This cartoon seems to me very apposite. The capacity of the mainstream media repeatedly to promote the myth that Russia caused Clinton’s defeat, while never mentioning what the information was that had been so damaging to Hillary, should be alarming to anybody under the illusion that we have a working “free media”. There are literally hundreds of thousands of mainstream media articles and broadcasts, from every single one of the very biggest names in the Western media, which were predicated on the complete nonsense that Russia had conspired to install Donald Trump as President of the United States.
I genuinely have never quite understood whether the journalists who wrote this guff believed it, whether they were cynically pumping out propaganda and taking their pay cheque, or whether they just did their “job” and chose to avoid asking themselves whether they were producing truth or lies.
I suspect the answer varies from journalist to journalist. At the Guardian, for example, I get the impression that Carole Cadwalladr is sufficiently divorced from reality to believe all that she writes. Having done a very good job in investigating the nasty right wing British Establishment tool that was Cambridge Analytica, Cadwalladr became deluded by her own fame and self-importance and decided that her discovery was the key to understanding all of world politics. In her head it explained all the disappointments of Clintonites and Blairites everywhere. She is not so high-minded however as to have refused the blandishments of the Integrity Initiative.
Luke Harding is in a different category. Harding has become so malleable a tool of the security services it is impossible to believe he is not willingly being used. It would be embarrassing to have written a bestseller called “Collusion”, the entire premiss for which has now been disproven, had Harding not made so much money out of it.
Harding’s interview with Aaron Mate of The Real News was a truly enlightening moment. The august elite of the mainstream media virtually never meet anybody who subjects their narrative to critical intellectual scrutiny. Harding’s utter inability to deal with unanticipated scepticism descends from hilarious to toe-curlingly embarrassing.
In general, since the Mueller report confirmed that $50 million worth of investigation had been unable to uncover any evidence of Russiagate collusion, the media has been astonishingly unrepentant about the absolute rubbish they have been churning out for years.
Harding and the Guardian’s story about Manafort repeatedly calling on Assange in the Ecuador Embassy is one of the most blatant and malicious fabrications in modern media history. It has been widely ridiculed, no evidence of any kind has ever been produced to substantiate it, and the story has been repeatedly edited on the Guardian website to introduce further qualifications and acknowledgements of dubious attribution, not present as originally published. But still neither Editor Katherine Viner nor author Luke Harding has either retracted or apologised, something which calls the fundamental honesty of both into question.
Manafort is now in prison, because as with many others interviewed, the Mueller investigation found he had been involved in several incidences of wrongdoing. Right up until Mueller finalised his report, media articles and broadcasts repeatedly, again and again and again every single day, presented these convictions as proving that there had been collusion with Russia. The media very seldom pointed out that none of the convictions related to collusion. In fact for the most part they related to totally extraneous events, like unrelated tax frauds or Trump’s hush-money to (very All-American) prostitutes. The “Russians” that Manafort was convicted of lobbying for without declaration, were Ukrainian and the offences occurred ten years ago and had no connection to Trump of any kind. Rather similarly the lies of which Roger Stone stands accused relate to his invention, for personal gain, of a non-existent relationship with Wikileaks.
The truth is that, if proper and detailed investigation were done into any group of wealthy politicos in Washington, numerous crimes would be uncovered, especially in the fields of tax and lobbying. Rich political operatives are very sleazy. This is hardly news, and if those around Clinton had been investigated there would be just as many convictions and of similar kinds. it is a pity there is not more of this type of work, all the time. But the Russophobic motive behind the Mueller Inquiry was not forwarded by any of the evidence obtained.
My analysis of the Steele dossier, written before I was aware that Sergei Skripal probably had a hand in it, has stood the test of time very well. It is a confection of fantasy concocted for money by a charlatan.
We should not forget at this stage to mention the unfortunate political prisoner Maria Butina, whose offence is to be Russian and very marginally involved in American politics at the moment when there was a massive witchhunt for Russian spies in progress, that makes The Crucible look like a study in calm rationality. Ms Butina was attempting to make her way in the US political world, no doubt, and she had at least one patron in Moscow who was assisting her with a view to increasing their own political influence. But nothing Butina did was covert or sinister. Her efforts to win favour within the NRA were notable chiefly because of the irony that the NRA has been historically responsible for many more American deaths than Russia.
Any narrative of which the Establishment does not approve is decried as conspiracy theory. Yet the “Russiagate” conspiracy theory – which truly is Fake News – has been promoted massively by the entire weight of western corporate and state media. “Russiagate”, a breathtaking plot in which Russia and a high profile US TV personality collude together to take control of the most militarily powerful country in the world, knocks “The Manchurian Candidate” into a cocked hat. A Google “news search” restricts results to mainstream media outlets. Such a search for the term “Russiagate” brings 230,000 results. That is almost a quarter of a million incidents of the mainstream media not only reporting the fake “Russiagate” story, but specifically using that term to describe it.
Compare that with a story which is not an outlandish fake conspiracy theory, but a very real conspiracy.
If, by contrast, you do a Google “news search” for the term “Integrity Initiative”, the UK government’s covert multi million pound programme to pay senior mainstream media journalists to pump out anti-Russian propaganda worldwide, you only get one eighth of the results you get for “Russiagate”. Because the mainstream media have been enthusiastically promoting the fake conspiracy story, and deliberately suppressing the very real conspiracy in which many of their own luminaries are personally implicated.
Furthermore – and this is a truly tremendous irony, which relates back to the cartoon at the start – only two of the top ten news results for “Integrity Initiative” come from the Western corporate media.
And this next fact comes nearly into the “too good to be true” category for my argument. Those two MSM mentions, from Sky News and the Guardian, do not complain of the covert anti-Russian propaganda campaign that is the Integrity Initiative. They rather complain that it was an alleged “Russian hack” that made the wrongdoing public!! You could not make it up, you really could not.
According to the mainstream media, it is not Hillary Clinton’s fault for conspiring with the DNC to cheat Bernie out of the nomination, it is Russia’s fault for allegedly helping to reveal it. It is not the British government’s, or their media collaborators’, fault for running a covert propaganda scheme to dupe the public of the UK and many other countries, it is the Russians’ fault for allegedly helping to reveal it!
Which brings us full circle to the DNC leak that sparked Muellergate and the claims that it was the Russians who lost Hillary the election. Robert Mueller repeats the assertion from the US security services that it was Russian hackers who obtained the DNC emails and passed them on to Wikileaks. I am telling you from my personal knowledge that this is not true.
Neither Mueller’s team, not the FBI, nor the NSA, nor any US Intelligence agency, has ever carried out any forensic analysis on the DNC’s servers. The DNC consistently refused to make them available. The allegation against Russia is based purely on information from the DNC’s own consultants, Crowdstrike.
William Binney, former Technical Director of the NSA (America’s US$40 billion a year communications intercept organisation), has proven beyond argument that it is a technical impossibility for the DNC emails to have been transmitted by an external hack – they were rather downloaded locally, probably on to a memory stick. Binney’s analysis is fully endorsed by former NSA systems expert Ed Loomis. There simply are no two people on the planet more technically qualified to make this judgement. Yet, astonishingly, Mueller refused to call Binney or Loomis (or me) to testify. Compare this, for example, with his calling to testify my friend Randy Credico, who had no involvement whatsoever in the matter, but Mueller’s team hoped to finger as a Trump/Assange link.
Randy Emerges From His Evidence Session Displaying A Great Taste in Reading Material
The DNC servers have never been examined by intelligence agencies, law enforcement or by Mueller’s team. Binney and Loomis have written that it is impossible this was an external hack. Wikileaks have consistently stressed no state actor was involved. No evidence whatsoever has been produced of the transfer of the material from the “Russians” to Wikileaks. Wikileaks Vault 7 release of CIA documents shows that the planting of false Russian hacking “fingerprints” is an established CIA practice. Yet none of this is reflected at all by Mueller nor by the mainstream media.
“Collusion” may be dead, but the “Russiagate” false narrative limps on.
I should add it seems to me very probable Russia did make some efforts to influence the US election. I worked a a British diplomat for 20 years and spent a lot of time trying to influence political outcomes in the country in which I was posted, in Eastern Europe and in Africa. It is part of the geopolitical game. The United States is of course the world leader by a long way in attempting to influence elections abroad, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to that effect in countries including Ukraine, Georgia, Ecuador and Venezuela recently, and pretty well everywhere in Africa. It is a part of normal diplomatic life.
Mueller uncovered some high level influence-broking meetings. This is what states do. He uncovered some sleazy deals. This is what rich people do. He uncovered some US $110,000 of Facebook ad spending from Russia targeted on the USA, some of which promoted sex toys, some of which was post-election, but some of which was apparently trying to assist Trump against Clinton. Compared to the amount the USA pumps into similar arms length assistance to Putin opponents in Russia alone, it was negligible. That this tiny bit of Facebook advertising crucially impacted the US $13,000,000,000 PR campaigns of the candidates is a ludicrous proposition.
That every country stay out of every other country’s politics is arguably desirable. It is not however the status quo, and the United States is in the worst position of all to complain.
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Then there is the media reliance on outfits like Bellingcat. Here is an enquiry into the identity of one of their researchers. Not Eliot himself, but a Dutch acolyte. Article ends with the despairing “how desperate do the Dutch investigators and the JIT have to be to rely on such shoddy material produced by amateurs”. Media are complicit too, though.
https://www.voltairenet.org/article205870.html
@ “Scott” and “Brian c”
Well, “Paul” is a monthly contributor. Are you ?
Yes I am, are you?? Also, why do you praise Paul for his snide question but ignore Craig’s answer. Maybe I’m misjudging you, but you appear to be a prize arse,
Bladdie (not the Cyrillic phonetic spelling (as in Vladdie Vostock – must be his home town) is an arse (but prefers to be known by the US spelling – ass).
:
“Maybe I’m misjudging you, but you appear to be a prize arse,”
– No misjudgement whatever; you have the slippery Bostick banged to rights.
.
@Charles, I make a small contribution monthly. I am sincerely interested in your opinion on what financial model is preferred to support independent news publishers.
I imagine you are also a monthly contributor, from the frequency of your posts here. Otherwise, why on earth would you bother?
Now that’s an interesting theory : frequent contributors are financial contributors. Allow me to express some doubt there, I find it very difficult to imagine certain very frequent contributors to this blog dipping their hands into their pockets even to the tune of £2 a month.
You will be the first in line of such freeloaders.
😉
Charles
When in a hole , stop digging.
:
¡Do not give Yamamoto good advice, FFS!
I hate social Darwinists (pre-requisite for fascism and NAZIsm), don’t you?
.
I think the illusion that journalists actually seek to inform and enlighten is a childish construct which needed dimping 20 years ago. There is no question any longer of any MSM organ rocking the boat, publishing govt/SS/military/banking malfeasance. They are there as brainwashers, misdirecters and highlighting of malfeasance in nations the West wishes to conquer.
The whole Russiagate/Muellergobbling nonsense has been two years of Russophobia, misdirection and conveniently ignoring AIPAC as a major playing in subverting US Representative democracy.
AIPAC is by far the biggest perverter of US Representatives, be they in Congress, the Senate, or Presidential hopefuls. They conduct not a beauty contest but an arselicking one. They expect grovelling arselickers to buy their support through subverting US interests to those of Israel and Zionists. Have you come across a single outoken critic of Israel being elected in the US? There should be 30+ Senators and 30%+ of all Congressional Representatives capable of being elected on such a platform if elections are free and fair in the USA. Quite clearly, they are neither.
In the USA, you are quite free to have whatever sex you want. It is just that if you choose forms demonstrating independence and freedom of spirit, you will end up being destroyed on Social Media.
The same with US politics. You can have Republicans supporting Israel or Democrats supporting Israel. You cannot choose someone who forcefully, through legally scceptable channels, calls Israel a rogue state and produces thousands of pages of rigorous research to corrobate such hard-hitting claims.
“I think the illusion that journalists actually seek to inform and enlighten is a childish construct which needed [dumping] 20 years ago”.
I wouldn’t go so far by any means. There have always been opposing forces acting on journalists and editors – just as they do on doctors, nurses, treachers, scientists, professors, soldiers and politicians. Simplistically, there are forces of altruism and forces of selfishness.
What has happened – and what has reached a point in the past 20 years that is impossible to overlook – is that the forces of selfishness have become stronger and stronger, while the forces of altruism have been vilified and discouraged until they have shrunk to the last defensive perimeter – the individual conscience. Not so many of us are able to stick to what we think is right, when by doing what is wrong we can become rich and celebrated, admired and even loved. Families and friends want the good things of life – which are continually flaunted before their eyes on TV and other media – and don’t understand why a person would sacrifice their well-being to what, after all, may seem no more than self-indulgent idealism unworthy of a “grown-up”.
In 1851 Robert Lowe, an editorial writer at The Times, could write:
“The first duty of the press is to obtain the earliest and most correct intelligence of the events of the time, and instantly, by disclosing them, to make them the common property of the nation… The Press lives by disclosures… For us, with whom publicity and truth are the air and light of existence, there can be no greater disgrace than to recoil from the frank and accurate disclosure of facts as they are. We are bound to tell the truth as we find it, without fear of consequences – to lend no convenient shelter to acts of injustice and oppression, but to consign them at once to the judgment of the world”.
But only a few decades later, the Scottish-American journalist and newspaper publisher John Swinton (1829–1901) told a gathering of journalists that:
“There is no such a thing in America as an independent press, unless it is out in country towns. You are all slaves. You know it, and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to express an honest opinion. If you expressed it, you would know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid $150 for keeping honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for doing similar things. If I should allow honest opinions to be printed in one issue of my paper, I would be like Othello before twenty-four hours: my occupation would be gone. The man who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the street hunting for another job. The business of a New York journalist is to distort the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread, or for what is about the same — his salary. You know this, and I know it; and what foolery to be toasting an “Independent Press”! We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping-jacks. They pull the string and we dance. Our time, our talents, our lives, our possibilities, are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes”.
Although what you imply is that journalism has always been like this, I personally think that the real rot started in the 2003 when the ‘Allies’ or whatever they were called at the time decided to ‘imbed’ journalists into the advancing military adventure. The journalist, instead of being outside observers became one of the boys seeing the action one sidedly from inside and enjoy this and the perks that went with them.
Yes, 2003. Also when Dr Kelly died and the whole upper management of the BBC was decimated.
It started with Iraq in the early 90s.
Embedded journalists.
Tom Welsh; your third paragraph:
– “What has happened – and what has reached a point in the past 20 years that is impossible to overlook – is that the forces of selfishness have become stronger and stronger, while the forces of altruism have been vilified and discouraged until they have shrunk to the last defensive perimeter – the individual conscience.”
Absolutely. The triumph of selfishness and individualism.
Much overlooked on this matter is the rise of New Age hippydom and its slavish dedication to individualism; solipsism – we each create our own reality. Health – obsession with individual diet. Opinion – all opinions must be equally respected and there is no such thing as fact.
New Age hippydom gets overlooked because it neither presents itself nor appears to be a political ideology. But the Blairs were new Age hippies. WMDs in Iraq? Well if I believe it, it’s true. Vast medical vaccine conspiracy? Could be, could be; science is just another belief system; better to trust Mother Nature. Etc.
Acceptance of fact is the root of humility. The path has to be –
TRUTH, Justice, Peace.
‘It would be embarrassing to have written a bestseller called “Collusion”, the entire premiss for which has now been disproven, had Harding not made so much money out of it’.
This is a perfect example of what Caitlin Johnstone has been saying, that for most ordinary citizens narrative is far more important than facts; and indeed that facts contrary to the preferred narrative are simply ignored.
Harding’s book, as Craig points out, consists almost entirely of allegations that are now seen to be untrue. But then, so is “The Lord of the Rings” – and millions of people still enjoy it.
It would be embarrassing if you were, unlike Luke Harding, a serious journalist. But if you are a paid shill then you would still be laughing all the way to the bank.
Not to forget that the man who is CEO of Random House, the publisher of Luke Harding, sits on the International Advisory Committee of the Atlantic Council. Markus Dohle.
They control the culture we are allowed to see.
It will be russophobic for some time whether or not Luke Harding is a success or a failure.
‘Marr: “How can you know that I’m self-censoring? How can you know that journalists are…”
‘Chomsky: “I’m not saying you’re self censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you’re saying. But what I’m saying is that if you believed something different, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting”’.
– Transcript of interview between Noam Chomsky and Andrew Marr (Feb. 14, 1996) https://scratchindog.blogspot.com/2015/07/transcript-of-interview-between-noam.html
Jeremn,
That is interesting to me, because Random House bought up my independent publisher, Mainstream. They immediately cancelled publication of The Catholic Orangemen of Togo on the rather weak basis of legal threats from mercenary commander Tim Spicer, and then they stopped printing Murder in Samarkand, even though it was selling rather well at the time,
I think they call themselves Penguin Random House since 2013 when Dohle also became CEO. He was a Bertelsmann man. A surprise pick, apparently. A man who reportedly said the following when asked about the books he was proudest to publish:
” … publishing titles that add deeply to the cultural or political discourse has become especially important to him. He chose the memoir by former US first lady Michelle Obama, called Becoming, due out in November. Dohle also mentioned On Tyranny, by Timothy D. Snyder, The future Is History, by Masha Gessen, Democracy in Chains, by Nancy MacLean, and Collusion, by Luke Harding, all published last year.”
You get the idea. Snyder, Gessen, Harding, Obama.
He still is a Bertelsmann man. On the board of directors no less. Never underestimate the power of f*cking Bertelsmann.
They run Germany through their “Stiftung” think tank. Through their publishing power they control political discourse, define acceptability of opinion and culture, and have been the main force behind privatisations and the complete neoliberal takeover of the country. Through another sub company, “Arvato”, they are responsible for scanning the German internet for all things “fake”, “hate” and “conspiracy” on behalf of the government. If Liz Mohn, the black widow behind this mongrel company/foundation, says “jump”, the entire Merkel government literally gets out their jump ropes. They don’t pay taxes either, and through Germany they run EU-Europe, by the way. All in all it is a very evil private entity, that should have been smashed into a million pieces decades ago.
There’s lot’s of good solid indie publishers from Pluto Press to Comma Press.
That is disgusting. The least they could have done was to honour Mainstream’s former commitments, in fact Mainstream’s lawyers should have insisted on it. Perhaps the package was too good to argue for Mainstream’s authors. Of course if you were the only one you would have a case in law. Did you check if there were others? Is it possible to check?
Craig,
This may be nothing more than coincidence, but your Random House observation prompted this memory of Gail Rebuck, (now Dame Gail Rebuck), for 30 years a senior figure in that business and a prominent supporter of Tony Blair and New Labour.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gail_Rebuck
https://global.penguinrandomhouse.com/profile/dame-gail-rebuck-cbe/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9962803/Tony-Blair-puts-his-faith-in-Gail-Rebuck.html
She is the widow of one of the key architects of New Labour, Baron Philip Gould:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Gould,_Baron_Gould_of_Brookwood
Gould, after a modest advertising career, set up his “polling and strategy” company in 1985, the same year his old friend Peter Mandelson was appointed by Neil Kinnock to head Labour HQ communications.
The pair formed the Shadow Communications Agency
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/8873520/Philip-Gould-architect-of-New-Labour-and-close-aide-to-Tony-Blair.html
with the help of with Alastair Campbell (then on the Maxwell Mirror payroll), Patricia Hewitt (Kinnock’s PR) and Deborah Mattinson
http://britainthinks.com/team/deborah-mattinson
Mattinson, like Blair, Campbell and Mandelson was dismissive of the only pollster to get the 2017 election right:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3LBoyWWo8I
Hewitt is little in evidence these days
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Hewitt
but Mandelson, Campbell and Mattinson are still regular media critics of Jeremy Corbyn more than 30 years later.
One of Rebuck’s daughters, another Corbyn critic, is leader of Camden Council:
https://www.thejc.com/news/news-features/camden-council-leader-georgia-gould-on-her-jewish-upbringing-and-her-life-in-politics-1.463154
Does this prompt any further thoughts, I wonder?
Gail Rebuck, married to Philip Gould, BLiar’s ‘favourite strategist’, published BLiar’s autobiography, A Journey, when she headed Random House.
How Gail Rebuck turned Tony Blair’s book into a bestseller
The boss of Random House on the former prime minister’s memoirs
13 Sep 2010
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/sep/13/gail-rebuck-tony-blair-random-house
BLair turned a pretty penny on the venture. I bet most copies have been binned.
I wasn’t aware of Atlantic council connection. I guess it explains the peculiar choice of quote for these posters. Anything goes as long as it feeds into anti-russian narrative.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/07/penguin-accused-of-misusing-ivan-turgenev-in-anti-russian-ad-campaign
“The United States is of course the world leader by a long way in attempting to influence elections abroad, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to that effect in countries including Ukraine, Georgia, Ecuador and Venezuela recently…”
Actually $4 billion in Ukraine alone (up to the start of 2014), unless we are to believe that Victoria Nuland would lie about such an important matter as money.
As the following authoritative source reveals, that $4 billion of which Nuland boasted is actually more than the total amount spent by all presidential and congressional candidates in the 2015-16 US election cycle. A most significant indicator of Washington’s priorities, which value the imposition of a chosen government on Ukraine at a higher rate than the election of the entire US executive and legislative branches.
https://www.fec.gov/updates/statistical-summary-24-month-campaign-activity-2015-2016-election-cycle/
There is a story in the Hill today about Joe Biden and his son’s business deals in Ukraine which makes one wonder whether the US taxpayers’ $4 billion wasn’t spent to facilitate private plunder for those Americans close to power.
It more or less always is I am afraid.
:
… and Prickly point …. but …
no greater a plunderer of Ukraine (& the drunken Quisling Yeltsin’s Russia) than your pal George Soros, well not yet.
“Soros makes no bones about the interventionist nature of his role in Ukraine. At one point, he remarked, jocularly, “If this isn’t meddling in the affairs of a foreign nation, I don’t know what is!” …Connie Bruck, The World According to Soros, The New Yorker, 23 Jan ’95, p. 70.”
And Soros was almost certainly the greatest beneficiary of the billions plundered from Ukraine and Russia during the Yeltsin nightmare.
.
“Creepy Uncle Joe” is finished. Weird how these stories pop up all together.
Alexander
Yes, it seems as though the US (Biden) threatened to pull $1 billion in US loan guarentees, if Poroschenko didn’t get rid of the prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden’s business activities.
I suppose that the US/Obama/Biden/Nuland connections to the regime in Kiev are not important?
Meanwhile – Russia, Russia, Russia everywhere you look.
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/436816-joe-bidens-2020-ukrainian-nightmare-a-closed-probe-is-revived
Could I ask for thoughts on Duncan Campbell’s article on hack versus leak.
Shouldn’t the title be
“The Blatant lies of the ruling class and their press lackeys”?
I think the answer is that our mainstream media work virtually hand in glove with the American intelligence agencies. Look at their lies about Brexit and Corbyn too. If the journalists had really been merely incompetent they wouldn’t maintain their jobs for years.
Sections of the MSM in the US blinded by their hatred for Trump. He’s loud, uncouth; ineloquent, politically incorrect; not their intellectual equal as they see it. Tbh , I don’t think they give a fig whether any it was true or not, they’re simply consumed by rage that he was ever elected. But elected he was and he’s favourite to be re-elected , kinda proving it was no Russia-assisted fluke.
It’s a similar thing here with Corbyn and the antisemitism nonsense. The fact that upheld complaints amount to less than 1 in a 1000 members is rarely mentioned because it doesn’t sit with the ‘widespread’ antisemitism narrative.
This is why H.R.C. ‘lost’?
“And it’s deadly. Doubtless, Crosscheck delivered Michigan to Trump who supposedly “won” the state by 10,700 votes. The Secretary of State’s office proudly told me that they were “very aggressive” in removing listed voters before the 2016 election. Kobach, who created the lists for his fellow GOP officials, tagged a whopping 417,147 in Michigan as potential double voters.”
http://www.gregpalast.com/trump-picks-al-capone-vote-rigging-investigate-federal-voter-fraud/
Who actually, really gives a rats if Russia had given Wikileaks the information.
We know it’s not true, and if it was ‘Bravo Russia, can you dish some dirt on the UK!’
So America has transformed into SpartUSA and most of the population are Chumps for believing in RussiaGate.
So their chumps, can get with our chumps and have a chump fest. Oh, and by our chumps, I mean the people who have just been hoodwickined into wasting 2+yrs acting with fake digust around Brexit.
You know, there are actually still people who want to be in the EU Empire:
EU parliament recognises Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president after formal vote
That one vote alone, a vote to side with SpartUSA against a country which is socialist and cannot be tolerated, which also had some really nice high grade oil should be enough.
If that isn’t enough to question your support of being in the EU, then I would suggest your moral compass if fucked!
I’ve not followed it . But wasn’t it reported that it was a phishing email link someone clicked on – redirected them to fake login page to nab their password etc? ‘Hacking’ sounds sensationalist, given that’s a low hanging fruit approach. You’d think campaigns would have better two factor authentication practices in place, given the sensitive nature of emails.
On a point of fact : Venezuelan crude is anything else but high grade.
My bad,
meant heavy grade, hence its high costs in processing
Bernie for president 2020. He stated that there was much in Venezuela to criticise, but that democracy must be respected. He has stated he would not support Guaido over the president chosen by the Venezuelan people. The world needs Bernie…..
TFS
How can we find out if our MEP voted to recognise Random Guydo?
The Podesta emails weren’t even that decisive. I remember Hillary having a 7-10 pts lead after them. Far more important was James Comey’s intervention : reopening of the investigation into whether Hillary used her private email server for sending/receiving classified information. This played into the ‘lock her up’ narrative of Trump’s campaign rallies, it dropped her numbers to level in the polls or slightly behind. If you remember after the election Trump warmly received Comey at the WH.
Humbert Wolfe summed British ‘journalism’ best, “though his works are little read today, the following epigram from The Uncelestial City continues to be widely known and quoted:
You cannot hope
to bribe or twist,
thank God! the
British journalist.
But, seeing what
the man will do
unbribed, there’s
no occasion to”.
They are of the same ruling class mindset and that’s how they ‘earn’ their lucrative well being. Might be different in other countries where the dollar crosses palms, to keep peddling pro US imperialism, anti communist anti soviet bull. ‘Winning’ the ideological war comes at a vast expense, which the ruling class has always been prepared to pay handsomely. If it gets too close for comfort there’s always the Zinoviev letter to discredit people and movement. But more and more they’ve been rumbled and most don’t believe the rubbish they write which id why sales of news print has tumbled. Hence the ‘free’ papers in London in an attempt to keep churning out garbage. Hacks on the other hand do believe the rubbish they write as it’s their opinion/interpretation of events. Their opinions never really get put to the test, as they mostly hide away from public scrutiny, and when they appear of TV their ‘opinions’ are never really scrutinised by the same media types.
They mark their own homework very much like MPs do when on TV. That is unless a person is not quite on ‘message’ i.e saying something outside the accepted narrative or is a maverick, so they get harangued, bullied and belittled. Diane Abbotts on question time springs to mind.
Russiaphobia is the new Nazi blame game to try and deflect from what the ruling class is doing and the state of the country and what is happening in the wider world. Islamophobia is the same side of the same coin as Russiaphobia. Waging wars, either abroad or at home, is a tricky business so having a scapegoat helps as is dictatorial draconian measures, against the people of this country, contained in the Counter Terrorism and Border \Security Act.
You only have to witness the hacks attempts to explain Brexit and what is happening to know the depth of their knowledge. Which is shallow and unintelligible. But they still hang around like a bad smell because they are needed by the ruling class to keep hold of power.
Tarla,
Sorry to rain on your parade, but those lines from Wolfe are very well known on here – some Jimmy or other posts them roughly every two weeks (probably thinking he’s come out with a first).
Oh really? In all the years I’ve been reading Craig, I think I’ve seen it cited once.
Seconded.
I am sincerely amazed that anyone has had not only the time and energy to read all of the comments on Craig’s posts over the past years, but is also able to remember and compare them, especially when in the olden days they were unthreaded, increasing the effect of a room full of grumpy old men (and a few joyless women) shouting at one another. Well done!
Iain
Oh, most of the comments on here are little miracles of wisdom, knowledge and judgement, it’s an absolute pleasure to read them all and to record the best of them for future reference. The pleasure more than makes up for the energy expended.
Is it ‘an absolute pleasure’ to read this? Again?
https://sci.military.naval.narkive.com/FTvqJctD/brigadier-general-says-israel-is-the-problem-not-iran
Does it qualify as ‘ a miracle of wisdom, knowledge and judgement’?
“some Jimmy”, some Charlie ?
Bostock.
For your benefit I’ll cite it again,
You cannot hope
to bribe or twist,
thank God! the
British journalist.
But, seeing what
the man will do
unbribed, there’s
no occasion to”.
Just like a good old song, it gets better and better with age. Sorry to rain on your parade but it’s still relevant when talking about the sycophantic MSM. Just as it relevant to talk about the state controlled state funded BBC even if that’s mentioned every other post.
Tarla
Iain was mixing up CM blog with May ‘s cabinet. While Charles rubs brown boot polish into the woodworm holes of the long disintegrated Briitish empire.
Wanna buy an antique cabinet?
Am I bid £5?
:
£5?
Nah. No pictures of a deeply racist genocidal twat wanted here; Tens and twenties only please.
.
Great writeup, but you got the Butina story wrong. She was not trying to “attempting to make her way in the US political world” but trying to procure American help to start a pro-gun movement in Russia. And, incidentally, she had significant contacts with anti-Putin figures like the white supremacist Navalny. So this was actually a case of AMERICAN meddling in Russian politics.
The propaganda campaign against Trump has been astounding – and I guess Craig knows all about hostile Press. Not just the MSM – I think alt-media, which is increasingly being co-opted by various interests – faux-alt, if you will
Trump was a darling of the Media and apparently a liberal, until he was a serious contender. People who see him as literally the “next Hitler” have been brainwashed (despite often thinking of themselves as free and independent thinkers)
You don’t have to like the man; you don’t have to agree with his politics, but this is the truth.
Not sure anyone really knows what “alt-right” and “alt-media” represent – except that the latter rarely throws around the term without evidence (if genuine).
As ever, individual thought, questioning group-think and establishment tropes is either stifled, smeared, bought out, or assimilated
– “Trump was a darling of the Media and apparently a liberal, until he was a serious contender.”
Celebs are just raw material for producers, who instruct the directors and editors what product to make. But the production team lose control when a headstrong celeb becomes a top politician; they can’t so reliably edit out the unsavoury bits any more. It’s a double-whammy – not only have the producers lost control, their previous manipulation of image is exposed.
The media have power in their own right, and Trump turned from one of their assets into a rival, hence the demonisation.
Well before The Apprentice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5lcART6TTE From 2016
(This may be the same clip) https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4687219/jesse-jackson-introducing-donald-trump
I also thought you might be mentioning something about conspiracy theories at this point 😉
* not from 2016, bad c & p
What I think is strange is how weak Russia respond to the accusations they are attacked with (not necesarily related to Muellergate).
Do they not care or could be the purpose?
How do you respond to idiots.
:
What responsibilty does Russia have to respond? Answer: NONE.
A point of slight? disagreement I have with Craig, in a similar way: What responsibilty does Russia have to explain the detailed provenances of the two (probable) tourists the West alleges were responsible for the Salisbury “attacks”? Answer: NONE. Craig seems to disagree with this, whereas I believe that Russia owes “us” nothing, ‘cepting a few good guffaws.
.
And next week: ‘Venezuela behind cyber attacks on brittish electric grid’, week after that ‘Syrian agents operating in the UK, bombplot revealed’.
Sadly people believe this warmongering psy. op.
Luke Harding is a prize ass. I watched that interview with Aaron Mate and Harding only proved his assholery many times over. He was like a little child threatening to hold his breath until he turned blue when confronted with facts. It was embarrassing.
Harding looks amateurish and repeatedly makes the point that it’s the kind of thing that the Russians would do without actually offering anything resembling evidence. Something which you’d think necessary when writing a book on it.
I’m prepared to respect journalists who write that which I disagree with but at least research and investigate. Harding doesn’t meet that criteria, he really IS a “teller of stories” but not a journalist…
Oh for gawd’s sake – and Carolyn – he’s part of the establishment “disinformation” machinery. He’s no ass, no fool and has connections.
:
Damned good article. I think all the internet topological node mapping stuff from the preceding topic would probably not have been icing on the cake, but an unnecessary complication to a more than adequate treatment.
.
Craig, with reference to your previous post about topology, not sure if you’ve seen this – https://pyt.azureedge.net/?
It’s not quite the same thing, however obviously I think there will be some decent correlation between wider political views (via Youtube) and this particular issue.
(It also overturns the myth that YT is overrun with the alt-right as a bonus.)
Craig, are you sure that Assange did not use you to fabricate an alternative fact on the conveyance of the DNC mails that he may well have in fact received from The Russians. Assange is a pretty wily character and an expert in covering his tracks.
It is perfectly possible that he received that info from the Russians, but not in a conspiracy with Trump. Even your cartoonist seems to believe that Russia was the source of the emails.
Binney retired in 2001. Technology has evolved manifold since then, which makes him an exteremely unreliable and dubious witness.
“Binney retired in 2001. Technology has evolved manifold since then, which makes him an exteremely unreliable and dubious witness.”
I wouldn’t go so far as to call the FAT filesystem ‘technology’; it’s more a –unfortunately ubiquitous– abomination; it has hardly ever evolved.
TCP/IP in essence has hardly evolved since 2001; indeed speeds have increased, and network speeds have been addressed by Binney and his critics, though unsuccesful, in my view.
But you don’t even address Binney’s analysis at all — which analysis is excellent; instead your approach is in one fell swoop smearing Binney, Assange, and Russia.
:
Well, it’s possible that the commenter ‘Observer’ is associated with the Brit. “news”paper of the same name – sister paper to that piece of fish & chip wrap and arse-wipe Guardian.
.
Observer, Craig met the person who leaked the e-mails:
– 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.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/10/cia-concludes-russia-interfered-to-help-trump-win-election-report
The Daily Mail seemed to embellish the story a bit, having Craig transfer paper copies personally, which isn’t what Craig says, but he did meet the leaker in Washington:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4034038/Ex-British-ambassador-WikiLeaks-operative-claims-Russia-did-NOT-provide-Clinton-emails-handed-D-C-park-intermediary-disgusted-Democratic-insiders.html
And bj is right, the FAT filing system used on USB memory devices predates Windows 98; it was introduced in 1996:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table#FAT32
This info should be more widely spread. Outside of the UK few read the Daily Mail, while the Guardian lost most of its credibility.
Duncan Campbell has written a long article purporting to show that the DNC was hacked and Russia did the hacking. William Binney has accepted at least some of his findings. I am no techie. Has anyone produced a rebuttal of the technical substance of his article (the narrative assumes the truth of several things unproven or false, but this does affect the technicalities).
So the US puppet and imposter (Guaido) in Venezuela went into Maduro’s heartlands protesting about the democratically elected president. The Great Satan’s illegal usurper was hoping to get arrested, which wouldve sparked a international cry by the US to send forces to rescue their puppet.
What actually happened was that the genuine presidents (Maduro) troops/police protected Guaido from the baying mob, who know fine well what Guaido is.
So much for Venezuela being ran as a murderous dictatorship, as claimed by the Great Satan.
https://www.rt.com/news/455308-guaido-police-caracas-rally-venezuela/
I like how Pepe Escobar only calls him “president random dude” .. 🙂
Sturgeon to be lured into May’s trap.
Theresa May to hold emergency Brexit talks with STURGEON to prep for no deal
SCOTLAND’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is to travel to London to meet Theresa May for Brexit talks, including no deal preparations – just one day after warning the Prime Minister’s offer to ask for an Article 50 extension could be a trap.
Don’t see any appreciable danger for Sturgeon. An invitation to talks was extended to Corbyn on the basis that Corbyn is supportive of Brexit. This does not apply to Sturgeon, therefore, Theresa will issue a brusque “not your business, go back to jocko land” and Nicola will leave with a propaganda coup.
Meanwhile, Theresa will offer up non Fairtrade coffee to Jeremy and he will flounce off in Socialist solidarity with the coffee pickers of Guatemala.
Michael.
No deal Sturgeon calls indyref.
Sturgeon agrees with May, on the basis of holding a second indyref.
Either way its a win win for Sturgeon.
RoS
good for Nicola.
I wonder if anybody knows what is going on?
The PM was paying tribute to NATO at the start of PMQs today, saying that it has kept 1billion people safe. Not these people in Yugoslavia in 1999 though.
In 1999, it was Yugoslavia in the crosshairs of the imperialists, now it’s Venezuela
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/455256-yugoslavia-nato-crosschairs-venezuela/
Neil Clark
That action ‘not only lacked a mandate from the United Nations Security Council, but was also in breach of NATO’s own charter.’
Blair was PM and the NATO Secretary General was Javier Solana at the time. Robertson succeeded him in October 1999.
Blair went on tor destroy Iraq and Solana to head the EU Council as Secretary General. Enough said.
https://www.g-l-f.org/index.cfm?id=82400
Solana has many other interests, mostly involving the gangsters-in-charge.
http://www.silkroad-finance.com/en/our-team/
He is apparently worried about an arms race. What hypocrisy.
https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/talktojazeera/2019/02/javier-solana-arms-race-europe-worried-190215125620684.html
What the Integrity Initiative attacks on Corbyn leads to:
Video has emerged of soldiers on a shooting range in Kabul firing at a target of Jeremy Corbyn. MOD confirms it as legit:
https://twitter.com/AliBunkallSKY/status/1113352300037398528
So british soldiers are in Afghanistan…. and they practice shoot at…an image of Corbyn.
Once again we are reminded what kind of scums that often join the army.
Jack, that is because Jeremy Corbyn does not want new nuclear submarines or New Nuclear bombs.
Nuclear submarines: MoD criticised over submarine disposal
Yes, (Corbyn) making the world safer is provocative according to these sharp shooters. Do they want to march against a certain nuclear death perhaps?
It’s about soldier F facing a prosecution for Bloody Sunday. Some factions (fictions) are trying to suggest Corbyn was a sympathiser for terrorism, and therefore enemy of the British army. These are dangerous lies. Rule of law should include justice and responsibility. Soldiers should follow orders, but if the orders given are crimes then those alleged crimes should face investigation. Corbyn has nothing to do with it
Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesperson has confirmed that it is Labour policy to end freedom of movement once the UK leaves the EU.
https://labourlist.org/2019/04/labour-confirms-it-wants-to-end-freedom-of-movement/
And another one bites the dust, that’s three in three days.
Brexit minister Chris Heaton-Harris says Bye Bye.
“Russiagate” can now be replaced with “Russiahypegate”.