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. Yes 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.
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.
As Julian Assange has made crystal clear, the leaks did not come from the Russians. As I have explained countless times, they are not hacks, they are insider leaks – there is a major difference between the two. And it should be said again and again, that if Hillary Clinton had not connived with the DNC to fix the primary schedule to disadvantage Bernie, if she had not received advance notice of live debate questions to use against Bernie, if she had not accepted massive donations to the Clinton foundation and family members in return for foreign policy influence, if she had not failed to distance herself from some very weird and troubling people, then none of this would have happened.
The continued ability of the mainstream media to claim the leaks lost Clinton the election because of “Russia”, while still never acknowledging the truths the leaks reveal, is Kafkaesque.
I had a call from a Guardian journalist this afternoon. The astonishing result was that for three hours, an article was accessible through the Guardian front page which actually included the truth among the CIA hype:
The Kremlin has rejected the hacking accusations, while the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has previously said the DNC leaks were not linked to Russia. A second senior official cited by the Washington Post conceded that intelligence agencies did not have specific proof that the Kremlin was “directing” the hackers, who were said to be one step removed from the Russian government.
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.
“If what the CIA are saying is true, and the CIA’s statement refers to people who are known to be linked to the Russian state, they would have arrested someone if it was someone inside the United States.
“America has not been shy about arresting whistleblowers and it’s not been shy about extraditing hackers. They plainly have no knowledge whatsoever.”
But only three hours. While the article was not taken down, the home page links to it vanished and it was replaced by a ludicrous one repeating the mad CIA allegations against Russia and now claiming – incredibly – that the CIA believe the FBI is deliberately blocking the information on Russian collusion. Presumably this totally nutty theory, that Putin is somehow now controlling the FBI, is meant to answer my obvious objection that, if the CIA know who it is, why haven’t they arrested somebody. That bit of course would be the job of the FBI, who those desperate to annul the election now wish us to believe are the KGB.
It is terrible that the prime conduit for this paranoid nonsense is a once great newspaper, the Washington Post, which far from investigating executive power, now is a sounding board for totally evidence free anonymous source briefing of utter bullshit from the executive.
In the UK, one single article sums up the total abnegation of all journalistic standards. The truly execrable Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian writes “Few credible sources doubt that Russia was behind the hacking of internal Democratic party emails, whose release by Julian Assange was timed to cause maximum pain to Hillary Clinton and pleasure for Trump.” Does he produce any evidence at all for this assertion? No, none whatsoever. What does a journalist mean by a “credible source”? Well, any journalist worth their salt in considering the credibility of a source will first consider access. Do they credibly have access to the information they claim to have?
Now both Julian Assange and I have stated definitively the leak does not come from Russia. Do we credibly have access? Yes, very obviously. Very, very few people can be said to definitely have access to the source of the leak. The people saying it is not Russia are those who do have access. After access, you consider truthfulness. Do Julian Assange and I have a reputation for truthfulness? Well in 10 years not one of the tens of thousands of documents WikiLeaks has released has had its authenticity successfully challenged. As for me, I have a reputation for inconvenient truth telling.
Contrast this to the “credible sources” Freedland relies on. What access do they have to the whistleblower? Zero. They have not the faintest idea who the whistleblower is. Otherwise they would have arrested them. What reputation do they have for truthfulness? It’s the Clinton gang and the US government, for goodness sake.
In fact, the sources any serious journalist would view as “credible” give the opposite answer to the one Freedland wants. But in what passes for Freedland’s mind, “credible” is 100% synonymous with “establishment”. When he says “credible sources” he means “establishment sources”. That is the truth of the “fake news” meme. You are not to read anything unless it is officially approved by the elite and their disgusting, crawling whores of stenographers like Freedland.
The worst thing about all this is that it is aimed at promoting further conflict with Russia. This puts everyone in danger for the sake of more profits for the arms and security industries – including of course bigger budgets for the CIA. As thankfully the four year agony of Aleppo comes swiftly to a close today, the Saudi and US armed and trained ISIS forces counter by moving to retake Palmyra. This game kills people, on a massive scale, and goes on and on.
**********************************************************************************
Signed First Editions of Sikunder Burnes are now available direct from this blog! You can leave a message naming the dedication you want. Sold at cover price of £25 including p&p for UK delivery or £29 for overseas delivery. Ideal Christmas presents!!
An absolute must-read – superlative in every sense of the word.
I can understand Craig’s objections but the WaPo was NEVER a reputable publication.
Have a read of Alex Cockburn and me old mate Jeff St Clair on the matter
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/30/the-cia-and-the-press-when-the-washington-post-ran-the-cias-propaganda-network/
Remember, operation mockingbird?
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0786715006/counterpunchmaga
I have Grand children..to protect..
” the Saudi and US armed and trained ISIS forces counter by moving to retake Palmyra. This games kills people, on a massive scale, and goes on and on.”
I have Said..!00% Cameron has done so too..Training.. and sending them back..WAR CRIME I’ve 100% proof
The US regime is defending Klinton to the very end. The US and UK media are defending her too, til the end.
This is their last stand. They cannot step back from this fight.
If there should be a proper judicial investigation into Klinton, the foundation, and the *media* collusion, then the whole bogus western narrative collapses. And the collapse, brings the republicans down too.
It’s akin in the late 80s, and the Berlin wall coming down, signalling the collapse of communism.
If Klinton falls, corrupt capitalism comes down with her.
The stakes have never been higher.
I doubt it. It’s more likely that the Dems had secured concrete partisan support from the CIA during the election (illegal of course) in the mean time, as was fairly obvious to anyone watching during the election, the FBI were partisan to the GOP. What we have here is a particularly nasty little war between departments going on. It actually demonstrates just what a weak president Obama actually was to let these partisan bickerings fester.
If the next president does not come down hard on all the departments then there will be constitutional crisis. Is trump that president? Only time will tell.
The CIA are playing a risky game trying to smear the next president as Putin colluder. I think it’s a once more round the block before BO gets the boot.
CIA is part of the MIC.
I have never understood why GW Bush didn’t fire George Tenet shortly following the September 11 debacle. I would have replaced him with Diana Dean, the intrepid Customs agent who had the sense to detain Ahmed Ressam and thereby save LAX from being blown up. There are many able and loyal people in the CIA, but this episode over the DNC hacking shows that much if not all of the leadership needs to be canned and replaced with individuals who will depoliticize the agency.
well said.
Hope springs eternal…
Or maybe it’s more appropriate to quote Upton Sinclair again: It’s very difficult to make a man understand something when his livelihood depends on him not understanding it.
Seriously, this is taking bizarre rationalisations to whole new levels.
I should have thought that Sinclair’s observation applied to you above almost any other commenter to this blog. Who else’s livelihood is in any way connected with defending Clinton and the status quo?
Or are you supposing that Kremlin gold is needed to tease out these truths of the self evident variety?
Martin, you seem very disappointed this Sunday morning? Is the world changing too fast for you in your retirement?
Instead of waxing lyrical the Establishment Anthems, and even with your obvious prejudices, pray tell us your rationale? Let’s discuss.
You are absolutely correct. I am amazed at the persistence of these ludicrous- and utterly irresponsible- charges. As I have just posted on the emptywheel site looking for suspects among Hillary’s enemies is a mug’s game- most of the world and threequarters of the Democratic party have very good reason to be relieved that she will not be President- Haitians, Hondurans, Serbs, Syrians, Libyans…it is a very long list indeed.
The interesting thing is that not even the most desperate attempts (see emptywheel’s latest) to prove Russian involvement adduce enough evidence to hang a dying dog.
This matter is one that needs to be cleared up, feeding the populace lies to make them angry at foreigners is a very nasty game. It could easily lead to war. It will certainly prevent our societies from making the rational decisions that need to be made to wipe out poverty, control disease and put an end to runaway climate change.
See my above message Bev, this is an interdepartmental partisan war, played out in the mainstream press. It’s a joke that it should be trump, but the next president will have to metaphorically take a few high heads and display them in the town square as a warning if he wants to get the government back up some kind of control.
Ah Ancient Rome eh? We really learn nothing.
Whoever leaked it has my unconditional admiration. The neo-cons swamp can now be drained.
I suspect it may have been Mrs White with the candlestick in the Dining Room.
I don’t suppose we will ever know.
An exceptional testimony for an exceptional time Craig.
Defiantly over the deafening din.
This article in The Greanville Post
http://www.greanvillepost.com/2016/12/10/obamas-parting-shot-at-russia/
chimes with Craig’s post.
This crucial point is often forgotten:
“…What remains of charges of Russian interference are allegations that the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin helped expose secrets the Democratic Party was keeping from its own voters—in particular, the duplicitous efforts of the Democratic National Committee to sabotage the campaign of Bernie Sanders and guarantee the presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton. Moscow is further charged with hacking into the emails of Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta, so as to make public Clinton’s speeches pledging fealty to Wall Street bankers and the corrupt activities of both the Democratic Party and the Clinton Foundation….”
Ha, I’ve just noticed that Freedland’s Wiki page is largely edited by ‘Philip Cross’. He’s a busy bunch of guys.
That sounds funny! Tell me more about the Mr Cross(es)?!?
Freedland is a disgrace – I see from time to time at Pret next to the Guardian and I’ve got one thing to say, Superdry dad man – embarrassing..
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/middle-aged-man-was-wearing-non-superdry-clothing-2014040785462
today juan cole says
“”So it was Clinton’s public persona and public positions that hurt her and depressed Democratic turnout in places like Detroit and Flint, not anything in Wikileaks (can anyone name even one newsworthy email?)”
so I answered his question on his blog:
yes i can name a newsworthy email, the one where the questions of the presidential debate
were leaked to Hillary, which proved to me that she is so corrupt
it is just like the 1959 scandal where Van Doren (the great NY writer/intellectual)
was given the answers to questions to quiz questions
it took Van Doren 49 years to admit the truth and apologize for it
he lost his job, and any/all prestige for his deceit
yet Clinton goes on with no apology and people are so ignorant she maintains her prestige with her followers
perhaps some day someone will make a movie about the Hillary scandal as Robert Redford did about Van Doren
perhaps Hillary will retire in self-imposed exile to Connecticut as did Van Doren, but I doubt that, too many wealthy sycophants still support her
and of course juan cole censored my answer to his question
Fake News, the choreography:
1. We wake up to a load of scare stories about so-called Fake News.
2. The website ProporNot appears out of nowhere with a list of hundreds of alternative news websites that are allegedly peddling Russian propaganda.
3. The Washington Post prints the list.
4. The House Quietly Passes Bill Targeting “Russian Propaganda” Websites
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-02/house-quietly-passes-bill-targeting-russian-propaganda-websites
5. Suddenly all alternative news site that contradict the mainstream narrative are in the firing line.
David Icke gets a lot of stick but he identified this paradigm years ago, problem – reaction – solution.
Create a scare story – the people demand something be done – a solution appears that takes away a bit more freedom.
I’m really surprised this blog was not on the ProporNot list.
Craig. Your comments appear in version 4 of the article on News Sniffer under the link https://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/1285850/diff/3/4
The article link is
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/10/cia-concludes-russia-interfered-to-help-trump-win-election-report
This is added under your comments.
‘On Friday the White House announced that Obama had ordered intelligence officials to conduct a broad review of election-season cyber-attacks, including the email hacks, to report before he leaves office on 20 January.
The review, led by intelligence agencies, will be a “deep dive” into a possible pattern of increased “malicious cyber activity” during the campaign season, the White House spokesman Eric Schultz said. It would look at the tactics, targets, key actors and the US government’s response to the recent email hacks, as well as incidents reported in past elections, he said.
“The president wanted this done under his watch because he takes it very seriously,” he said. “We are committed to ensuring the integrity of our elections.”
Schultz said the president had ordered the inquiry as a way of improving US defence against cyber-attacks and did not intend to question the legitimacy of Trump’s victory. “This is not an effort to challenge the outcome of the election,” he said.’
‘This is added under your comments’ should be ‘This was transferred from the previous version’…….
_____
The BBC version
Russia ‘intervened to promote Trump’ – US intelligence
10 December 2016
From the section US & Canada
Donald Trump listens as Hillary Clinton answers a question during presidential debate at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, U.S., October 9, 2016
The presidential campaign was marked by some fierce debates between the two candidates
US intelligence agencies believe Russia acted covertly to boost Donald Trump in the election race, US officials have told leading newspapers.
A report in the New York Times says the agencies had “high confidence” about Russian involvement in hacking.
A CIA assessment reported by the Washington Post made similar findings.
But Mr Trump’s team dismissed the CIA line, saying: “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.”
Russian officials have repeatedly denied the hacking accusations.
18 revelations from WikiLeaks emails
Why US fears Russia is hacking election
On Friday, US President Barack Obama ordered an investigation into a series of cyber-attacks, blamed on Russia, during the US election season.
The hacks targeted emails at the Democratic Party and a key aide to presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
In October, US government officials pointed the finger at Russia, accusing it of meddling in the campaign.
Now, senior administration officials quoted by the New York Times say they are confident that Russian hackers also infiltrated the Republican National Committee’s computer systems as well as those of the Democratic Party, but did not release information gleaned from the Republican networks.
Intelligence agencies say the Russians passed on the Democrats’ documents to WikiLeaks, the Times reported.
Democrats reacted furiously when email accounts of the Democratic National Committee and Mrs Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, were hacked.
The Podesta emails were revealed by WikiLeaks and posted online.
Ballots cast in Illinois Image copyright AP
Image caption
State voter registration databases in Illinois and Arizona were also breached
Quoting an unnamed “senior US official”, the Washington Post said “intelligence agencies” had “identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman”.
At one point in the campaign, Mr Trump publicly encouraged Russia to “find” Mrs Clinton’s emails, although he later said he was being sarcastic.
Democrats claimed the hacks were a deliberate attempt to undermine Mrs Clinton’s campaign.
White House spokesman Eric Schultz said President Obama wanted the investigation carried out on his watch “because he takes it very seriously”.
“We are committed to ensuring the integrity of our elections,” he added.
It is not clear if the contents of the review will be made public.
More on Trump and Russia
Media caption
CIA director John Brennan tells the BBC what global threats Donald Trump will face as US president
Why Trump strikes a chord with Russians
Russia’s Putin calls Trump ‘a clever man’
Are there any Trump links to Putin?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38273933
Only 1 change! https://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/1285863/diff/0/1
‘At one point in the campaign, Mr Trump had encouraged Russia by name to “find” Mrs Clinton’s emails, although he later said he was being sarcastic.’
Replaced by:
‘At one point in the campaign, Mr Trump publicly encouraged Russia to “find” Mrs Clinton’s emails, although he later said he was being sarcastic.’
Not very subtle are they?
“The continued ability of the mainstream media to claim the leaks lost Clinton the election because of “Russia”, while still never acknowledging the truths the leaks reveal, is Kafkaesque.”
“As thankfully the four year agony of Aleppo comes swiftly to a close today, the Saudi and US armed and trained ISIS forces counter by moving to retake Palmyra. This games kills people, on a massive scale, and goes on and on.”
The Western media are indeed ‘whores’, not just because they protect Obama, Clinton and Sen. McCain who gave terrorists a carte blanche caliphate in exchange for their mercenary work for USUKIS global colonialism of the Middle East, but also because they protect the criminals among the corrupt intelligentsia of Islam who use civilians as human shields and terrorise them.
There are no known rules which prevent USUKIS politicians accessing power, but there are very clear rules for the politics of Islam. Lying is not allowed. Spying is not allowed. Harming civilians in war is not allowed.
Sitting in the leafy shade of a Birmingham mosque, I have been unable to pray in the mosque for over 2 years because the imam lied to me about terrorism in Syria. I will not pray behind a liar, especially when they are also a spyer, and also belong to a group which continually blows up civilians in Pakistan.
The English people have a queasy instinctive doubt about mosques in the UK. They are well justified in this. Just as the US arms and supports extremist groups in and outside Al Qaida to fight mercenary wars they don’t want to be seen to be fighting because they are illegal under international war, so also there are no mosques in this country which do not support either Muslim Brotherhood or Saudi Salafi takfirism, the false excuse by which illegally in Islam mosques attack Muslims for USUKIS.
In my book, the fact that the mainstream media in the US and UK are prepared to divert attention from criminals in the Muslim intelligentsia to Russia, and the British and American people are not so sure, even as far as voting out Cameron and voting in Trump, means that the people’s instincts are sound, ( except for Burker wearers in Edinburgh ).
I hope I’ve made my point clear.
Well said Criag, one point tho, you say, ” have a reputation for inconvenient truth telling.”.
You call Freedland a journalist, he isn’t, he’s a propagandist. You might want to put journalist in quote marks.
The Western media can’t believe that Trump won so they have to keep coming up with explanations as to why the voters were “misled”.
First it was fake news, and now they are trying to connect Trump to Russia in the public’s mind.
This is all par for the course in left-wing politics, where everybody is suffering from “false consciousness” and the key to social change is propaganda. The Western media is now a vast propaganda machine that the Soviet Union would have admired and envied.
As Peter Hitchens often says, the mistake we make is thinking that we won the war against Communism. In fact, the collapse of the Soviet Union was actually one of the best things that could have happened to the communist cause because there is no longer an enemy or bogeyman that can be targeted. There is nothing for the “right wing” to oppose.
Rex Tillerson?
Glencore are now in Russia in a major way fronting for a group of investors (largely Qatar) and running the trading?
Exxon to follow with a potential rumored 500B opportunity?
The Trump admin is basically looking like a Koch dream along Putinesque lines: flat tax / low tax de-regulation libetarianism for oligarchs.
It seems pretty obvious that Russia would have had some interest in assisting Trump. Presumably US and Russia routinely try to have some effect on each other’s elections and power structures. There is nothing new in that. Whether it was a hack or an insider is something of a red herring. The real issues are:
1) what does this tell us about a possible major reversal in how US approaches Russia & China;
2) what Trump regime is going to look like;
3) internal US (and Western) elite split;
4) which sectors to invest in.
Freedland’s article had comments shut down very quickly, posts with the most recommendations are the ones telling the truth.
The one shred of support the Freedland article does provide is the “Maybe we helped a bit with Wikileaks” claim, made by Sergei Markov aoccording to the link in the article.
Other commentary on it says that Wikileaks has dismissed the claim with a counter-claim of “contradictory translation”.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/was-russia-cahoots-wikileaks-over-democrat-emails-maybe-we-helped-bit-admits-putin-insider-1590894
Would be interested to see more informed background on this given the extent of reliance on it.
Clinton is a disgusting creature, she should be incarcerated, along with many others of her aquaintance.
Spot on posting from Craig here, the illogic of the claims now widely disseminated in the MSM demolished, and the wider context (of ‘The West’ losing face over our miscalculations in Syria) expertly sketched out.
After a few dud posts this one reminds me why I’ve been reading Craig’s stuff with pleasure for nearly a decade (despite strongly disagreeing with his opinions on immigration and the EU).
U.S.A. and United Kingdom intelligence target airborne phone calls
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-airlines-data-surveillance-idUKKBN13W2PY
American and British spies have since 2005 been working on intercepting phone calls and data transfers made from aircraft, France’s Le Monde newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing documents from former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden.
According to the report, also carried by the investigative website The Intercept, Air France was targeted early on in the projects undertaken by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and its British counterpart, GCHQ, after the airline conducted a test of phone communication based on the second-generation GSM standard in 2007.
That test was done before the ability to use phones aboard aircraft became widespread.
Anyone not surprized.
This can mean only one thing, the fat lady will not be singing on the 20th. Trump needs to be behind bullet proof glass.
These are certainly dangerous times, as periods of significant change usually are.
Bob Dylan wrote this in 1978:
“Peace will come
With tranquillity and splendor on the wheels of fire
But will bring us no reward when her false idols fall
And cruel death surrenders with its pale ghost retreating
Between the King and the Queen of Swords”
http://bobdylan.com/songs/changing-guards/
Some false idols are surely falling, slowly but surely.
Did you see this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVXQaOhpfJU
Having been outspoken about Kissinger Nobel price he could never be seen to endorse it how ever, however you don’t want to be rude so…
Send the Patti Smith group with an all female orchestra – perfectly subverted and what a show.
Thanks I will def check it out later! Interesting perspective.
Craig, was this the journalist that rung you?
ww.damiengayle.com
If so, full credit to him!
The cockroaches like Freedland on both sides of the Atlantic are scurrying for cover. They well know this portends a massive change of paradigm.
All the talking heads in the media depend on access to establishment-approved sources for their livelihoods. When the toffs go, they’ll need to move to small local newspapers for gainful employment.
Someone should tell Jonathan to not worry, I hear there’s a job up for a cub reporter at the Watford observer.
“Cockroaches”?
Interesting to see the use on here of the same word as that once used by by some here-today-gone-tomorrow minor Israeli cabinet minister about the Palestinians (which still gets mentioned with indignation on this blog from time to time) .
Correction. Not a minor cabinet member but the head of the IDF.
“WHEN WE HAVE settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.”—Rafael Eitan, April 14, 1983
“We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel…Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours.”—Rafael Eitan, April 13, 1983
‘Eitan will be remembered as the mastermind of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and the man who ordered the bombardment of Beirut. In fact, as Gideon Levy reminded Haaretz readers, Eitan suggested bombing from the air a packed stadium in Beirut. Thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians and 650 Israeli soldiers were killed during Israel’s senseless 18-year occupation of its northern neighbor.
Along with the current Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Eitan was reprimanded by Israel’s Kahan Commission for allowing the massacre by Israeli-allied Christian Phalangist militiamen of Palestinians in Beirut’s Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. On the eve of that massacre, he promised, with ghoulish humor, that “the Phalange will organize tiny little houses for the Palestinians.” On another day he said, “It’s a pleasure to see how the Arabs are killing one another.”’
Evil personified.
http://www.wrmea.org/2005-january-february/special-report-israel-washes-away-the-sins-of-former-army-chief-of-staff-rafael-eitan.html
(Cockroach, squashed, exits stage left.)
No way, Bevs – I’m still firmly centre stage. And making up my own lines rather than lifting them from the “The SWP Primer of Marxist-Leninism”
bevin (Cockroach, squashed, exits stage left.)
Habbabkuk No way, Bevs – I’m still firmly centre stage.
Well, al least he admits to being a cockroach.
Wasn’t Eitan also the guy who recruited Jonathan Pollard to spy for Israel? (I once worked in the Naval Intelligence spaces in Suitland MD where Pollard had worked. He was not a popular guy in those spaces.)
Cumulatively you’re leaving an awful lot of clues around for someone who once said he couldn’t tell us which Oxford college he attended (allegedly) for fear of being too easily identified.. 🙂
All the more interesting that poster “El Sid” should have used the cockroach image to describe Jonathan Freedland, don’t you think?
To consider further where Trump / Brexit governments might take us take a peek at the Lords Select Committee questioning the Chair of the Office of the Budget Responsibility on the Parliamentary Channel (this past week and no doubt online and on repeat somewhere).
We currently spend circa 6% of GDP on the NHS. in 50 years it will be at best circa 8%, but factor in various alternative assumptions and it is 15 to 18%. The Chair queried whether our approach should be bottom up (looking at what we need in the NHS and providing it) or top down (looking at all of Government expenditure and reallocating priorities). It’s obviously going to be a top down reallocation. How do you sell such a change? By shocking the public through a series of candid statements and events designed to spell out how bad things are. Trump is a master and Boris is a quick learner at this. It essential appears to be Bait (wake up) and Switch (once woken you don’t get the remedy you were expecting). Libertarianism will mean only the healthy amongst the poor survive. By the way this reallocation is not going to be in 50 years, but soon.
Those who lambast Clinton and bankers and globalists ‘have a point. They have ruined things. Nonetheless you are not going to get what you want. There is no point being clever, telling the sheeple that they are asleep, that you are awake and that they need to wake up. They are waking up, but look at who is doing the waking up and ask why.
Google Freeland Hillary
Hundreds similar from way back
President Trump? There’s only one way to stop it happening | Jonathan Freedland | Opinion | The Guardian
23 September 2016
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/23/president-trump-only-one-way-stop-it-happening-hillary-clinton
He has his own website where you can see his articles for the Guardian, the JC and the NYT, where Mark Thompson ex DG of the BBC is the CEO, back to January 2015.
http://www.jonathanfreedland.com
Dont indians smelling of curry powder just keep mum?
Some interesting facts about Tillerson:
– In 2013, Tillerson was awarded the Order of Friendship by Putin.[12]
– He has contributed to George W. Bush,[4] as well as Mitt Romney in 2012 and Mitch McConnell.[35] He did not donate to Donald Trump’s campaign.[4] He donated to Jeb Bush’s campaign during the 2016 Republican primaries.[4][36
– On December 9, transition officials reported that Tillerson was the top candidate for the position surpassing Mitt Romney and David Petraeus.[39] His nomination was reportedly being advocated by Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner.[40] The evening of December 10, BBC cited NBC reports that “sources close to Mr Trump [were] … saying that Mr Tillerson is likely to be named next week” and that former UN ambassador John Bolton “will serve as his deputy”.[41]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_Tillerson
I wish Bolton will do something about his excess facial hair, reason enough for him not to be appointed and for us not to have to suffer that. Who says aesthetics are not important?
I still read the Grauniad but I view it like The Onion,
do people like Freedland write their bilge because their salary and lifestyle depend on them perpetuating the fiction or do they have a gun to their heads?
I’ve just watched the entire season 20 of South Park, they seem to have a better understanding of what is going on in Merica than any of the US news networks,
it’s worth watching, their fantasy, parallel world America is closer to reality than the mainstream talking heads,
the trope of the ‘member berries’ highlights a mass psychological trend that is sweeping the Western world where people are seeking solace in the past from the ugliness of the present,
the ‘member berries’ start to reveal their darker side in the last episode, kinda scary,
Friendland has always been an American stooge – he wrote a book about 20 years ago called “bringing home the revolution” where he (incorrectly) surmised that the American revolution was actually the British revolution relocated in America and that would should all rejoice in American culture for it frees us from the British aristocracy. I wonder if he wrote that for the CIA or if it was that daft tome that first attracted them to him.
Cohen on the other hand clearly works directly for Mossad and I don’t think they’re very kind to him.
That reference to Cohen (I assume Nick Cohen) reminded me of a question I’ve been meaning to ask on here for a while.
Some time ago I happened to re-read his “Cruel Britannia” (1999) and “Pretty Straight Guys” (200342004) and was struck by how many of his pieces could have come straight from the pen of many of the Eminences on here iro both the John Major and the first Tony Blair govts. For example, six months into the first Blair govt he was already lambasting it for a whole series of broken promises and policies in tones which would surely have (and probably did) make him the toast of the CM blog Establishment. That lambasting was all the more impressive – compared to the stuff I read on here – for having been written in a stylish, non-lunatic (for want of a better word) manner.
Yet – the references to Nick Cohen on this blog are unvaryingly hostile, even redolent of hatred.
I wonder what it was that changed the view of many about Nick Cohen?
He must have mightily upset the Eminences with something or other. Would anyone care to enlighten me?
“I wonder what it was that changed the view of many about Nick Cohen?”
A million deaths in Iraq, Libya, Syria… do you understand why that might do it?
Not a million, Bevs, but never mind.
I suspected that that might have been it.
So you are one of those who judge a person and his views exclusively on the views they held/hold about the despots Saddam Hussein, Mohammar Khaddafi and “President” Assad Jnr and never mind what they think about what goes on in the UK, their home country (and yours).
With respect, that seems obsesssive.
A lot of news over the past few years and the convictions which followed have been total lies but those who said so were dismissed as cranks. Moussaui had nothing to do with 9/11; Holmes didn’t shoot-up Aurora; nobody called Lanza shot-up Newtown; the Tsarnaev brothers didn’t bomb Boston; there was no Woolwich beheading; the Russians are not hacking America. There are others.
Innocent men have been jailed or killed to further this sinister programme. Some never existed and had to be invented.
“I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. ”
Does this not compromise the identity of the source in some way ?
Not Russian and an insider is a description which would match a lot of people.
Guy Burgess…Anthony Blunt… the list is endless.
True, but it narrows the field. Besides, I doubt C has met GB or AB recently…..
It actually narrows the field very considerably, bearing in mind that Assange is under constant surveillance, anyone meeting him (I except of course meetings with dead people) will be listed by the authorities. Who, of course, are almost certainly fully aware of the truth about these leaks, so that Craig is giving nothing away.
It excludes Seth Rich (whom some have blamed), as he was murdered before Craig’s recent trip to the U.S.
Rather, it narrows the field to someone C knows and has had contact with fairly recently. Say a bit before the leaks started to emerge. It has up until now been the case that WL does not comment AT ALL about sources, precisely to avoid a process of elimination. I’m sure TPTSB have a handful of criteria beyond our speculations, so I was surprised at this relaxation of security.