incompetence. This is really devastating level of incompetence for the organization that took over a lot of CIA functions. Essentially Hillary kept the position which is close to the role of the director of CIA What a tragedy for the country...
    Notable quotes:
    "... It is painfully clear that she traded access and favors for money and reciprocal favors. It is painfully clear that she made little distinction between working for the State Department, the Clinton foundation and her family and tried to keep the records of what was going on inaccessible. The more honest defense would be, all politicians do it, and you have to suck it up because Trump is worse. Which is true. But trying to downplay this and explain it away is offensive, not all of the public are complete idiots. ..."
    "... Her brazen air of arrogance and entitlement is about to fade as she comes to realise, that albeit Comey having been got at, he has still succeeded in striking a severe blow against her, and in addition, at the not-so-tin-hat conspiracy of inappropriate, and increasingly overt, institutional support. ..."
    "... All this in the face of documented lies, in your face hypocrisy, and unbridled corruption, oozing from every orifice of a maverick administration. ..."
    "... Clinton is the one waging war in the middle east. She is the one being bullish and provocative with Russia. Trump has only been conciliatory with these issues, he has been against the war on Iraq ..."
    "... HRC is still likely to be the next President, but this scandal does have legs. She put herself in a corner by claiming lack of recall due to a medical condition (i.e., the concussion). This leaves two possibilities, neither of which is helpful to her cause, to wit: either she was being dishonest or she was (and could still be) cognitively impaired. ..."
    "... Reagan was certainly not someone I admired but at least he tried to reduce the chance of nuclear war. Clinton is an out and out Hawke with the blood of many innocent people on her hands in both Syria and Libya. She is hiding her communications because she does not want to be exposed for the role she played in The destruction of Libya and the gun running of weapons to terrorists in Syria. That is to Al Qaeda and ISIS. World War 3 is more likely under Clinton than any other world leader. Even Trump. ..."
    "... Not forgetting that she was key in making sure the US didn't side with Assad. Had the US done at the beginning, instead of being at the behest of the Saudis and the petrodollar, then the whole thing would have been over in 6 months and IS would never have got more than a dusty district of northern Iraq. ..."
    "... So the applicant to the US presidency does not know what (c) stands for in her emails, archives high security data on a laptop and then losses it for years, uploads same emails on Google's gmail account and then losses devices again. She does not recall many things, not even the training she received on handling the confidential and secure communication. She couldn't recall the procces of drone strikes. (Will she be killing people at a whim, without an accountable protocol?) She is either demented or dangerously reckless or lying. All of these conditions disbar her form her candidacy. ..."
    "... If she could only manage a couple of hours a day because of concussion and a blood clot she should have temporarily stood down until she recovered fully, and had a senior official take over her duties until she was well. You can't have a brain-damaged person in charge of the US's affairs - even though there is a long history of nutters the State Dept. ( ie the Military Industrial Complex HQ). ..."
    "... the clinton foundation does not pay taxes..and dont forget that slick willie has been on the paedophile plane more times than the pilot ..."
    "... She failed to keep up with recordkeeping she agreed to, then when asked to turn over records, somebody destroyed them, but Clinton did not order destruction, or does not remember having done so. Turned over all records-oops I thought WE did! She either lied or has alzheimers ..."
    "... Political baggage is a bitch. If this election cycle has demonstrated anything it is that the leadership of both parties is totally out of touch with the voters and really has no interest except supporting the Neoliberal tenet of fiscal nonintervention. This laissez-faire attitude toward corporate interests is paralysing the American government. ..."
    "... I cannot believe Clinton has got this far in the election, I believe Obama wants her in to hide many of his embarrassing warmongering mistakes. ..."
    "... Today of all days Hillary Clinton puts out a tweet with the following: 'America needs leadership in the White House, not a liability' -- As we have to assume she's not referring to herself it confirms people's suspicion that the person who writes Hillary's tweets is a hostile to her campaign. The tweets are often completely off the mark. ..."
    "... Either Comey is on their payroll, or they have threatened his family. Either way it is business as usual. The NWO decided a long time ago that Hillary was their next puppet PONTUS. ..."
    "... I was a low-level officer at US Embassies and Consulates in various foreign countries. Clinton's claim that she didn't know what (C) was, or that she "she did not pay attention to the difference between top secret, secret and confidential" and "could not recall any briefing or training by state related to the retention of federal records or handling of classified information." Are beyond ridiculous. Any fool knows enough to be aware of different levels of classified info, and the obvious fact that you don't get sloppy with classified info. ..."
    "... to paraphrase Leona Helmsley's comment about paying taxes, "security is for little people." So in that respect Hillary is no different from the rest of them. ..."
    "... You'd better hope she's lying, because if the incompetence is genuine she shouldn't be allowed near any confidential information ever again. I hate to admit it but Trump is right on this one. Jesus wept. ..."
    "... The fact that the Sec State could have an email server built at her home and operate with such laughable gross negligence when it comes to national security is surreal and appalling. ..."
    "... If the FBI were not themselves co-conspirators and hopelessly corrupt, they would indict some of the lower level actors and offer them immunity. They could start with the imbecile who put that laptop in the mail and couldn't remember if it was UPS or USPS. ..."
    "... Caddell has voiced an interesting concern that others are beginning to share: that the news media has crawled so far in bed with Hillary Clinton they won't be able to get back out. That the news media in America has lost its soul. Even Jake Tapper started asking this question several weeks ago in the middle of his own show. ..."
    "... The pyramid scheme of created debt has destroyed capitalism and democracy within 40 years of full operation. Captured Govt has bailed out incompetence and failure at every turn, and in so doing, inverted the yield curve and destroyed the future. It is for this reason alone I cannot respect these financial paedophiles or support anything they do. In this contest for the White House, Clinton is the manifestation of the establishment. ..."
    "... "The documents provided a number of new details about Mrs. Clinton's private server, including what appeared to be a frantic effort by a computer specialist to delete an archive of her emails even after a congressional committee had requested they be preserved." -NY Times ..."
    "... Hillary's treatment of top-secret US documents was willful and uncorrected. If she had done the same thing with medical records, the individuals whose medical records had been mishandled could have filed charges and Hillary would have been personally liable for up to $50,000 fine per incident. ..."
    "... Clinton is an absolute liability. Apart from this scandal she's a status quo candidate for a status quo that no longer exists. She stands for neo-liberalism, US hegemony and capitalist globalization all of which are deader than the dodo. That makes her very dangerous in terms of world peace and of course she will do absolutely nothing for the millions of Americans facing joblessness, hunger, bankruptcy and homelessness except make things worse ..."
    "... The entire corrupt establishment want Clinton at all cost, so that they can continue fleecing the future and enslaving the entire world in created debt. All right minded individuals should this as a flashing red light to turn round and vote the other way. ..."
    www.theguardian.com

    A Clinton Foundation laptop and a thumb drive used to archive Hillary Clinton's emails from her time as secretary of state are missing, according to FBI notes released on Friday.

    The phrase "Clinton could not recall" litters the summary of the FBI's investigation, which concluded in July that she should not face charges. Amid fierce Republican criticism of the Democratic presidential candidate, the party's nominee, Donald Trump released a statement which said "Hillary Clinton's answers to the FBI about her private email server defy belief" and added that he did not "understand how she was able to get away from prosecution".

    he FBI documents describe how Monica Hanley, a former Clinton aide, received assistance in spring 2013 from Justin Cooper, a former aide to Bill Clinton, in creating an archive of Hillary Clinton's emails. Cooper provided Hanley with an Apple MacBook laptop from the Clinton Foundation – the family organisation currently embroiled in controversy – and talked her through the process of transferring emails from Clinton's private server to the laptop and a thumb drive.

    "Hanley completed this task from her personal residence," the notes record. The devices were intended to be stored at Clinton's homes in New York and Washington. However, Hanley "forgot" to provide the archive laptop and thumb drive to Clinton's staff.

    In early 2014, Hanley located the laptop at her home and tried to transfer the email archive to an IT company, apparently without success. It appears the emails were then transferred to an unnamed person's personal Gmail account and there were problems around Apple software not being compatible with that of Microsoft.

    The unnamed person "told the FBI that, after the transfer was complete, he deleted the emails from the archive laptop but did not wipe the laptop. The laptop was then put in the mail, only to go missing. [Redacted] told the FBI that she never received the laptop from [redacted]; however, she advised that Clinton's staff was moving offices at the time, and it would have been easy for the package to get lost during the transition period.

    "Neither Hanley nor [redacted] could identify the current whereabouts of the archive laptop or thumb drive containing the archive, and the FBI does not have either item in its possession."

    ... ... ...

    The FBI identified a total of 13 mobile devices associated with Clinton's two known phone numbers that potentially were used to send emails using clintonemail.com addresses.

    The 58 pages of notes released on Friday, several of which were redacted, also related that Hanley often purchased replacement BlackBerry devices for Clinton during Clinton's time at the state department. Hanley recalled buying most of them at AT&T stores in the Washington area. Cooper was usually responsible for setting them up and synching them to the server.

    Clinton's closest aide, Huma Abedin, and Hanley "indicated the whereabouts of Clinton's devices would frequently become unknown once she transitioned to a new device", the documents state. "Cooper did recall two instances where he destroyed Clinton's old mobile devices by breaking them in half or hitting them with a hammer."

    The notes also contain a string of admissions by Clinton about points she did not know or could not recall: "When asked about the email chain containing '(C)' portion markings that state determined to currently contain CONFIDENTIAL information, Clinton stated that she did not know what the '(C)' meant at the beginning of the paragraphs and speculated it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order."

    Clinton said she did not pay attention to the difference between top secret, secret and confidential but "took all classified information seriously". She did not recall receiving any emails she thought should not have been on an unclassified system. She also stated she received no particular guidance as to how she should use the president's email address.

    In addition, the notes say: "Clinton could not recall when she first received her security clearance and if she carried it with her to state via reciprocity from her time in the Senate. Clinton could not recall any briefing or training by state related to the retention of federal records or handling of classified information."

    Clinton was aware she was an original classification authority at the state department, but again "could not recall how often she used this authority or any training or guidance provided by state. Clinton could not give an example of how classification of a document was determined."

    ... ... ...

    The House speaker, Paul Ryan, said: "These documents demonstrate Hillary Clinton's reckless and downright dangerous handling of classified information during her tenure as secretary of state. They also cast further doubt on the justice department's decision to avoid prosecuting what is a clear violation of the law. This is exactly why I have called for her to be denied access to classified information."

    Reince Priebus, chair of the Republican National Committee, said: "The FBI's summary of their interview with Hillary Clinton is a devastating indictment of her judgment, honesty and basic competency. Clinton's answers either show she is completely incompetent or blatantly lied to the FBI or the public.

    "Either way it's clear that, through her own actions, she has disqualified herself from the presidency."

    The Clinton campaign insisted that it was pleased the notes had been made public. Spokesman Brian Fallon said: "While her use of a single email account was clearly a mistake and she has taken responsibility for it, these materials make clear why the justice department believed there was no basis to move forward with this case."

    Terrence James 3h ago

    This is the equivalent of the dog ate my homework. This woman could not utter an honest sentence if her life depended on it. She is a corrupt and evil person, I cannot stand Trump but I think I hate her more. Trump is just crazy and cannot help himself but she is calculatingly evil. We are doomed either way, but he would be more darkly entertaining.


    Smallworld5 3h ago

    Has any of Clinton's state department employees purposely built their own server in their basement on which to conduct official government business, in gross violation of department policy, protocols, and regulations, they would have been summarily fired at a minimum and, yes, quite possibly prosecuted. That's a fact.

    The issue at hand is why Clinton sycophants are so agreeable to the Clinton Double Standard.

    The presumptive next president of the U.S. being held to a lower standard than the average U.S. civil servant. Sickening.


    Laurence Johnson 8h ago

    Hillary's use of gender has no place in politics. When it comes to the top job, the people need the best person for the job, not someone who is given a GO because they represent a group that are encouraged to feel discriminated against.


    foggy2 9h ago

    For the FBI's (or Comey's) this is also a devastating indictment of their or his judgment, honesty and basic competency.

    YANKSOPINION 10h ago

    Perhaps she has early onset of Alzheimers and should not be considered for the job of POTUS. Or maybe she is just a liar.


    AlexLeo 10h ago

    It is painfully clear that she traded access and favors for money and reciprocal favors. It is painfully clear that she made little distinction between working for the State Department, the Clinton foundation and her family and tried to keep the records of what was going on inaccessible. The more honest defense would be, all politicians do it, and you have to suck it up because Trump is worse. Which is true. But trying to downplay this and explain it away is offensive, not all of the public are complete idiots.

    KaleidoscopeWars

    Actually, after you get over all of the baffooning around Trump has done, he actually would make an ideal president. He loves his country, he delegates jobs well to people who show the best results, he's good at building stuff and he wants to do a good job. I'm sure after he purges the terribly corrupted system that he'll be given, he'll have the very best advisors around him to make good decisions for the American people. I'm sure Theresa May and her cabinet will be quick to welcome him and re-solidify the relationship that has affected British politics so much in the past decade. Boris Johnson is perfect for our relations with America under a Trump administration. Shame on you Barack and Hillary. Hopefully Trump will say ''I came, I saw, they died!''

    Ullu001 12h ago

    Ah, The Clintons. They have done it all: destruction of evidence, witness tampering, fraud, lying under oath, murder, witness disappearance. Did I leave anything? Yet, they go unpunished. Too clever, I guess too clever for their own good!

    samwoods77 12h ago

    Hillary wants to be the most powerful person on earth yet claims she doesn't understand the classification system that even the most most junior secretary can....deeply troubling.

    Mistaron 13h ago

    The 'masters' in the shadows are about to throw the harridan under the bus. Her brazen air of arrogance and entitlement is about to fade as she comes to realise, that albeit Comey having been got at, he has still succeeded in striking a severe blow against her, and in addition, at the not-so-tin-hat conspiracy of inappropriate, and increasingly overt, institutional support.

    All this in the face of documented lies, in your face hypocrisy, and unbridled corruption, oozing from every orifice of a maverick administration.

    The seeds have been planted for a defense of diminished responsibility. Don't fall for it! Hillary, (and her illustrious spouse), deserve not a smidgen of pity.

    ''We came, we saw, he died'', she enthusiastically and unempathically cackled.

    Just about sums her up.


    wtfbollos 14h ago

    hiliary clinton beheaded libya and created a hell on earth. here is the proof:

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/28/hillary-clinton-undercut-on-libya-war-by-pentagon-/?page=all#pagebreak

    jean2121 -> ken711 13h ago

    Again, total misunderstanding about what is going on. Clinton is the one waging war in the middle east. She is the one being bullish and provocative with Russia. Trump has only been conciliatory with these issues, he has been against the war on Iraq. So far all evidences point to the fact that the Clintons want another big war and all evidence points to the fact that Trump wants co operation. This has totally escape your analysis. It is a choice between the Plague and the Cholera, I agree, but FGS try to be a little less biased.


    ungruntled 15h ago

    The best case for HC looks pretty grim.
    She has no recollection of......??
    Laptops and Thumb drives laying about unattended
    Total lack of understanding about even the most basic of Data Securit arrangements

    All of these things giver her the benefit of the doubt....That she wasnt a liar and a corrupted politician manipulating events and people to suit her own ends.
    So, with the benefit of the doubt given, ask yourself if this level of incompetance and unreliabilty makes a suitable candidate for office?
    In both cases, with and without BOTD, she shouldnt be allowed anywhere near the corridors of power, let alone the White House.

    IAtheist 17h ago

    Mrs Clinton is deeply divisive. Bought out since her husbands presidency by vested interests in Wall Street and the HMO's (private healthcare insurance management businesses) and having shown lamentable judgement, Benghazi, private Email server used for classified documents and material.

    She has failed to motivate the Democrats white and blue collar working voters male and female. These are the voting demographic who have turned to Trump is significant numbers as he does address their concerns, iniquitous tax rules meaning multi millionaires pay less tax on capital gains and share dividends than employees do on their basic wages, immigration and high levels of drug and gun crime in working class communities Black, White and Hispanic, funding illegal immigrants and failed American youth living on a black economy in the absence of affordable healthcare or a basic welfare system.

    Trump may very well win and is likely to be better for the US than Hilary Clinton.

    digamey 18h ago

    I sympathize with the American electorate - they have to choose between the Devil and the deep blue sea. Given their situation, however, I would definitely choose the Devil I know over the Devil I don't! And that Devil is - - - ?

    MoneyCircus -> digamey 10h ago

    That willful ignorance is your choice! A public businessman can be examined more closely than most.

    Besides, there is a long history of "placemen" presidents whose performance is determined by those they appoint to do the work. Just look in the White House right now.

    As for the Clinton record (they come, incontrovertibly, as a package) from Mena, Arkansas, to her husband's deregulation of the banks which heralded the financial crash that devastated millions of lives... the same banks that are currently HRC's most enthusiastic funders... is something that any genuine Democrat should not be able to stomach...

    ID9761679 19h ago

    My feeling is that she had more to worry about than the location of a thumb drive (I can't recall how many of those I've lost) or even a laptop. When a Secretary of State moves around, I doubt that look after their own appliances. Has anyone asked her where the fan is?

    Karega ID9761679 18h ago

    Problem is she handled top secret and classified information which would endanger her country's security and strategic interests. She was then US Secretary of State. That is why how she handled her thumb drive, laptop nd desktops matter. And there lies the difference between your numerous lost thumb drives and hers. I thought this was obvious?

    EightEyedSpy 23h ago

    HRC is still likely to be the next President, but this scandal does have legs. She put herself in a corner by claiming lack of recall due to a medical condition (i.e., the concussion). This leaves two possibilities, neither of which is helpful to her cause, to wit: either she was being dishonest or she was (and could still be) cognitively impaired.

    1iJack -> EightEyedSpy 22h ago

    either she was being dishonest or she was (and could still be) cognitively impaired.

    Its entirely possible its both.

    Dick York 24h ago

    California survived Arnold Schwarzenegger, the U.S. survived Ronald Reagan, Minnesota survived Jesse "The Body" Ventura and I believe that we will survive Donald Trump. He's only one more celebrity on the road.

    providenciales -> Dick York 23h ago

    You forgot Al Franken.

    antipodes -> Dick York 21h ago

    Reagan was certainly not someone I admired but at least he tried to reduce the chance of nuclear war. Clinton is an out and out Hawke with the blood of many innocent people on her hands in both Syria and Libya. She is hiding her communications because she does not want to be exposed for the role she played in The destruction of Libya and the gun running of weapons to terrorists in Syria. That is to Al Qaeda and ISIS. World War 3 is more likely under Clinton than any other world leader. Even Trump. The Democrats must disendorse her because the details of her criminality are now becoming available and unless she can stop it Trump will win. Get rid of her Democrats and bring back Bernie Sanders.

    Sam3456 1d ago

    We cannot afford a lying, neo-liberal who is more than willing to make her role in government a for profit endeavor.

    Four years of anyone else is preferable to someone who is more than willing for the right contribution to her foundation, sell out the American worker and middle class.

    MakeBeerNotWar 1d ago

    I'm more interested $250k a pop speeches HRC gave to the unindicted Wall St bankster felon scum who nearly took down their country and the global economy yet received a taxpayer bailout and their bonuses paid for being greedy incompetent crooks. How soon we forget....

    http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/how-wall-streets-bankers-stayed-out-of-jail/399368/

    sorrentina -> MakeBeerNotWar 22h ago

    even worse is her support for the military coup in Honduras- and her blatant lies in defense of that coup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS-tDVwSHlA

    trow 1d ago

    Its seems there is just one scandal after another with this women but she seems to be bullet proof mainly because the msm media will not go after her for reasons best known to themselves this is causing them to lose credibility and readers who are deserting them for alternative media .

    bashh1 1d ago

    Finally today in an article in The NY Times we learn where Clinton has been for a good part of the summer. In the Hamptons and elsewhere at receptions for celebrities and her biggest donors like Calvin Klein and Harvey Weinstein, raking in the millions for her campaign. Trump on the other hand has appeared in towns in Pennsylvania like Scranton, Erie and Altoona where job are disappearing and times can be tough. Coronations cost money I guess.

    chiefwiley -> bashh1 1d ago

    She is doing what she does best --- raise money.

    ksenak 1d ago

    Not forgetting that she was key in making sure the US didn't side with Assad. Had the US done at the beginning, instead of being at the behest of the Saudis and the petrodollar, then the whole thing would have been over in 6 months and IS would never have got more than a dusty district of northern Iraq.

    ksenak 1d ago

    Hillary is humiliated woman. Humiliated to the core by her cheating hubby she would rather kill than let him go. She is paying her evil revenge to the whole world. As a president of USA Hillary Clinton would destabilise the world and lead it to conflicts that threaten to be very heavy.

    As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was part of the "Arab Spring" (also part of the "Jasmine Revolution), which overthrew leaders such as Gaddafi to Mubarak. Before Gaddafi was overthrown he told the US that without him IS will take over Libya. They did.
    -Benghazi Scandal which ended up killing a US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and other Americans.
    The Arab Spring destabilized the Middle East, contributed to the Syrian civil war, the rise of ISIS and the exodus of Middle Eastern Muslims.

    Sam3456 OXIOXI20 1d ago

    Meh. Obama characterized ISIS as the "JV Team" and refused to acknowledge the threat. I assume he was acting on information provided by his Secretary of State, Clinton.

    Michael109 1d ago

    It's quite possible that Clinton, because she had a fall in 2012 and bonked her head, believes she is telling the truth when she is lying, except that it is not lying when you believe you are telling the truth even though you are lying.

    She said she did not recall 30 times in her interviews with the FBI. She could be suffering from some sort of early degeneration disease. Either way, between her health and the lying and corruption she should be withdrawn as the Dem frontrunner.

    1iJack -> LakumbaDaGreat 1d ago

    She's going to blow it.

    I think she already did. Its like all the shit in her life is coming back on her at once.

    Early on, when it was announced she would run again, I remember one Democrat pundit in particular that didn't think she could survive the existence of the Internet in the general election (I can't remember who it was, though). But it has turned out to be a pretty astute prediction.

    When asked what he meant by that remark, he went on to say "the staying power of the Internet will overwhelm Clinton with her dirty laundry once she gets to the general election. The Clintons were made for the 24 hour news cycles of the past and not the permanent unmanaged exposure of the digital world. Everything is new again on the internet. Its Groundhog Day forever on the Internet."

    That's my best paraphrase of his thoughts. He felt Clinton was the last of the "old school" politicians bringing too much baggage to an election. That with digital "bread crumbs" of some kind or another (email, microphones and cameras in phones, etc) the new generation of politicians will be a cleaner lot, not through virtue, but out of necessity.

    I've often thought back to his remarks while watching Hillary head into the general.

    ImperialAhmed 1d ago

    So the applicant to the US presidency does not know what (c) stands for in her emails, archives high security data on a laptop and then losses it for years, uploads same emails on Google's gmail account and then losses devices again.
    She does not recall many things, not even the training she received on handling the confidential and secure communication.
    She couldn't recall the procces of drone strikes. (Will she be killing people at a whim, without an accountable protocol?)
    She is either demented or dangerously reckless or lying. All of these conditions disbar her form her candidacy.


    AudieTer
    1d ago

    If she could only manage a couple of hours a day because of concussion and a blood clot she should have temporarily stood down until she recovered fully, and had a senior official take over her duties until she was well. You can't have a brain-damaged person in charge of the US's affairs - even though there is a long history of nutters the State Dept. ( ie the Military Industrial Complex HQ). And in the White House for that matter ...Nurse -- nurse -- Dubya needs his meds!

    thedingo8 -> Lenthelurker 1d ago

    the clinton foundation does not pay taxes..and dont forget that slick willie has been on the paedophile plane more times than the pilot

    Littlefella 1d ago

    She destroyed devices and emails after they were told that all evidence had to be preserved. There are then two issues and the FBI and DOJ have not taken any action on either.

    It's no longer just about the emails, it's the corruption.

    DaveG123 1d ago

    Clinton's closest aide, Huma Abedin, and Hanley "indicated the whereabouts of Clinton's devices would frequently become unknown once she transitioned to a new device"
    -------------
    Probably in the hands of a foreign government. Pretty careless behaviour. Incompetent. Part of a pattern of incompetance that includes bad foreign policy decisions (Libya) and disrespect for rules surrounding conflict of interest (Clinton Foundation).

    YANKSOPINION -> HansB09 1d ago

    She failed to keep up with recordkeeping she agreed to, then when asked to turn over records, somebody destroyed them, but Clinton did not order destruction, or does not remember having done so. Turned over all records-oops I thought WE did! She either lied or has alzheimers

    Andy White 1d ago

    In addition, the notes say:

    "Clinton could not recall when she first received her security clearance and if she carried it with her to state via reciprocity from her time in the Senate. Clinton could not recall any briefing or training by state related to the retention of federal records or handling of classified information."

    Clinton was aware she was an original classification authority at the state department, but again "could not recall how often she used this authority or any training or guidance provided by state. Clinton could not give an example of how classification of a document was determined." ...................secretary of state and could not recall basic security protocols???

    ....and people complain about trump....this basic security was mentioned in the bloody west wing series for god's sake.....in comparison even trump is a f'ing genius.......love him or hate him trump has to win over clinton,there is something very,very wrong with her....she should NEVER be in charge of a till at asda......and she is a clinton so we all know a very practised liar but this beggers belief,i can see why trump is angry if that was him he would have been publicly burnt at the stake.....this clinton crap just stink's of the political elite....a total joke cover up and a terrible obvious one to....clinton is just a liar and mentally i think she is very unstable....makes the DON look like hawking lol.....

    namora 1d ago

    Political baggage is a bitch. If this election cycle has demonstrated anything it is that the leadership of both parties is totally out of touch with the voters and really has no interest except supporting the Neoliberal tenet of fiscal nonintervention. This laissez-faire attitude toward corporate interests is paralysing the American government.

    duncandunnit 1d ago

    I cannot believe Clinton has got this far in the election, I believe Obama wants her in to hide many of his embarrassing warmongering mistakes.

    fedback 1d ago

    Today of all days Hillary Clinton puts out a tweet with the following: 'America needs leadership in the White House, not a liability' -- As we have to assume she's not referring to herself it confirms people's suspicion that the person who writes Hillary's tweets is a hostile to her campaign. The tweets are often completely off the mark.

    Hercolubus 1d ago

    Either Comey is on their payroll, or they have threatened his family. Either way it is business as usual. The NWO decided a long time ago that Hillary was their next puppet PONTUS.

    BG Davis 2d ago

    Clinton has always been a devious weasel, but this reveals a new low. I was a low-level officer at US Embassies and Consulates in various foreign countries. Clinton's claim that she didn't know what (C) was, or that she "she did not pay attention to the difference between top secret, secret and confidential" and "could not recall any briefing or training by state related to the retention of federal records or handling of classified information." Are beyond ridiculous. Any fool knows enough to be aware of different levels of classified info, and the obvious fact that you don't get sloppy with classified info.

    That said, over the past few years the entire handling of classified info has become beyond sloppy - laptops left in taxis, General Petraeus was sharing classified info with his mistress, etc. I guess nowadays, to paraphrase Leona Helmsley's comment about paying taxes, "security is for little people." So in that respect Hillary is no different from the rest of them.

    Scaff1 2d ago

    You'd better hope she's lying, because if the incompetence is genuine she shouldn't be allowed near any confidential information ever again. I hate to admit it but Trump is right on this one. Jesus wept. I said it before: Clinton is the only candidate who could possibly make a tyrant like Trump electable.


    charlieblue -> gizadog 2d ago

    Where are you getting "looses 13 devices"? (Try loses, nobody is accusing Sec.Clinton of making things loose) I actually read the article, so my information might not be as exciting as yours, but this article states that from the 13 devices that had access to the Clinton server, two (a laptop and a thumb drive) used by one of her aids, are missing. This article doesn't specify whether any "classified" information was on either of them. The FBI doesn't know, because, well... they are missing.

    What the fuck is it with you people and your loose relationship with actual facts? Do you realize that just making shit up undermines whatever point you imagine you are trying to make?

    gizadog 2d ago

    Also: Clinton told FBI she thought classified markings were alphabetical paragraphs

    "When asked what the parenthetical 'C' meant before a paragraph ... Clinton stated she did not know and could only speculate it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order," the FBI wrote in notes from its interview with her."

    Wow...and there are people that want her to be president.

    Casey13 2d ago

    In my job as a government contractor we are extremely vigilant about not connecting removable devices to work computers, no work email access outside of work, software algorithms that scan our work mails for any sensitive information, and regular required training on information security. The fact that the Sec State could have an email server built at her home and operate with such laughable gross negligence when it comes to national security is surreal and appalling. I could never vote for her and neither could I vote for Trump.

    MonotonousLanguor 2d ago

    >>> A Clinton Foundation laptop and a thumb drive used to archive Hillary Clinton's emails from her time as secretary of state are missing, according to FBI notes released on Friday.<<<

    Oh golly gee, what a surprise. Should we offer a reward??? Maybe Amelia Earhart has the laptop and thumb drive. Were these missing items taken by the Great Right Wing Conspiracy???

    Dani Jenkins 2d ago

    Wtf, from the sublime to the ridiculous, springs to mind..

    Time to get a grip of the gravity involved, here at the Guardian.. This is a total whitewash of the absurd kind.. That leaves people laughing in pure unadultered astonishment..

    SHE lost not just a MacBook & thumb drive with such BS..

    So Trump it is then , like many of us have stated ALL ALONG. Sanders was the only serious contender.. A complete mockery of democracy & the so called Democrats have made the way for Trump to cruise all the way to the Whitewash House..

    Well done Debbie , did the Don pay you?

    chiefwiley -> Lenthelurker 2d ago

    Because the revelations are essentially contradicting all of Hillary's defenses regarding her handling of highly classified information. None of the requirements of the State Department mattered to her or her personal staff. It won't go away --- it will get worse as information trickles out.

    Casey13 2d ago

    Being President of the USA used to be about communicating a vision and inspiring Americans to get behind that dream . Think Lincoln abolishing slavery or JFK setting a goal to put man on the moon. Hillary is boring,has no charisma,and no vision for her Presidency beyond using corruption and intimidation to secure greater power for her and her cronies . Nobody wants to listen to her speeches because she is boring, uninspiring, and has no wit beyond tired cliches. Trump has a vision but that vision is a nightmare for many Americans.

    imperfetto 2d ago

    Clinton is a dangerous warmonger. She is a danger to us Europeans, as she might drag us into a conflict with Russia. We must get rid of her, politically, and re-educate the Americas to respect other nations, and give up exporting their corrupting values.

    Tom Voloshen 2d ago

    Liar liar liar....give her a chance, and another and another and another and another...
    .
    http://www.westernjournalism.com/cnn-stunned-fact-checkers-confirm-clinton-phones-destroyed-hammers/

    JCDavis 2d ago

    "After reading these documents, I really don't understand how she was able to get away from prosecution."

    If the FBI were not themselves co-conspirators and hopelessly corrupt, they would indict some of the lower level actors and offer them immunity. They could start with the imbecile who put that laptop in the mail and couldn't remember if it was UPS or USPS. Or did he actually send it to the Ecuadorian embassy in the UK by accident?

    1iJack 2d ago

    "The job of the media historically, in terms of the First Amendment – what I call the unspoken compact in the First Amendment – is that the free press, without restraint, without checks and balances, is there in order to protect the people from power. Its job is to be a check on government, and those who rule the country, and not to be their lapdogs, and their support system. That's what we're seeing in this election.

    There is an argument to make that the major news media in this country, the mainstream media, is essentially serving against the people's interest. They have made themselves an open ally of protecting a political order that the American people are rejecting, by three quarters or more of the American people. That makes them a legitimate issue, in a sense they never have been before, if Trump takes advantage of it."

    Pat Caddell, 2 Sept 2016

    Caddell has voiced an interesting concern that others are beginning to share: that the news media has crawled so far in bed with Hillary Clinton they won't be able to get back out. That the news media in America has lost its soul. Even Jake Tapper started asking this question several weeks ago in the middle of his own show.

    Will the American press ever have credibility with Americans again? Even Democrats see it and will remember this the next time the press turns against them. There was a new and overt power grab in this election that is still being processed by the American people: the American press "saving" America from Donald Trump. They may never recover from this.

    It even scares my Democrat friends.

    ConBrio 2d ago

    "An unknown individual using the encrypted privacy tool Tor to hide their tracks accessed an email account on a Clinton family server, the FBI revealed Friday.

    "The incident appears to be the first confirmed intrusion into a piece of hardware associated with Hillary Clinton's private email system, which originated with a server established for her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

    The FBI disclosed the event in its newly released report on the former secretary of state's handling of classified information.

    http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/clinton-email-server-tor-227697

    fanUS 2d ago

    Clinton is a very dodgy character and cannot be trusted.

    Boris Johnson, UK Foreign Secretary on Clinton: "She's got dyed blonde hair and pouty lips, and a steely blue stare, like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital"

    CleanPool330 2d ago

    The collective mind of the establishment is mentally ill and spinning out of control. In all rites they should be removed but their arrogance, corruption and self-entitlement mean they are incapable of admitting guilt. They have corrupted the weak minds of the majority and will take everybody down with them.

    The pyramid scheme of created debt has destroyed capitalism and democracy within 40 years of full operation. Captured Govt has bailed out incompetence and failure at every turn, and in so doing, inverted the yield curve and destroyed the future. It is for this reason alone I cannot respect these financial paedophiles or support anything they do. In this contest for the White House, Clinton is the manifestation of the establishment.

    unusedusername 2d ago

    If I understand this correctly a laptop and a flashdrive full of classified emails was put in a jiffy bag and stuck in the post and now they're missing and this is, apparently, just one of those things? Amazing!

    Blair Hess 2d ago

    I'm in the military. Not a high rank mind you. It defies all common logic that HRC has never had a briefing, training, or just side conversation about classified information handling when i have about 50 trainings a year on it and i barely handle it. Sheeple wake up and stop drinking the kool aid

    Ullu001 2d ago

    The Clintons have always operated on the edge of the law: extremely clever and dangerous lawyers they are.

    USADanny -> Ullu001

    Hillary may be criminally clever but legally: not so much. You do know that she failed the Washington DC bar exam and all of her legal "success" after that was a result of being very spouse of a powerful politician.

    calderonparalapaz 2d ago

    "The documents provided a number of new details about Mrs. Clinton's private server, including what appeared to be a frantic effort by a computer specialist to delete an archive of her emails even after a congressional committee had requested they be preserved." -NY Times

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/03/us/politics/hillary-clinton-fbi.html?_r=0

    USADanny -> Lee Knutsen 2d ago

    Virtually every American healthcare worker has to take annual HIPAA training, pass a multiple-choice test and signed a document attesting that they have taken the training and are fully aware of the serious consequences of inadvertent and willful violations of HIPAA. Oh the irony – HIPAA is a Clinton era law.

    Hillary's treatment of top-secret US documents was willful and uncorrected. If she had done the same thing with medical records, the individuals whose medical records had been mishandled could have filed charges and Hillary would have been personally liable for up to $50,000 fine per incident.

    http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-resources/solutions-managing-your-practice/coding-billing-insurance/hipaahealth-insurance-portability-accountability-act/hipaa-violations-enforcement.page?

    Other than Hillary negligently handling top-secret documents, having a head injury that by her own admission has impaired her memory and using her relationship with the Clinton foundation when she was Secretary of State to extort hundreds of millions of dollars, she is an excellent candidate for the president.

    oeparty 2d ago

    Clinton is an absolute liability. Apart from this scandal she's a status quo candidate for a status quo that no longer exists. She stands for neo-liberalism, US hegemony and capitalist globalization all of which are deader than the dodo. That makes her very dangerous in terms of world peace and of course she will do absolutely nothing for the millions of Americans facing joblessness, hunger, bankruptcy and homelessness except make things worse.

    And yet, and yet, we must vote Clinton simply to Stop Trump. He is a proto-fascist determined to smash resistance to the 1% in America and abroad via military means. He is a realist who realises capitalism is over and only the purest and most overwhelming violence can save the super rich and the elites now. Certainly their economy gives them nothing any more. The American Dream is toast. The Green Stein will simply draw a few votes from Clinton and give Trump the victory and it is not like she is a genuinely progressive candidate herself being something of a Putin fan just like Trump. No, vote Clinton to Stop Trump but only so that we can use the next four years to build the revolutionary socialist alternative. To build the future.

    dongerdo 2d ago

    The Americans are screwed anyways because both easily are the most despicable and awful front runners I can think of in any election of a western democracy in decades (and that is quite an achievement in itself to be honest), the only thing left to hope for is a winner not outright horrible for the rest of the world on which front Clinton loses big time: electing her equals pouring gasoline over half the world, she is up for finishing the disastrous job in the Middle East and North Africa started by her as Secretary of State. Her stance on relations with Russia and China are utterly horrific, listening to her makes even the die-hard GOP neo-cons faction sound like peace corps ambassadors.
    If the choice is between that and some isolationist dimwit busy with making America great again I truly hope for the latter.

    Who would have thought that one day world peace would depend on the vote of the American redneck.....

    Michael109 2d ago

    Clinton's "dog ate my server", I can't (30 times) remember, didn't know what C meant on top of emails - why it means Coventry City, M'amm - excuses are the Dems trying to stagger over the line, everyone holding their noses. But even if she is elected, which is doubtful, this is not going away and she could be arrested as USA President.

    The FBI will rue the day they did not recommend charges against her when they had the chance. She's make Tony Soprano look like the Dalia Lama.

    CleanPool330 2d ago

    The entire corrupt establishment want Clinton at all cost, so that they can continue fleecing the future and enslaving the entire world in created debt. All right minded individuals should this as a flashing red light to turn round and vote the other way.

    [Sep 03, 2016] Gowdy FBI barely probed Clinton about intent on emails

    Aug 25, 2016 | TheHill

    FBI officials failed to aggressively question Hillary Clinton about her intentions in setting up a private email system, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) claimed this week, exposing a potential key vulnerability in the bureau's investigation.

    "I didn't see that many questions on that issue," Gowdy told Fox News's "The Kelly File" on Wednesday evening.

    The detail could be crucial for Republican critics of the FBI's decision not to recommend charges be filed against the former secretary of State for mishandling classified information.

    ... ... ...

    "I looked to see what witnesses were questioned on the issue of intent, including her," he said on Fox News. "I didn't see that many questions on that issue."

    House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz(R-Utah) has called for the FBI to create unclassified versions of the Clinton case file that it gave to Congress, so that the material can be released publicly. Gowdy reiterated the call on Fox News.

    "There's no reason in the world you could not and should not be able to look at the same witness interviews that I had to go to Washington and look at in a classified setting," he said.

    [Sep 02, 2016] FBI Releases Full Report Into Hillary Clinton Email Probe Zero Hedge

    Sep 02, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com

    Just as we predicted on a sleepy Friday afternoon ahead of a long weekend, The FBI has released a detailed report on its investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, as well as a summary of her interview with agents, providing, what The Washington Post says is the most thorough look yet at the probe that has dogged the campaign of the Democratic presidential nominee.

    Official FBI Statement:

    Today the FBI is releasing a summary of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's July 2, 2016 interview with the FBI concerning allegations that classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on a personal e-mail server she used during her tenure .

    We also are releasing a factual summary of the FBI's investigation into this matter. We are making these materials available to the public in the interest of transparency and in response to numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

    Appropriate redactions have been made for classified information or other material exempt from disclosure under FOIA. Additional information related to this investigation that the FBI releases in the future will be placed on The Vault, the FBI's electronic FOIA library.

    As The Washington Post adds, the documents released total 58 pages, though large portions and sometimes entire pages are redacted.

    FBI Director James B. Comey announced in July that his agency would not recommend criminal charges against Clinton for her use of a private email server. Comey said that Clinton and her staffers were "extremely careless" in how they treated classified information, but investigators did not find they intended to mishandle such material. Nor did investigators uncover exacerbating factors - like efforts to obstruct justice - that often lead to charges in similar cases, Comey said.

    The FBI turned over to several Congressional committees documents related to the probe and required they only be viewed by those with appropriate security clearances, even though not all of the material was classified, legislators and their staffers have said.

    Those documents included an investigative report and summaries of interviews with more than a dozen senior Clinton staffers, other State Department officials, former secretary of state Colin Powell and at least one other person. The documents released Friday appear to be but a fraction of those.

    ...

    Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon has said turning over the documents was "an extraordinarily rare step that was sought solely by Republicans for the purposes of further second-guessing the career professionals at the FBI."

    But he has said if the material were going to be shared outside the Justice Department, "they should be released widely so that the public can see them for themselves, rather than allow Republicans to mischaracterize them through selective, partisan leaks."

    Though Fallon seems to have gotten his wish, the public release of the documents will undoubtedly draw more attention to a topic that seems to have fueled negative perceptions of Clinton . A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found 41 percent of Americans had a favorable impression of Clinton, while 56 percent had an unfavorable one.

    Key Excerpts...

  • *CLINTON DENIED USING PRIVATE EMAIL TO AVOID FEDERAL RECORDS ACT
  • *CLINTON KNEW SHE HAD DUTY TO PRESERVE FEDERAL RECORDS: FBI
  • *COLIN POWELL WARNED CLINTON PRIVATE E-MAILS COULD BE PUBLIC:FBI
  • *FBI SAYS CLINTON LAWYERS UNABLE TO LOCATE ANY OF 13 DEVICES
  • *AT LEAST 100 STATE DEPT. WORKERS HAD CLINTON'S E-MAIL ADDRESS
  • CLINTON SAID SHE NEVER DELETED, NOR INSTRUCTED ANYONE TO DELETE, HER EMAIL TO AVOID COMPLYING WITH FEDERAL RECORDS LAWS OR FBI OR STATE REQUESTS FOR INFORMATION
  • CLINTON AIDES SAID SHE FREQUENTLY REPLACED HER BLACKBERRY PHONE AND THE WHEREABOUTS OF THE OLD DEVICE WOULD "FREQUENTLY BECOME UNKOWN"
  • CLINTON CONTACTED POWELL IN JANUARY 2009 TO INQUIRE ABOUT HIS USE OF A BLACKBERRY WHILE IN OFFICE; POWELL ADVISED CLINTON TO 'BE VERY CAREFUL
  • Hillary Clinton used 13 mobile devices and 5 iPads to access clintonemail.com. The FBI only had access to 2 of the iPads and The FBI found no evidence of hacking on those 2...

    And here is the email from Colin Powell telling her that emails would need to be part of the "government records" ...

    And here is Clinton denying that she used a private server to "avoid [the] Federal Records Act" as she just assumed that "based on her practice of emailing staff on their state.gov accounts, [that] communications were captured by State systems." Yes, well what about the "official" communications had with people outside of the State Department? Did retention of those emails ever cross Hillary's mind? * * * Full Report below...

    Hillary Clinton FBI Part 1 of 2

    [Aug 14, 2016] The Ghost of Seth Rich strikes DemoRats in the House of Representatives

    www.nakedcapitalism.com

    Jim Haygood , August 12, 2016 at 9:51 pm

    The Ghost of Seth Rich strikes:

    After disappearing for a couple of weeks, the hacker "Guccifer 2.0" returned late this afternoon to provide a new headache for Democrats.

    In a post to his WordPress blog, the vandal–who previously provided nearly 20,000 Democratic National Committee e-mails to Wikileaks–uploaded an Excel file that includes the cell phone numbers and private e-mail addresses of nearly every Democratic member of the House of Representatives.

    The Excel file also includes similar contact information for hundreds of congressional staff members (chiefs of staff, press secretaries, legislative directors, schedulers) and campaign personnel.

    In announcing the leak of the document, "Guccifer 2.0" reported that the spreadsheet was stolen during a hack of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. " As you see I wasn't wasting my time! It was even easier than in the case of the DNC breach," the hacker wrote.

    http://thesmokinggun.com/buster/democratic-national-committee/guccifer-dccc-hack-645891

    Bryan Pagliano could have stopped this outrage.

    [Aug 13, 2016] Mysterious Deaths of DNC s Seth Rich and Other East Coast Politicos Fuel Conspiracy Theories

    See Julian Assange viewpoint YouTube also see INCREDIBLE! RUSH Wikileaks' Julian Assange Implies Murdered DNC Staffer Was Email-Leaker - YouTube
    Notable quotes:
    "... "From Claudia Kash: I know why Seth Rich had to die. There were 2 sets of polling places this primary season -- one set for most of the voters, who went on state websites to find their polling locations -- a second set for Hillary Clinton supporters who looked on Hillary Clinton's website to find their polling location. The Secretary of State for each state had one set of locations on >the record; the other set of locations, the ones listed on Hillary's website, were not on the state record. I know this because I looked on her website to find where a friend should vote -- then double-checked the state >website, which showed a different address. I thought there must be a mistake -- I kept checking, right up to election day. ..."
    "... But until they killed Seth Rich, I couldn't figure out why there would be two different polling places. This is how I think the scam worked: While most voters look up their location on their state website, voters who were signed up as Hillary Clinton supporters would be directed to her site to find their polling place. It was set up the same as any other DNC polling place -- with DNC volunteers, regular voting machines, etc. -- and a duplicate voter roster, the same as the roster at the other polling place. Voters would be checked off on the roster, same as at the other polling place... and after the polls closed, the DNC supervisor would pick up the roster and the ballots. ..."
    "... Seems a straight Machiavellian operation. Murder the young insider, Seth Rich, that leaked the emails to Assange's Wikileaks and then blame it on an enemy that none can fact check on. DNC= Deep National Control ..."
    www.moonofalabama.org
    Yul | Aug 11, 2016 2:18:39 PM | 13
    WRT Seth Rich

    check this site :
    https://heatst.com/politics/mysterious-deaths-of-dncs-seth-rich-and-other-east-coast-politicos-fuel-conspiracy-theories/

    Mysterious Deaths of DNC's Seth Rich and Other East Coast Politicos Fuel Conspiracy Theories

    Tom in AZ | Aug 11, 2016 3:15:01 PM | 18
    The media reporting on keeps making the statement from the police 'that nothing was missing from his body or belongings'. The guy was walking around at 4 AM, and apparently no one but his killers actually saw him. So, I guess he couldn't be carrying anything outside of his pockets? In has hands?
    Miok | Aug 11, 2016 11:58:26 PM | 47
    This is supposedly from Seth rich's girlfriend

    https://m.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/4vqvug/dnc_staffer_seth_rich_was_set_to_expose_dnc_voter/

    "From Claudia Kash: I know why Seth Rich had to die. There were 2 sets of polling places this primary season -- one set for most of the voters, who went on state websites to find their polling locations -- a second set for Hillary Clinton supporters who looked on Hillary Clinton's website to find their polling location. The Secretary of State for each state had one set of locations on >the record; the other set of locations, the ones listed on Hillary's website, were not on the state record. I know this because I looked on her website to find where a friend should vote -- then double-checked the state >website, which showed a different address. I thought there must be a mistake -- I kept checking, right up to election day.

    But until they killed Seth Rich, I couldn't figure out why there would be two different polling places. This is how I think the scam worked: While most voters look up their location on their state website, voters who were signed up as Hillary Clinton supporters would be directed to her site to find their polling place. It was set up the same as any other DNC polling place -- with DNC volunteers, regular voting machines, etc. -- and a duplicate voter roster, the same as the roster at the other polling place. Voters would be checked off on the roster, same as at the other polling place... and after the polls closed, the DNC supervisor would pick up the roster and the ballots.

    The supervisor would then pick up the roster at the legitimate polling place and the ballots there. He(or she) >would then replace a number of Bernie Sanders ballots with an equal number of the ballots from the Hillary >Clinton voting location. Then the duplicate roster from the HRC would be shredded and thrown away, along >with all the Bernie Sanders ballots that had been replaced. That way the number of people who voted (on the >remaining roster) still matches the number of ballots. This is why so many states reported a "lower than expected voter turnout".

    Seth Rich, who was responsible for the app that helped voters find their polling places, did not realize that there were two sets of polling places until he himself went to vote. He lived in Washington DC, which voted at the end of the primary season, a week after Clinton had already been declared the winner. I believe he discovered it then, and had started asking questions about why the polling places on Hillary's website didn't match the ones on the DC website.

    But even if he didn't say a word to anybody, it would have been dangerous to let him live. He would have >figured it out sooner or later -- and he would have reported it when he did."

    BRF | Aug 12, 2016 3:01:15 PM | 63
    Seems a straight Machiavellian operation. Murder the young insider, Seth Rich, that leaked the emails to Assange's Wikileaks and then blame it on an enemy that none can fact check on. DNC= Deep National Control.

    [Aug 13, 2016] Assange lawyer is dead

    www.zerohedge.com

    fishpoem Jacksons Ghost Aug 12, 2016 11:38 AM

    Yep. Yet another convenient "accident," eh? https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016/may/01/john-rwd-jones-obituary

    NumberNone Jacksons Ghost Aug 12, 2016 11:39 AM

    It wasn't yesterday but it was determined to be suicide by train...because a brilliant attorney could not think of any easier way to commit suicide than throw himself in front of a moving train.

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/news/1138414/britains-top-human-rights...

    SokPOTUS Jacksons Ghost Aug 12, 2016 11:51 AM

    Happened April 22, 2016; but yes. Unless this is yet a second Assange lawyer to hit a train in the face this year....

    http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/renowned_lawyer_who_represented_julian_assange_died_after_being_struck_by_train_in_west_hampstead_1_4507283 OverTheHedge Jacksons Ghost Aug 12, 2016 1:00 PM

    I can forsee a number of FBI agents also being hit by trains in the near future.

    Lots of new job openings for young millennial who want to make a difference.

    Sigh

    ebear OverTheHedge Aug 12, 2016 3:30 PM "

    I can forsee a number of FBI agents also being hit by trains in the near future."

    If they've had the proper training they won't be standing near the track or watching the train as it approaches. If they've had the proper training, the person who tries to push them will go under the train.

    Martial arts, firearms, pursuit and evasive driving, general situational awareness - all part of FBI training. Not as easy as bumping a lawyer or journalist.

    N0TME Jacksons Ghost Aug 12, 2016 1:10 PM

    Died in an apparent suicide? I say pushed, but what do I know.

    http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/renowned_lawyer_who_represented_julian_assange_died_after_being_struck_by_train_in_west_hampstead_1_4507283

    ebear

    N0TME Aug 12, 2016 3:14 PM

    I've never understood people who stand toes to the line when a train enters the station. You know it's going to stop, so what's the rush? Situational Awareness demands that you stand well back from any potential danger, near an exit, facing the entrance, etc.

    Police and military are well aware of these principles - even in defensive driving you have the slogan "where is the present danger?" Walk facing oncoming traffic, step out and away from dark doorways, back alleys, bridge pillars etc.

    Take the stairs sometimes, take the elevator other times - drive to work one route, drive a different route home - mix them up. Take a taxi, get out at a random location and take a bus the rest of the way. Eat at different restaurants at different times. Do not establish a pattern. At all times carry a firearm.

    These principles should be part of basic lawyer training, especially when taking on dangerous cases. Same goes for journalists. There are professional courses that deal with these subjects. Take one.

    Whatever your goals in life, you can't achieve them if you don't survive. Last night I passed a fatal traffic accident where it was obvious the person turning left was killed by someone running a red light. Don't move off on the green right away.... pause and look around. That person is dead because he didn't follow that basic rule. So much for his life goals.

    I'm preaching to the choir here, but maybe someone who doesn't know will read this and it will help them survive. As the Donald said, it's all about winning and you can't win if you don't survive.

    [Aug 10, 2016] Seth Rich murder: The facts so far by Kit

    Aug 10, 2016 | off-guardian.org

    OffGuardian because facts really should be sacred Menu Search
    Close Menu latest , media watch , United States Published on August 10, 2016 Comments 53 Seth Rich murder: The facts so far written by Kit i 3 Votes

    Last month Seth Rich, a data analyst who worked for the DNC, was shot near his home in Washington DC. He was on the phone to his girlfriend when it happened. Police were called to the scene and discovered the young man's body at roughly 4.20am. It was reported that Rich was "covered in bruises", shot "several times" and "at least once in the back".

    The New York Daily News reported :

    police have found little information to explain his death. At this time, there are no suspects, no motive and no witnesses in Rich's murder.

    While initial theories were that the killing was robbery or mugging gone wrong, the Washington Post said :

    There is no immediate indication that robbery was a motive in the attack but it has not been ruled out as a possibility."

    Rich's family have also reported that nothing was taken :

    [Rich's] hands were bruised, his knees are bruised, his face is bruised, and yet he had two shots to his back, and yet they never took anything."

    On August 9th Julian Assange gave an interview on Dutch television in which he seemed to imply that Rich's death was politically motivated, and perhaps suggest he had been a source for the DNC e-mail leak:

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/Kp7FkLBRpKg?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

    That same day wikileaks tweeted that they were offering a $20,000 dollar reward for information on the killing of Mr Rich.

    These are the facts of the case, so far. And they are undisputed.

    I'm not going to take a position on the motive for Mr Rich's killing, or possible suspects. But I do want to point out the general level of media silence. Take these facts and change the names – imagine Trump's email had been hacked, and then a staffer with possible ties to wikileaks was inexplicably shot dead. Imagine this poor young man had been a Kremlin whistleblower, or a Chinese hacker, or an Iranian blogger.

    If this, as yet unsolved, murder had ties to anyone other than Hillary Clinton, would it be being so ritually and rigourously ignored by the MSM?


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    latest , media watch , United States Tagged with: Democratic National Convention , DNC , Hillary Clinton , julian assange , Seth Rich , Wikileaks 53 Comments

    Bruce Conklin says May 17, 2017

    Seth was bruised, and shot twice in the back; there was no robbery. Former Clinton partner James MacDougall was separated from his heart medication by prison guards; he died in solitary confinement.
    Kenneth Jones says August 12, 2017
    And these suspicious deaths aren't connected? Who do they think they're kidding? We weren't all born stupid! Is this a massive cover up? You bet it is, and we're eventually going to find out who ordered those killings!
    Kraut says August 19, 2016
    Interesting body language at 1:05min: "Was he one of your sources?" Assange slightly nods, says: "We don't comment on our sources ."
    Brian Harry, Australia says October 21, 2016
    In fairness to Assange, the video and the sound are not in sync .
    wernerpd says November 15, 2016
    I believe the precise term is "Arkancide."
    Douglas Gray says August 12, 2016
    The Washington Post said, "Nothing was taken, but robbery has not been ruled out????" What does that mean? If nothing was taken, then there is no robbery. Who wrote this for the Washington Post? Is English their native language?
    Stu Piddy says August 12, 2016
    Ask his girl friend some questions. She would probably know a lot, including if he was the leaker.
    Me says August 12, 2016
    Julian Assange did not say Rich was a source. It is highly unlikely Rich was a source, I can't see Wikileaks revealing a source regardless of circumstance. Wikileaks obviously have information pointing to the idea that this was a politically motivated killing. He is concerned that this, in turn will lead to all dissidents being frightened to stand up and speak out.
    Marina Boyd says August 12, 2016
    Maybe wikileaks doesn't know who their source was. The DNC authenticated the e-mails by their response, then they float the "Russia influencing US elections narrative" to distract from Seth's murder.

    Has there be ANY evidence that Russia was behind the hack? Where did that rumer start?? WikiLeaks has a vested interest in Seth's murder being solved because they don't want people being afraid to give them information, so I understand them offering a reward, even if he wasn't their source, once the rumors started, they wouldn't want to scare off the real source, or futur sources. http://www.prosewestand.org

    brian says August 12, 2016
    I am afraid to leave a comment. I am afraid to speak my heart. Just vote for Trump or anyone else who can win. Enough said.
    Eric Edblad says August 15, 2016
    Don't be afraid! The "Problem" will not come after you because True Americans are watching every political detail and the Problem knows that! If common people start dying for their free speech–many American's are waiting for a reason to make a stand against the Problem, their constituency and their conspiracies! If you think about it, some of the press is helping the Problem take away your free speech as well! This is not going unnoticed. CNN is the worst conspirator out there!!

    The Problem is afraid of Donald Trump because he will shake up their house! Mrs. Clinton and the press want to put you in politically-correct bondage experienced in much of the world. Those countries are ruled by their Problem and worse. The only way to maintain the balance of powers in America is that True Americans exercise their constitutional leverage with free speech! Exercise it freely every day!

    In this day and age any unprotected informant should have a concealed carry permit and a gun! I will refrain from getting into the 2nd Amendment discussion–may not be appropriate for this discussion ..

    No matter how it turns out, my condolences to the family of Seth Rich

    Kathy says August 27, 2016
    Eric, Well said I'm with you
    Brad Benson says August 11, 2016
    Excellent. People are beginning to link to you guys.
    Bozo says August 11, 2016
    Assange for the Nobel Peace Prize!
    BigB says August 11, 2016
    Could be nothing

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/sudden-death-of-attorney-who-served-the-lawsuit-against-the-democratic-national-committee-dnc-on-charges-of-fraud-deceptive-conduct-and-negligence/5540274

    Marina Boyd says August 12, 2016
    Probably a little more difficult to get anyone willing to serve them now.
    Mary says September 2, 2016
    Also, around the same time of Rich Seth and Shawn Lucas deaths, Victor Thorn, who wrote at least 20 anti-Clinton books, supposedly committed suicide. Makes one wonder what is really going on
    Alan says August 11, 2016
    So many theories and those, who appear to want to profit. This young man is dead with an on going investigation. Given his connection whatever verdict is reached will be a whitewash, can we blame those who disbelieve? A history of victims with throats cut, gunshot wounds to the back, judged as suicides or bizarrely as natural causes? We are surrounded by the most callous whose trade is 'the good of society', are we to be a part of that? Whatever the motive a lost life and decimated family cannot be used for gain, whether it be ratings, publicity or a confirmation of ones own theories.
    robert costa says August 11, 2016
    the road to the clinton power regime is littered with bodies. vince foster and ron brown. and more recently john ashe and shawn lucas. add seth rich to the list. good luck if you work for the dnc or in her campaign. the clintons are completely corrupt and morally bankrupt.
    KLB says August 11, 2016
    The Clinton rumors have been around for over 20 years. Clintons had nothing to do with this. He was probably involved in something deeper. There are no missing bodies. Monica Lewinsky, Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones and Ken Starr are all still around and they would be the ones to go. Get a clue. No one's missing and Foster suffered from severe depression. Do some research.
    AnotherLover says August 12, 2016
    The lead investigator, Manuel Rodriguez, resigned from the case because when he followed the leads that clearly showed MURDER he found HIMSELF investigated! Here, read his resignation letter:
    http://www.dcdave.com/article5/MiguelRodriguezLetter.htm
    Quick quote (USPP stands for US Park Police. THAT is who had jurisdiction on the possible murder of a United States politician. The Park Police):

    (10) the existing FBI interview reports and USPP interview reports do not accurately reflect witness statements; (11) four emergency medical personnel identified, having refreshed their recollection with new photographic evidence, trauma each had observed on Foster's right neck area; and (12) blurred and obscured blow-ups of copies of (polaroid [sic] and 35mm) photographs have been offered and utilized. After uncovering this information, among other facts, my own conduct was questioned and I was internally investigated.

    DCDave has been doggedly researching this case for years. He's just kept at it. Here's a great article, among many, by him:
    http://www.dcdave.com/article5/091217.htm

    Cheers!

    Judianne says August 16, 2016
    All of those people you mentioned were constantly in yhe public eye. In fact, they've been household names for over 20 years. If they were to die "mysteriously," it would shoot up too many red flags and would make it a lot easier to connect the dots to the Clintons. They might have wanted these people to disappear, but it would have been way too risky to make that happen. .. which is why some of them went out of their ways to remain relevant. As far as the murdered individuals are concerned I think you should consider this fact. During the course of a very lengthy political career, it's entirely possible for one or two people to die of unnatural, non disease related causes, but when the death toll surpasses 50 and is still counting, that just might be the smoke from a fire raging out of control. Hence, the so called conspiracy theories.
    Vera says August 14, 2016
    Please keep this brutal murder in the spotlight. Julian isn't offering $20.000 without an inkling it's tied to the Clinton's campaign.
    The press are too busy destroying trump.
    It's rather scary.
    Polly Ticker (@MollyWolly8) says August 10, 2016
    Here is alternative, crazed anarchist Assange being interviewed by CNN from the Ecuadorian embassy.

    http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/30/politics/julian-assange-wikileaks-democrats/

    Is Ecuador some kind of Shangri La anarchist freedom republic or

    "The administration of President Rafael Correa has expanded state control over media and civil society and abused its power to harass, intimidate, and punish critics. In 2015, thousands of people participated in public demonstrations against government policies, and security forces on multiple occasions responded with excessive force. Abuses against protesters, including arbitrary arrests, have not been adequately investigated."

    https://www.hrw.org/americas/ecuador

    Brian Harry, Australia says August 10, 2016
    "Crazed anarchist"???
    Polly Ticker (@MollyWolly8) says August 10, 2016
    I was being sarcastic. Assange was supposed to be some way out there anarchist, anti capitalist hacker. He might have been before he was busted and 'pardoned' from a 10 year prison sentence in Australia.

    "In 1991, at the age of 20, Assange and some fellow hackers broke into the master terminal of Nortel, the Canadian telecom company. He was caught and pleaded guilty to 25 charges; six other charges were dropped. Citing Assange's "intelligent inquisitiveness," the judge sentenced him only to pay the Australian state a small sum in damages".

    http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2006496,00.html#ixzz16cuIO0Fz

    Brian Harry, Australia says August 10, 2016
    Sorry, I took your comment literally ..
    Richard Le Sarcophage says August 10, 2016
    A crazy hasbaranik has landed! 'Human Rights Watch, in my very firm opinion, are a rabble of mostly Judeofascist hypocrites who work hand in glove with the US regime to blackguard and vilify states targeted for regime change for attempting to create decent societies for their people. I wouldn't cross the street to piss on them if they were on fire.
    Brian Harry, Australia says August 11, 2016
    "Like"
    elenits says August 11, 2016
    "Like" .
    Polly Ticker (@MollyWolly8) says August 10, 2016
    We know that he told Wikileaks and now he's dead. Bradley manning's info was spilled too.

    Wikileaks is a fraud Guardian – John Young http://goo.gl/AbCV

    "But the group ran in to problems even before WikiLeaks was launched. The organisers approached John Young, who ran another website that posted leaked documents, Cryptome, and asked him to register the WikiLeaks website in his name. Young obliged and was initially an enthusiastic supporter but when the organisers announced their intention to try and raise $5m he questioned their motives, saying that kind of money could only come from the CIA or George Soros. Then he walked away.

    "WikiLeaks is a fraud," he wrote in an email when he quit. "Fuck your cute hustle and disinformation campaign against legitimate dissent. Same old shit, working for the enemy." Young then leaked all of his email correspondence with WikiLeak's founders, including the messages to Ellsberg."

    Richard Le Sarcophage says August 11, 2016
    Wikileaks pretty plainly started as a US tool to attack the likes of China, but then Assange may or may not have gone 'off reservation', so he was set up by US stooge regime Sweden, in the usual blatant fashion. And Assange's little buddies at the Guardian cess-pool turned against him with Old Testament fury, in particular unleashing their pack of feminazi Harpies to vilify him. I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him.
    Polly Ticker (@MollyWolly8) says August 11, 2016
    Wikileaks was created to foment internal trouble in the Middle East states and trigger the Arab Spring. It's basically the NSA's own conspiracy generator.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/13/amnesty-international-wikileaks-arab-spring

    The guy says August 11, 2016
    Really? Wow
    elenits says August 11, 2016
    And nowhere in the Wikileaks docs is ANY reference to 911. Same with "Snowden".
    Looks like a case of – twang! – Coincidence Theory .
    AnotherLover says August 12, 2016
    elenits:
    Tried to "like" your post, but for some reason I can only reply, and face the login screen when I try to "like." Loved the comment. Twang! (I'm using that!)
    Polly Ticker (@MollyWolly8) says August 14, 2016
    BIG like.
    AnotherLover says August 12, 2016
    Killing it! It seems more and more like Trump's the plant, huh? A true know-nothing that can ONLY do what his advisors tell him to. And the Trump election is likely to bring whatever Americans can muster up as a race war into being (comment directed at the fact everybody's fluoridated to the gills these days and likely UNABLE to really riot). I think the controllers really, really, really want that.

    My GUT told me all this about Assange when he first appeared. Same thing with "please-employ-encryption-so-we-know-who-to-watch" Snowden. Encryption's just about the FIRST thing I was interested in when I bought my first laptop, so the LAW barring encryption past a certain strength on the open market was one of the first things I found out about! Whatever encryption you can get is hacked. Period.

    Great info on Assange.

    Seamus Padraig says August 10, 2016
    The old Clinton body-count just a keeps on growin'! Not imagine what she could accomplish with a fleet of drones at her command, eh people?
    Brian Harry, Australia says August 10, 2016
    "Like"
    Sasha says August 10, 2016
    Wouldn't be the first time. The Clintons have a trail of bodies behind them that puts MacBeth to shame.

    http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/BODIES.php

    elenits says August 11, 2016
    Ambrose Evans Pritchard is in the forefront of the Clinton exposure:
    Wikipedia:
    "During his time as the Sunday Telegraph's Washington, D.C. bureau chief in the early 1990s, Evans-Pritchard became known for his controversial stories about President Bill Clinton, the 1993 death of Vincent Foster, and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

    He is the author of The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories (1997) which was published by conservative publishing firm Regnery Publishing.[1] In this book, he elaborates on assertions that the Oklahoma City bombing was a sting operation by the FBI that went horribly wrong, that ATF agents were warned against reporting to work in the Murrah Building the morning of the attack, and that the Justice Department subsequently engaged in a cover-up.[2]

    Coverage of US politics
    During his time in Washington, his stories often attracted the ire of the Clinton administration, and on Evans-Pritchard's departure from Washington in 1997, a White House aide was quoted in George saying, "That's another British invasion we're glad is over. The guy was nothing but a pain in the ass". His efforts in ferreting out the witness, Patrick Knowlton, whose last name had been spelled "Nolton" in the Park Police report on Foster's death, resulted eventually in a lawsuit by Knowlton against the FBI and the inclusion of Knowlton's lawyer's letter as an appendix to Kenneth Starr's report on Foster's death.[3] In his book, Evans-Pritchard responded vigorously to White House charges against him.

    [Aug 10, 2016] Assange Implies Murdered DNC Staffer May Have Been Wikileaks Source

    www.redstate.com

    RedState

    It's hard to overstate the amount of caution we should all display with this story, but it's too newsworthy to ignore.

    It starts with this interview with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange where he brings up murdered DNC staffer, Seth Rich, unprompted.

    Here's the juicy part:

    ASSANGE: Our whistleblowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often very significant risks. There's a 27 year old that works for the DNC, he was shot in the back. Murdered, uh just a few weeks ago, uh, for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington. So...

    INTERVIEWER: That was, that was just a robbery I believe. Wasn't it?

    ASSANGE: No. There's no finding. So...

    INTERVIEWER: What are you suggesting? What are you suggesting?

    ASSANGE: I'm suggesting our sources take risks and they uh, become concerned, uh to see things occurring, like that.

    INTERVIEWER: Was he one of your sources then? I mean...

    ASSANGE: We don't comment on who our sources are.

    INTERVIEWER: Then why make the suggestion about a young guy being shot in the streets of Washington?

    ASSANGE: Because we have to understand how high the stakes are in the United States. And our sources are ... you know... our sources face serious risks. That's why they come to us, so we can protect their anonymity.

    Then comes the news that Wikileaks is offering a $25,000 reward for any information leading to the capture of Rich's murderer.

    [Jul 20, 2016] FBI Agents Silenced on Hillary Probe

    Notable quotes:
    "... FBI agents who worked on the investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server reportedly had to sign an unusual non-disclosure form banning them from talking about the case unless they were called to testify. ..."
    "... Unnamed sources tell the New York Post they'd never heard of the special form - known as a "case briefing acknowledgment" - being used before, though all agents initially have to sign nondisclosure agreements to obtain security clearance. ..."
    Jul 13, 2016 | www.newsmax.com

    FBI agents who worked on the investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server reportedly had to sign an unusual non-disclosure form banning them from talking about the case unless they were called to testify.

    Unnamed sources tell the New York Post they'd never heard of the special form - known as a "case briefing acknowledgment" - being used before, though all agents initially have to sign nondisclosure agreements to obtain security clearance.

    "This is very, very unusual. I've never signed one, never circulated one to others," one unnamed retired FBI chief tells the Post. "I have never heard of such a form. Sounds strange," an anonymous FBI agent said.

    The Post additionally reports some FBI agents are disappointed that Director James Comey decided against recommending that charges be brought against Clinton for her mishandling of classified information.

    "FBI agents believe there was an inside deal put in place after the [Attorney General] Loretta Lynch/Bill Clinton tarmac meeting" just hours before the release of a House report on the Benghazi, Libya terror attack in 2012, one unnamed source tells the Post.

    Another Justice Department source tells the newspaper he was "furious" with Comey, deriding him for having "managed to piss off right and left."

    [Jul 12, 2016] DNI Clapper Denies Paul Ryan Request to Block Clinton From Classified Intel Briefings

    Highly recommended!
    www.nbcnews.com
    Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan's request to block Hillary Clinton from receiving classified intelligence briefings was denied by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on Monday.

    In a letter to Ryan, Clapper wrote that he did "not intend to withhold briefings from any officially nominated, eligible candidate."

    [Jul 12, 2016] FBI s Critique of Hillary Clinton Is a Ready-Made Attack Ad

    Notable quotes:
    "... Hillary Clinton may not be indicted on criminal charges over her handling of classified email, but the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, all but indicted her judgment and competence on Tuesday - two vital pillars of her presidential candidacy - and in the kind of terms that would be politically devastating in a normal election year. ..."
    www.nytimes.com

    Hillary Clinton may not be indicted on criminal charges over her handling of classified email, but the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, all but indicted her judgment and competence on Tuesday - two vital pillars of her presidential candidacy - and in the kind of terms that would be politically devastating in a normal election year.

    ... ... ...

    To her charge that he is "reckless," Mr. Trump may now respond by citing Mr. Comey's rebuke: that Mrs. Clinton and her team "were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information."

    To her promises to defend the United States, Mr. Trump may now retort with Mr. Comey's warning that "it is possible that hostile actors gained access" to Mrs. Clinton's email account and the top secret information it contained.

    And to her reproofs about his temperament and responsibility, Mr. Trump may now point to Mr. Comey's finding that "there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes" on handling classified information - though Mr. Comey said that other factors, like Mrs. Clinton's intent, argued against criminal charges.


    Worst of all was the totality of Mr. Comey's judgment about Mrs. Clinton's judgment.

    She is running as a supremely competent candidate and portraying Mr. Trump, in essence, as irresponsible and dangerous. Yet the director of the F.B.I. basically just called her out for having committed one of the most irresponsible moves in the modern history of the State Department.

    ... ... ...

    Her clearest selling point - that she, unlike Mr. Trump, can manage challenging relationships with allies and adversaries - has now been undercut because she personally mismanaged the safeguarding of national security information.

    [Jul 11, 2016] FBI Findings Damage Many of Hillary Clinton s Claims by STEVEN LEE MYERS

    Jul 05, 2016 | www.nytimes.com

    Mr. Comey said the emails included eight chains of emails and replies, some written by her, that contained information classified as "top secret: special access programs." That classification is the highest level, reserved for the nation's most highly guarded intelligence operations or sources.

    Another 36 chains were "secret," which is defined as including information that "could be expected to cause serious damage to the national security"; eight others had information classified at the lowest level, "confidential."

    [Jul 08, 2016] The Clinton Email Probe and the Question of Gross Negligence

    Notable quotes:
    "... ...Mr. Comey also referenced a more obscure provision of the Espionage Act that has little to do with intent or state of mind, but rather makes it a crime to disclose classified information through "gross negligence." ..."
    "... But the crime of "gross negligence" in the Espionage Act doesn't appear to require proof of any intentional mishandling of documents, according to Stephen I. Vladeck , a national security scholar at the University of Texas. ..."
    "... Specifically, the law makes it a felony to permit classified information relating to national defense to be "removed from its proper place of custody" through gross negligence. ..."
    "... Why are you focusing on the gross negligence aspect? ..."
    "... Where is the removal from the proper place of custody? I've seen nothing in any legal analysis in this paper that talks about it. Is the presence of classified material on a private server of one who is authorized to have it equivalent to such a removal? ..."
    "... She was specifically not authorized to have a private server. ..."
    "... "From the group of 30,000 emails returned to the State Department in 2014, 110 emails in 52 email chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was TOP SECRET at the time they were sent; 36 of those chains contained SECRET information at the time; and eight contained CONFIDENTIAL information at the time. That's the lowest level of classification." ..."
    "... "We assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal email account." ..."
    "... Making an argument for the difference between "gross negligence" and "extreme carelessness" is the sort of semantic hair-splitting that Hillary Clinton ought to have been compelled to do in court - in the same way that her husband prevaricated over "what the meaning of the word 'is' is," shortly before he lost his law license. ..."
    Jul 05, 2016 | WSJ

    ...Mr. Comey also referenced a more obscure provision of the Espionage Act that has little to do with intent or state of mind, but rather makes it a crime to disclose classified information through "gross negligence."

    That provision of the Espionage Act, the primary law governing the handling of classified information, could require at least proof that the offender knew the classified information disclosed could harm the United States or benefit a foreign power if it got into the wrong hands.

    But the crime of "gross negligence" in the Espionage Act doesn't appear to require proof of any intentional mishandling of documents, according to Stephen I. Vladeck, a national security scholar at the University of Texas.

    Specifically, the law makes it a felony to permit classified information relating to national defense to be "removed from its proper place of custody" through gross negligence.

    What would constitute a degree of recklessness that rises to gross negligence? Mr. Vladeck offered an example of accidentally leaving a briefcase stuffed with classified national security secrets on a busy sidewalk in Washington, D.C.

    ... ... ...

    Charles Silva

    Why are you focusing on the gross negligence aspect?

    Where is the removal from the proper place of custody? I've seen nothing in any legal analysis in this paper that talks about it. Is the presence of classified material on a private server of one who is authorized to have it equivalent to such a removal?

    Lee Hartwig

    @Charles Silva She was specifically not authorized to have a private server.

    Clifford Crouch

    @Michael Piston

    "From the group of 30,000 emails returned to the State Department in 2014, 110 emails in 52 email chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was TOP SECRET at the time they were sent; 36 of those chains contained SECRET information at the time; and eight contained CONFIDENTIAL information at the time. That's the lowest level of classification."

    -FBI Director James Comey, July 5, 2016

    "We assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal email account."

    -James Comey, July 5, 2016

    Making an argument for the difference between "gross negligence" and "extreme carelessness" is the sort of semantic hair-splitting that Hillary Clinton ought to have been compelled to do in court - in the same way that her husband prevaricated over "what the meaning of the word 'is' is," shortly before he lost his law license.

    [Jul 07, 2016] Why the FBI concluded Hillary Clintons email practices did not rise to the level of criminal charges -

    Hillary coped her emails and gave all of the to her private lawyer, who has no security clearance, on the USB stick. That's alone qualifies for gross negligence.
    Notable quotes:
    "... Hillary Clinton also used the department's secure email system for transmitting classified information, but the FBI found that some of the regular communications with her staff on the personal server involved facts and details that she should have known were classified. In a few cases, the emails bore markings to indicate they contained classified information. ..."
    "... Stewart Baker, a top national security lawyer in the Bush administration, called Comey's statement "pretty damning for Secretary Clinton, even if the facts don't make for an impressive criminal case. He suggests that she should have been, or arguably could still be, subjected to 'security or administrative sanctions.' What he doesn't say, but what we can infer, is that she ran those incredible risks with national security information because she was more worried about the GOP reading her mail than of Russian or Chinese spies reading it. That's appalling," he said. ..."
    "... HIllary lied about her servers, she lied about sending classified information, she lied about the re-classification of confidential, secret and SAP documents. Some two hours after Comey's announcement, she and Obama took off on Air Force One for a rally together. ..."
    "... But a new security regimen is dawning for those who hold security clearances. According to the FBI, they are now free to transfer data between secure and non-secure networks without punishment, as long as the INTENT is not to harm the United States. ..."
    "... A retired FBI agent on Fox said this : The Comey conference was to take the heat off of Lynch - because if the FBI had just been quiet with their results, and it would have been Lynch who came out and said...No charges - AFTER the Phoenix scandal, people would really be skeptical. end - ..."
    "... Of course this took AG-LL off the hook. NOW - for all of this to fall in place? Had to be some meetings beforehand - AG - FBI and Whitehouse general council - 3 US government lawyers colluding this event - to make SURE they have jobs the next 4 years and the GRATITUDE of Potus Hillary. ..."
    "... Corrupt? I would not go that far...let's just say DIRTY. ..."
    "... "Gross negligence" is the standard under 18 U.S.C., section 793-f. FBI Director Comey said Hillary Clinton was "extremely careless" in her handling of highly classified information. What's the difference, other than semantics, between "gross negligence" and "extremely careless?" ..."
    "... Hillary's emails may be great confirmation of Hillary's war role in the Mid-east and even Ukraine. However, more to the point they confirm for all Democrats that Hillary's agenda is the Neo-con one of Geo. W. Bush's handlers from PNAC, Chicago School of Economics, Bill Kristol, Robert Kagan and his wife Victoria Nuland. (The Neo-con/Neo-liberal company includes Larry Summers, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc.) She is not a run of the mill hawk like John McCain, she is a New World Order marionette just as Geo W was. She needs to be dumped as she is beholden to anti-democratic values of elitism. ..."
    "... Bill Kristol is attacking Donald Trump because his candidate is Hillary. ..."
    "... This was historical. Law enforcement does not make decisions on prosecution. That is left to prosecutors. Law enforcement are fact finders who should have presented the case to a career professional prosecutor to make a decision. ..."
    "... The question is, why was well established policy and protocol violated and the case not presented to a prosecutor for a decision? Ask any local D.A. If they reject a case, they write a "reject" documenting their rationale. In a very public or complicated case, that reject is written in great detail regarding each and every potential charge. ..."
    "... The Obama Administration has prosecuted more people under the same WW I espionage act than all other administrations COMBINED. Comey has prosecuted a person under this act for a 21-word email .not 30,000 destroyed emails. ..."
    "... Everybody knows this was fixed. The examples of similar incidents, putting people in jail, are coming out of the shadows. It is time to vote the career politicians out of office and take our country back. ..."
    "... NSA has copies of every email sent to/from US, & likely most others, for last 10+ years. So they have all 30,000+ of the emails she deleted. ..."
    "... When in the Navy I saw a LT. career destroyed for leaving a top secret safe open over night. We did not know who maybe got in. The assumption by NCIS was that someone did enter and Top Secret information was taken. He was prosecuted for maybe forgetting and Clinton no prosecution for being dumb? ..."
    LA Times

    "It's just not a crime under current law to do nothing more than share sensitive information over unsecured networks," said Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas. "Maybe it should be, but that's something for Congress to decide going forward."

    John M. Deutch, another former CIA director, narrowly avoided a misdemeanor charge for having taken hundreds of top secret files home on his laptop computer. He was pardoned by Clinton before charges were filed.

    ... ... ...

    Hillary Clinton also used the department's secure email system for transmitting classified information, but the FBI found that some of the regular communications with her staff on the personal server involved facts and details that she should have known were classified. In a few cases, the emails bore markings to indicate they contained classified information.

    However, investigators did not find evidence she knowingly or intentionally disclosed government secrets or that she exposed secrets through gross negligence. Clinton's apparent interest was in maintaining her privacy.

    ... ... ...

    Stewart Baker, a top national security lawyer in the Bush administration, called Comey's statement "pretty damning for Secretary Clinton, even if the facts don't make for an impressive criminal case. He suggests that she should have been, or arguably could still be, subjected to 'security or administrative sanctions.' What he doesn't say, but what we can infer, is that she ran those incredible risks with national security information because she was more worried about the GOP reading her mail than of Russian or Chinese spies reading it. That's appalling," he said.

    knox.bob.xpg

    No amount of facts, no amount of evidence, and no amount of lies will change the minds of supporters of Hillary Clinton. Her coronation was pre-determined. Ideology is more important to her supporters than the quality of the candidate. While brash, Trump nailed it yesterday. The fix was in and the optics played out.

    HIllary lied about her servers, she lied about sending classified information, she lied about the re-classification of confidential, secret and SAP documents. Some two hours after Comey's announcement, she and Obama took off on Air Force One for a rally together.

    Obama would have never done this if Comey's decision was to seek criminal charges. Presidential travel is not spur of the moment, it is carefully planned weeks in advance. So what happened here ? I believe Comey knew that DOJ would not seek criminal charges against her despite the overwhelming evidence of gross negligence.

    Comey "fried" her yesterday and now she will be tried in the court of public opinion. There are simply some people who believe that global warming, income inequality, and transgender bathrooms are more important than ISIS, our economy, terror, or national debt.

    unclesmrgol

    Hillary has been freed from any punishment, for some animals are more important than others.

    But a new security regimen is dawning for those who hold security clearances. According to the FBI, they are now free to transfer data between secure and non-secure networks without punishment, as long as the INTENT is not to harm the United States.

    That is the new standard, and a mighty fine one it is -- right?

    SandyDago

    A retired FBI agent on Fox said this : The Comey conference was to take the heat off of Lynch - because if the FBI had just been quiet with their results, and it would have been Lynch who came out and said...No charges - AFTER the Phoenix scandal, people would really be skeptical. end -

    That seems very obvious at this point...The FBI does not do - what James Comey did yesterday. No comment is how they roll - Yet we get a play by play yesterday.

    Of course this took AG-LL off the hook. NOW - for all of this to fall in place? Had to be some meetings beforehand - AG - FBI and Whitehouse general council - 3 US government lawyers colluding this event - to make SURE they have jobs the next 4 years and the GRATITUDE of Potus Hillary.

    Corrupt? I would not go that far...let's just say DIRTY.

    Chris Crusade

    "Gross negligence" is the standard under 18 U.S.C., section 793-f. FBI Director Comey said Hillary Clinton was "extremely careless" in her handling of highly classified information. What's the difference, other than semantics, between "gross negligence" and "extremely careless?"

    lon.ball

    Hillary's emails may be great confirmation of Hillary's war role in the Mid-east and even Ukraine. However, more to the point they confirm for all Democrats that Hillary's agenda is the Neo-con one of Geo. W. Bush's handlers from PNAC, Chicago School of Economics, Bill Kristol, Robert Kagan and his wife Victoria Nuland. (The Neo-con/Neo-liberal company includes Larry Summers, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc.) She is not a run of the mill hawk like John McCain, she is a New World Order marionette just as Geo W was. She needs to be dumped as she is beholden to anti-democratic values of elitism.

    Bill Kristol is attacking Donald Trump because his candidate is Hillary. (See this article in this issue.) So, it is not about Democrat vs. Republican. The new political dichotomy is Centralization (corporatism, totalitarian, collectivism) vs. Personal Constitutional freedom. I am a lifelong Democrat and Sanders man who is "never Hillary" for good reason. I cannot sit by idly and watch as our national Democracy continues to devolve into world fascism with the Neo-cons. Hillary is a traitor to the Nation and to the late great Democratic Party.

    It is time for the old right and old progressive left to unite for preservation of the US Constitution and personal freedom. Never Hillary; never New World Order!" less

    tommy501

    This was historical. Law enforcement does not make decisions on prosecution. That is left to prosecutors. Law enforcement are fact finders who should have presented the case to a career professional prosecutor to make a decision.

    The question is, why was well established policy and protocol violated and the case not presented to a prosecutor for a decision? Ask any local D.A. If they reject a case, they write a "reject" documenting their rationale. In a very public or complicated case, that reject is written in great detail regarding each and every potential charge.

    Something's fishy.

    andytek2

    @tommy501 he didn't make a prosecutorial decision he only said that no reasonable prosecutor would file charges.

    DennisWV

    The Obama Administration has prosecuted more people under the same WW I espionage act than all other administrations COMBINED. Comey has prosecuted a person under this act for a 21-word email .not 30,000 destroyed emails.

    Everybody knows this was fixed. The examples of similar incidents, putting people in jail, are coming out of the shadows. It is time to vote the career politicians out of office and take our country back.

    Outside the Herd

    NSA has copies of every email sent to/from US, & likely most others, for last 10+ years. So they have all 30,000+ of the emails she deleted.

    FBI & O knew months ago what was in all of them, & delayed looking away until primaries were clinched. Which was also crooked, ask Bernie's peep's.

    Andre-Leonard

    "A second law makes it a crime to "remove" secret documents kept by the government or to allow them to be stolen through "gross negligence."

    Funny how they went after Edward Snowden for the very same thing. Yet no one in their 'right' mind expected a Justice Department led by Obama to allow for Billary to be indicted. It's all about favorites here and justice is 'not' really blind.

    kenwrite9

    When she was in foreign countries she should have known that those countries spy on American officials. I now that, why she did not is strange. When in the Navy I saw a LT. career destroyed for leaving a top secret safe open over night. We did not know who maybe got in. The assumption by NCIS was that someone did enter and Top Secret information was taken. He was prosecuted for maybe forgetting and Clinton no prosecution for being dumb?

    [Jul 06, 2016] FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook by Andrew C. McCarthy

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... Hillary Clinton checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793(f) of the federal penal code (Title 18) ..."
    "... The point of having a statute that criminalizes gross negligence is to underscore that government officials have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry out that obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant. People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence. ..."
    "... It is a common tactic of defense lawyers in criminal trials to set up a straw-man for the jury: a crime the defendant has not committed. ..."
    "... Judges generally do not allow such sleight-of-hand because innocence on an uncharged crime is irrelevant to the consideration of the crimes that actually have been charged. ..."
    "... Meanwhile, although there may have been profound harm to national security caused by her grossly negligent mishandling of classified information, we've decided she shouldn't be prosecuted for grossly negligent mishandling of classified information. ..."
    "... To my mind, a reasonable prosecutor would ask: Why did Congress criminalize the mishandling of classified information through gross negligence? The answer, obviously, is to prevent harm to national security. So then the reasonable prosecutor asks: Was the statute clearly violated, and if yes, is it likely that Mrs. Clinton's conduct caused harm to national security? If those two questions are answered in the affirmative, I believe many, if not most, reasonable prosecutors would feel obliged to bring the case. ..."
    National Review

    Hillary Clinton checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793(f) of the federal penal code (Title 18): With lawful access to highly classified information she acted with gross negligence in removing and causing it to be removed it from its proper place of custody, and she transmitted it and caused it to be transmitted to others not authorized to have it, in patent violation of her trust. Director Comey even conceded that former Secretary Clinton was "extremely careless" and strongly suggested that her recklessness very likely led to communications (her own and those she corresponded with) being intercepted by foreign intelligence services.

    In essence, in order to give Mrs. Clinton a pass, the FBI rewrote the statute, inserting an intent element that Congress did not require. The added intent element, moreover, makes no sense: The point of having a statute that criminalizes gross negligence is to underscore that government officials have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry out that obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant. People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence.

    ... ... ...

    It is a common tactic of defense lawyers in criminal trials to set up a straw-man for the jury: a crime the defendant has not committed. The idea is that by knocking down a crime the prosecution does not allege and cannot prove, the defense may confuse the jury into believing the defendant is not guilty of the crime charged.

    Judges generally do not allow such sleight-of-hand because innocence on an uncharged crime is irrelevant to the consideration of the crimes that actually have been charged. It seems to me that this is what the FBI has done today. It has told the public that because Mrs. Clinton did not have intent to harm the United States we should not prosecute her on a felony that does not require proof of intent to harm the United States.

    Meanwhile, although there may have been profound harm to national security caused by her grossly negligent mishandling of classified information, we've decided she shouldn't be prosecuted for grossly negligent mishandling of classified information. I think highly of Jim Comey personally and professionally, but this makes no sense to me. Finally, I was especially unpersuaded by Director Comey's claim that no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case based on the evidence uncovered by the FBI.

    To my mind, a reasonable prosecutor would ask: Why did Congress criminalize the mishandling of classified information through gross negligence? The answer, obviously, is to prevent harm to national security. So then the reasonable prosecutor asks: Was the statute clearly violated, and if yes, is it likely that Mrs. Clinton's conduct caused harm to national security? If those two questions are answered in the affirmative, I believe many, if not most, reasonable prosecutors would feel obliged to bring the case.

    Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/437479/fbi-rewrites-federal-law-let-hillary-hook

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