"But we have to learn to separate real stories about foreign intelligence operations with posturing used to target domestic actors while suppressing criticism of domestic politicians."
It's way more than posturing Matt. Our gov't is lying to our faces to purposely crush anyone they cannot control, and the MSM gladly rolls with it. Trump did more to expose them than anyone in my lifetime and millions of us have our eyes open now. We just want the gov't owed us by the Constitution, not the Deep State.
Matt do you ever get the feeling that your thorough debunking of this Russia nonsense is a quixotic mission? Aaron Mate must feel the same way. The propaganda machine that you are up against is really an implacable enemy to us all.
LOL. The New York Times. What a joke. That "lack of sufficient time for research" has got to be my favorite because it translates to: "Normally our readers don't have access to alternative sources of information to refute the lies fed to us by the "Intelligence" Community that we publish immediately without any fact-checking whatsoever."
The amazing thing about our Intelligence Community is that no matter how wrong they ever are, they never lose an ounce of credibility. All that really happens is allegiance to the bozos flips from one party to the other. Frank Church must be spinning in his grave.
If the stories are just there to befuddle the stupid, and evidence suggests they are, then they have no reason to stop until said stupids realize they've been lied to. No evidence of that yet, either.
Thanks for deciding to update this list on an ongoing basis. I used to work in politics and in real time almost had an aneurism when Robbie Mook first namedropped Russia as having influenced our elections. For the life of me I do not know how any foreign power could use American social media to influence our elections. We don't even know how to do that other than with straightforward political ads. Jesus could arm wrestle Satan nonstop from now until 2022 and it wouldn't move the political dial one bit.
What can you say about our media that hasn't already been said? If they want to go 'full Pravda' on a daily basis, there's nothing to stop them from doing so except their own level of embarrassment. Which quite obviously is zero--they can't be shamed because they have no shame.
Ya gotta wonder what they're continuing to get out of trying to keep these kinds of bogus stories alive. Is the Democrats preparing to "clamp down" on supposed Russian information services (read: anybody we don't like) in advance of the mid-terms because they're seeing the writing on the wall that they're not doing so well with the public? Or is it just the tabloid/clickbait mainstream media trying to keep their deluded readership from changing the channel? Either way it seems like it's desperation on somebodies part.
The whole DNC "hack" was an utter cluster, from how it was handled to how the media reported on it.
As noted in the news clip Matt included, it wasn't law enforcement that examined the DNC computers for evidence of hacking, but a private IT "forensics" company, Crowdstrike.
The DNC then gave FBI the Crowdstrike report - THAT is what the FBI, CIA, etc., were using for their supposed "Investigation."
It's as if your home or business were burglarized and your most prized possessions taken - but instead of calling the police, you called a local private investigator. Only after Rockford or Simon & Simon or Jessica or maybe even Banacek have rummaged through your house looking for clubs do you think to call the police - but when the detectives - who are, after all, highly trained in both investigating and in working with prosecutors to build a case - show up, you bar them from entering and instead give them the report you got from your PI.
That the media accepted this whole chain of events as somehow "normal" only shows how far the national media had gone off the rails in its attempts to defend its favored candidate, Clinton, from having the answer for the contents of those emails - i.e., that she (likely illegally) conspired with the DNC to gain a (likely illegal) advantage over Bernie Sanders in the primary.
And it's worth repeating - yet again - that Assange has always held that it was NOT Russians who gave Wikileaks the email dump.
“Does this mean the Russians don’t meddle? Of course not.”
What a disappointing place for this post to land.
Who are “the Russians?” “Meddle” with what? How? Do they “meddle” more or less often than other people “meddle?” Do “the Americans” “meddle” more or less often than “the Russians” “meddle?” What specific proof do we have of “the meddling” that’s currently being done by “the Russians?”
You don’t need to placate xenophobes and con artists to be Serious. It’s too late for you to be accepted as some sort of establishment mouthpiece anyway. Just be honest with your readers.
(This isn’t a personal attack, so please don’t defensively lump me with your Twitter trolls. I love the work you do, and this post is, on the whole, a useful reminder of how untrustworthy our government and establishment media are.)
So, if the DNC reported to the FBI that Russia had hacked its server, would it not be standard protocol for the FBI to seize the server, do its own forensic analysis and maintain chain of custody over it?
If the mode of transmission of the "hacked" data occurred as claimed, then the NSA would know about it according to Bill Binney, and he's a guy who would know. The fact that the NSA didn't confirm it seems telling to me.
But the most glaring hole in the narrative is the FBI's failure to follow standard law enforcement protocol. I mean, we had politicians out there blathering about the "Russian hack" thing being equivalent to an act of war so it was kinda, sorta important.
Another very recent one was the Solar Winds hack, which was breathlessly hyped as having penetrated more deeply into the bowels of US infrastructure (yes, I did have to go there) than any other previous hack; one which bore "all the hallmarks of" a state operation, which, everyone knows, means probably Russia, right?
It is *possible* that the hack was a Russian state operation. But at the time the hack was announced, there was literally no evidence for that claim whatsoever: no IP addresses, no person or outfit claiming responsibility, nothing. There wasn't even any evidence that the hacker(s) themselves were Russian PEOPLE at all, much less having any connection with the state (or "Putin," "the Kremlin," or "SVR," or whatever other lazy shorthand is typically employed).
And yet every single MSM news outlet ran it as a "Russian hack," based on the hunch of some anonymous "intelligence experts."
p.s. Have you noticed how every commentary on MSM reporting these days needs to feature a nearly-unlimited supply of "scare quotes"? Is it because they're all so "full of shit"?
"But we have to learn to separate real stories about foreign intelligence operations with posturing used to target domestic actors while suppressing criticism of domestic politicians."
It's way more than posturing Matt. Our gov't is lying to our faces to purposely crush anyone they cannot control, and the MSM gladly rolls with it. Trump did more to expose them than anyone in my lifetime and millions of us have our eyes open now. We just want the gov't owed us by the Constitution, not the Deep State.
Matt do you ever get the feeling that your thorough debunking of this Russia nonsense is a quixotic mission? Aaron Mate must feel the same way. The propaganda machine that you are up against is really an implacable enemy to us all.
LOL. The New York Times. What a joke. That "lack of sufficient time for research" has got to be my favorite because it translates to: "Normally our readers don't have access to alternative sources of information to refute the lies fed to us by the "Intelligence" Community that we publish immediately without any fact-checking whatsoever."
https://newspunch.com/new-york-times-cia-approve/
In this case approve == provide.
The amazing thing about our Intelligence Community is that no matter how wrong they ever are, they never lose an ounce of credibility. All that really happens is allegiance to the bozos flips from one party to the other. Frank Church must be spinning in his grave.
If the stories are just there to befuddle the stupid, and evidence suggests they are, then they have no reason to stop until said stupids realize they've been lied to. No evidence of that yet, either.
Thanks for deciding to update this list on an ongoing basis. I used to work in politics and in real time almost had an aneurism when Robbie Mook first namedropped Russia as having influenced our elections. For the life of me I do not know how any foreign power could use American social media to influence our elections. We don't even know how to do that other than with straightforward political ads. Jesus could arm wrestle Satan nonstop from now until 2022 and it wouldn't move the political dial one bit.
What can you say about our media that hasn't already been said? If they want to go 'full Pravda' on a daily basis, there's nothing to stop them from doing so except their own level of embarrassment. Which quite obviously is zero--they can't be shamed because they have no shame.
Ya gotta wonder what they're continuing to get out of trying to keep these kinds of bogus stories alive. Is the Democrats preparing to "clamp down" on supposed Russian information services (read: anybody we don't like) in advance of the mid-terms because they're seeing the writing on the wall that they're not doing so well with the public? Or is it just the tabloid/clickbait mainstream media trying to keep their deluded readership from changing the channel? Either way it seems like it's desperation on somebodies part.
The whole DNC "hack" was an utter cluster, from how it was handled to how the media reported on it.
As noted in the news clip Matt included, it wasn't law enforcement that examined the DNC computers for evidence of hacking, but a private IT "forensics" company, Crowdstrike.
The DNC then gave FBI the Crowdstrike report - THAT is what the FBI, CIA, etc., were using for their supposed "Investigation."
It's as if your home or business were burglarized and your most prized possessions taken - but instead of calling the police, you called a local private investigator. Only after Rockford or Simon & Simon or Jessica or maybe even Banacek have rummaged through your house looking for clubs do you think to call the police - but when the detectives - who are, after all, highly trained in both investigating and in working with prosecutors to build a case - show up, you bar them from entering and instead give them the report you got from your PI.
That the media accepted this whole chain of events as somehow "normal" only shows how far the national media had gone off the rails in its attempts to defend its favored candidate, Clinton, from having the answer for the contents of those emails - i.e., that she (likely illegally) conspired with the DNC to gain a (likely illegal) advantage over Bernie Sanders in the primary.
And it's worth repeating - yet again - that Assange has always held that it was NOT Russians who gave Wikileaks the email dump.
I trust the Russians more than I trust the US intelligence agencies and their media errand boys (and girls.)
“Does this mean the Russians don’t meddle? Of course not.”
What a disappointing place for this post to land.
Who are “the Russians?” “Meddle” with what? How? Do they “meddle” more or less often than other people “meddle?” Do “the Americans” “meddle” more or less often than “the Russians” “meddle?” What specific proof do we have of “the meddling” that’s currently being done by “the Russians?”
You don’t need to placate xenophobes and con artists to be Serious. It’s too late for you to be accepted as some sort of establishment mouthpiece anyway. Just be honest with your readers.
(This isn’t a personal attack, so please don’t defensively lump me with your Twitter trolls. I love the work you do, and this post is, on the whole, a useful reminder of how untrustworthy our government and establishment media are.)
The American media has been taken over by partisans an axe to grind and virtually no life experience.
Is there ANY update on John Durham investigation on the scam of the century -- Obama/Biden-initiated Russia-gate hoax?
So, if the DNC reported to the FBI that Russia had hacked its server, would it not be standard protocol for the FBI to seize the server, do its own forensic analysis and maintain chain of custody over it?
If the mode of transmission of the "hacked" data occurred as claimed, then the NSA would know about it according to Bill Binney, and he's a guy who would know. The fact that the NSA didn't confirm it seems telling to me.
But the most glaring hole in the narrative is the FBI's failure to follow standard law enforcement protocol. I mean, we had politicians out there blathering about the "Russian hack" thing being equivalent to an act of war so it was kinda, sorta important.
Top post features a flashing head vomiting racism?
Grampa-simpson-pivoting-out.gif
Another very recent one was the Solar Winds hack, which was breathlessly hyped as having penetrated more deeply into the bowels of US infrastructure (yes, I did have to go there) than any other previous hack; one which bore "all the hallmarks of" a state operation, which, everyone knows, means probably Russia, right?
It is *possible* that the hack was a Russian state operation. But at the time the hack was announced, there was literally no evidence for that claim whatsoever: no IP addresses, no person or outfit claiming responsibility, nothing. There wasn't even any evidence that the hacker(s) themselves were Russian PEOPLE at all, much less having any connection with the state (or "Putin," "the Kremlin," or "SVR," or whatever other lazy shorthand is typically employed).
And yet every single MSM news outlet ran it as a "Russian hack," based on the hunch of some anonymous "intelligence experts."
p.s. Have you noticed how every commentary on MSM reporting these days needs to feature a nearly-unlimited supply of "scare quotes"? Is it because they're all so "full of shit"?