The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby liminalOyster » Wed May 02, 2018 6:26 pm

Rory » Wed May 02, 2018 5:51 pm wrote:
Kanye, is a Russian Plot Twist, in this evergreen insane conspiracy


What a nutter.

Eric Garland Has Blown Our Cover
Tom McKay
1/07/18 3:30pmFiled to: DEZINFORMATSIYA

Товарищи,

Terrible news. Project Gizmodnik, our brilliant plan to secretly infiltrate the U.S. tech media for the glorification of Matushka Rossiya’s Great Leader Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump and/or the destruction of global capitalism*, has been compromised by American “super spy” Eric Garland.

Fellow deep cover Russian operatives, you may remember Garland as the self-declared intelligence expert who rose to Twitter fame by posting incomprehensible strings of emoji-laden, amphetamine-stoked conspiracy theories blaming our motherland for every single event leading to Trump’s election. (He also fell, hard, for the internet meme claiming the White House created a TV program for Trump called the “Gorilla Channel.”) But we have underestimated this man, to our great embarrassment.

Yes, working only from New York Times writer Mike Isaac’s decision to tweet an article from our sister site Splinter questioning the credibility of Michael Wolff’s book on Trump (thanks, Mike), Garland has uncovered an elaborate narrative in which Gizmodo Media Group is working in collusion with Univision, Peter Thiel, Jorge Ramos, unidentified media executives, and Daddy Trump himself to... something something... Russian disinformation operations. (Thiel secretly funded a lawsuit that led to the bankruptcy of Gizmodo’s former owner Gawker Media.)

It’s all very smart and devious and you probably wouldn’t understand how or why we went to the effort of... something something... Gorilla Channel... Russia... Trump.

The above is only an excerpt from the full Gizmodo piece:
https://gizmodo.com/eric-garland-has-bl ... 1821856127



ps edit: Ironically, it appears that Kanye was in Moscow meeting with some avant Russian designer the week after the election in 2016: Kanye West Meets Up With Russia’s Most Radical Designer in Moscow NOVEMBER 15, 2016 7:27 AM
"It's not rocket surgery." - Elvis
User avatar
liminalOyster
 
Posts: 1873
Joined: Thu May 05, 2016 10:28 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby bks » Fri May 04, 2018 8:07 am

Identifies some important aspects of the ground-shifting now well underway in the UK. title's a little breathless, but the mechanics of journalism as propaganda are spot on. Poodles once again.

https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2018 ... g-fiction/

2018: When Orwell’s 1984 stopped being fiction

4 May 2018

This is the moment when a newspaper claiming to uphold that most essential function in a liberal democracy – acting as a watchdog on power – formally abandons the task. This is the moment when it positively embraces the role of serving as a mouthpiece for the government. The tell is in one small word in a headline on today’s Guardian’s front page: “Revealed”.

When I trained as a journalist, we reserved a “Revealed” or an “Exposed” for those special occasions when we were able to bring to the reader information those in power did not want known. These were the rare moments when as journalists we could hold our heads high and claim to be monitoring the centres of power, to be fulfilling our sacred duty as the fourth estate.

But today’s Guardian’s “exclusive” story “Revealed: UK’s push to strengthen anti-Russia alliance” is doing none of this. Nothing the powerful would want hidden from us is being “revealed”. No one had to seek out classified documents or speak to a whistleblower to bring us this “revelation”. Everyone in this story – the journalist Patrick Wintour, an anonymous “Whitehall official”, and the named politicians and think-tank wonks – is safely in the same self-congratulatory club, promoting a barely veiled government policy: to renew the Cold War against Russia.



It is no accident that the government chose the Guardian as the place to publish this “exclusive” press release. That single word “Revealed” in the headline serves two functions that reverse the very rationale for liberal, watchdog-style journalism.

First, it is designed to disorientate the reader in Orwellian – or maybe Lewis Caroll – fashion, inverting the world of reality. The reader is primed for a disclosure, a secret, and then is spoonfed familiar government propaganda: that the tentacles of a Russian octopus are everywhere, that the Reds are again under our beds – or at least, poisoning our door handles.

British diplomats plan to use four major summits this year – the G7, the G20, Nato and the European Union – to try to deepen the alliance against Russia hastily built by the Foreign Office after the poisoning of the former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in March.

This – and thousands of similar examples we are exposed to every day in the discourse of our politicians and media – is the way our defences are gradually lowered, our critical thinking weakened, in ways that assist those in power to launch their assault on democratic norms. Through such journalistic fraud, liberal media like the Guardian and BBC – because they claim to be watchdogs on power, to defend the interests of the ruled, not the rulers – serve a vital role in preparing the ground for the coming changes that will restrict dissent, tighten controls on social media, impose harsher laws.

The threat is set out repeatedly in the Guardian’s framing of the story: there is a self-evident need for “a more comprehensive approach to Russian disinformation”; Moscow is determined “systematically to divide western electorates and sow doubt”; “the west finds itself arguing with Russia not just about ideology, or interests, but Moscow’s simple denial, or questioning, of what the western governments perceive as unchallengeable facts.”

Tom Tugendhat, son a High Court judge, a former army officer who was honoured with an MBE by the Queen in his thirties, and was appointed chair of the Commons’ important foreign affairs select committee after two years in parliament, sets out the thinking of the British establishment – and hints at the likely solutions. He tells the Guardian:

Putin is waging an information war designed to turn our strongest asset – freedom of speech – against us. Russia is trying to fix us through deception.

Second, there is a remedy for the disorientation created by that small word “Revealed”. It subtly forces the reader to submit to the inversion.

For the reasons set out above, a rational response to this front-page story is to doubt that Wintour, his editors, and the Guardian newspaper itself are quite as liberal as they claim to be, that they take seriously the task of holding power to account. It is to abandon the consoling assumption that we, the 99 per cent, have our own army – those journalists in the bastions of liberal media like the Guardian and the BBC – there to protect us. It is to realise that we are utterly alone against the might of the corporate world. That is a truly disturbing, terrifying even, conclusion.

But that sense of abandonment and dread can be overcome. The world can be set to rights again – and it requires only one small leap of faith. If Russian president Vladimir Putin truly is an evil mastermind, if Russia is an octopus with tentacles reaching out to every corner of the globe, if there are Russian agents hiding in the ethers ready to deceive you every time you open your laptop, and Russian cells preparing to fix your elections so that the Muscovian candidate (Donald Trump, Jeremy Corbyn?) wins, then the use of that “Revealed” is not only justified but obligatory. The Guardian isn’t spouting British and US government propaganda, it is holding to account the supremely powerful and malevolent Russian state.

Once you have stepped through this looking glass, once you have accepted that you are living in Oceania and in desperate need of protection from Eurasia, or is it Eastasia?, then the Guardian is acting as a vital watchdog – because the enemy is within. Our foe is not those who rule us, those who have all the wealth, those who store their assets offshore so they don’t have to pay taxes, those who ignore devastating climate breakdown because reforms would be bad for business. No, the real enemy are the sceptics, the social media “warriors”, the political activists, even the leader of the British Labour party. They may sound and look harmless, but they are not who or what they seem. There are evil forces standing behind them.

In this inverse world, the coming draconian changes are not a loss but a gain. You are not losing the rights you enjoy now, or rights you might need in the future when things get even more repressive. The restrictions are pre-emptive, there to protect you before Putin and his bots have not only taken over cyberspace but have entered your living space. Like the aggressive wars of “humanitarian intervention” the west is waging across the oil-rich areas of the Middle East, the cruelty is actually kindness. Those who object, those who demur, do so only because they are in the financial or ideological grip of the mastermind Putin.

This is the moment when war becomes peace, freedom becomes slavery, ignorance becomes strength.
bks
 
Posts: 1093
Joined: Thu Jul 19, 2007 2:44 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby alloneword » Sun May 06, 2018 5:21 am

Cheers, BKS, that was a good article...

The original article he's discussing appeared in the Guardian:

Revealed: UK’s push to strengthen anti-Russia alliance

A few choice lines:

Guardian wrote:“The areas the UK are most likely to pursue are countering Russian disinformation and finding a mechanism to enforce accountability for the use of chemical weapons.”...

..the UK is arguing that Russian denials over Salisbury and Douma reveal a state uninterested in cooperating to reach a common understanding of the truth, but instead using both episodes to try systematically to divide western electorates and sow doubt.

Alicia Kearns, who ran the Foreign Office’s strategic counter-terrorism communications in Syria and Iraq, argues that Russia is seen as nearly unique in its willingness to conceal the truth.

“When we are dealing with most malign states or even terror groups, an element of truth is expected to increase the efficacy of their disinformation, but with Russia there is no commitment, or adherence, to the truth,”...

..“Putin is waging an information war designed to turn our strongest asset – freedom of speech – against us. Russia is trying to fix us through deception,”...

..British politicians are not alone in claiming Russia’s record of mendacity is not a personal trait of Putin’s, but a government-wide strategy that makes traditional diplomacy ineffective.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, famously came off one lengthy phone call with Putin – she had more than 40 in a year – to say he lived in a different world...


It's starting to sound desperate.

MoA picks up that last point (amongst many others) regarding Merkel's 'famous' phone call. It's 'famous' for being a lie propagated by the NYT...

Welt.de - via Google Translate wrote:Finally, the American " New York Times " also quoted Merkel from her telephone conversation with Obama: "Putin has lost touch with reality," Merkel said, saying that the Russian president "lives in another world."

The picture of a chancellor who was indignant over Putin and determined to react violently to counter-reactions was perfect - and spread internationally.

However, it does not correspond to reality. So one is not happy in the chancellery over the report of the "New York Times". Merkel did not want to express that Putin behaved irrationally. Instead, she told Obama that Putin had a different perception of the situation in Crimea.
welt.de

MoA concludes:

The claims of Russian disinformation these authors make [d]o not hold up to scrutiny. Meanwhile their pieces themselves are full of lies, distortions and, yes, disinformation.

The bigger aim behind all these activities, demanding a myriad of new organizations to propagandize against Russia, is to introduce a strict control over information within 'western' societies.

Anything that may not confirm to the 'truth' as prescribed from above must be overwhelmed with an onslaught of more lies or, if that does not work, be discredited as 'enemy' disinformation.

That scheme will be used against anyone who deviates from the ordered norm. You dislike that pipeline in your backyard? You must be falling for Russian trolls or maybe you yourself are an agent of a foreign power. Social Security? The Russians like that. It is a disinformation thing. You better forget about it.


The Russian Embassy in London read the Guardian article, too... They commented:

Judging by the publication, the main current challenge for Whitehall is to preserve the anti-Russian coalition that the Conservatives tried to build after the Salisbury incident. This task is challenging indeed. The “fusion doctrine” promoted by the national security apparatus has led to the Western bloc taking hasty decisions that, as life has shown, were not based on any facts.

No traces of chemical weapons have been found in Douma. This means that not only the US/UK/French airstrikes were illegal under international law but even their political justification was inherently flawed. Similarly, in the Salisbury affair, no evidence of Russian involvement has been presented, while the two myths on which the British case was built (the Russian origin of the chemical substance used and the existence of proof of Russian responsibility) have been shattered.

Given the lack of facts, the Tory leadership seems to be adopting a truly Orwellian logic: that the main proof of Russian responsibility are … the Russian denials! It is hard to see how they will be able to sell this to their international partners. Self-respecting countries of G20 would not be willing to risk their reputation.


Caitlin Johnstone also had this to say on it:

Any Discussion Of Russian Disinfo Is Invalid Unless It Addresses Iraq Lies

Caitlin Johnstone wrote:..Western mass media outlets everywhere have been sounding an increasingly shrill alarm about “Russian disinformation” regarding the Salisbury Skripal poisoning and the alleged Douma gas attack in Syria, and this Guardian article by Patrick Wintour forms a new step along the same trajectory.

No attempt is ever made to describe why it is so dangerous to “sow doubt” about unproven allegations long before investigations into either event have run their course.

More curiously, no attempt to address Iraq is ever made.

Wintour spins a narrative about the US, UK and their tight network of allies having a complete monopoly on truth and facts, taking it as an obvious truism that the Russians could only be lying about the sudden deluge of unproven accusations the west has been piling upon them ever since late 2016.

The western empire is plainly just and virtuous, so nobody questioning its assertions could be anything other than deceitful and evil.

Even though this same empire lied us into a war with Iraq fifteen years ago.


I'd be surprised if MediaLens and OffGuardian let this one pass without comment. ;)
User avatar
alloneword
 
Posts: 902
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2007 9:19 am
Location: UK
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby liminalOyster » Wed May 16, 2018 9:00 pm

"It's not rocket surgery." - Elvis
User avatar
liminalOyster
 
Posts: 1873
Joined: Thu May 05, 2016 10:28 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed May 16, 2018 9:03 pm

there's more about all that here

The NRA The Russia Connection
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=40968
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby liminalOyster » Wed May 16, 2018 9:56 pm

I spoke too soon. This totally clears it all up (it has lines and they're color coded!) /s

on edit: It's really interesting to me the degree which these recurring social-networks of The Conspiracy resemble 1) Glenn Beck's performance art c. 2009 or so and 2) the classic motif of the loony CT recluse obsessed with lines/connections. It's as if they try to reify correlation as causation and treat social networks themselves as implicitly a form of collusion. I've always been prone to daydream thinking about the 6 degrees of separation (wonder if that number has been updated for these hyper-connected times) and am still somehow reliably surprised each time I discover some of the most outrageous figures fall within my own. It's really uncanny but surely must also diminish the weight of connection itself in the place of solid evidence of its meaning.

Image

--------


MAY 14, 2018
Why I Support Russia Today (and So Should You)
by DENNIS MORGAN FacebookTwitterGoogle+RedditEmail
In the age of globalization during the last quarter of the 20thcentury, the English language achieved global hegemony as the “lingua franca” for international communication. It is no small coincidence that during this same time, after the end of the Cold War, the US rose as the sole and dominant superpower with stated aims to achieve global hegemony. Just as English was the language of the British Empire, so English retained its imperial role when the US Empire succeeded that of the British. And as has been said of language, the power to control language is the power to control minds.

As a result, a number of countries realized that if they wanted to have a say in global affairs, they were going to have to be able to say it in English. In other words, unless they were happy with the embedded worldviews in the news narratives of CNN and the BBC and preferred no voice of their own, then they were going to have to create their own international broadcasts in English. Moreover, since the Internet revolutionized communications during this same time period, it became much easier to broadcast and thus imperative for countries to project their own perspectives on global affairs and engage in international discourse on issues that concerned them. Hence, at the end of the 20thcentury and particularly during the beginning of the 21stcentury, English news broadcasts sprang up from around the world to compete with established news organizations.

So, that’s the backdrop and context for the grand entrance of the state-sponsored broadcast station, Russia Today (RT), onto the global media arena in 2005. When Margarita Simonyan was appointed editor-in-chief (at the age of 25), she stated that RT would provide the same professionalism of mainstream international news channels but would “reflect Russia’s opinion of the world” and provide a “more balanced picture” of Russia. The late Danny Schechter, a renowned journalist who was on the staff of CNN at its launching, saw something similar at RT’s launching, describing it as another channel “of young people who are inexperienced, but very enthusiastic about what they are doing.”

However, almost immediately, Western pundits, officials, and MSM cried “foul,” as Cold War stereotypes of “communist propaganda” resurfaced. When RT began airing its counter-hegemonic narratives, challenging mainstream (particularly US) news coverage through Internet and satellite broadcasts, it quickly attracted millions of viewers throughout the world. It seemed that the more popular RT became, the more alarmed the US and the West became, accusing RT of being a “propaganda bullhorn” of Putin, spewing disinformation and lies.

So, is this true? Is RT merely Kremlin propaganda, spreading disinformation and lies, or is it a platform to present a more balanced picture of Russia, expressing the Russian perspective on global affairs? In my opinion, from extensive viewing of the news coverage and programs offered by RT, I would say that RT critics’ “propaganda” claim does not hold up to close scrutiny and is, in fact, propaganda itself; on the other hand, the alternate claim of offering a “balanced picture of Russia” and expressing the “Russian perspective,” though certainly closer to the truth than the “propaganda” claim, is not a truly accurate description of RT either. In other words, while the news coverage can be said to reflect the Russian perspective on global affairs, most of the hosts are not Russian; moreover, as for as providing insight into Russia and everything “Russian,” proportionally speaking, only a fraction of the programming or coverage revolves around Russia or Russian affairs.

So, now that I’ve told you what RT isn’t, I’ll explain what it is, the reason why I view and support it, and why I think the US establishment, including its corporate media, has been fiercely attacking RT and are out to shut it down. To put it plainly, RT is the #1 international broadcast that allows a platform for alternative narratives and dissenting views to be expressed. Just take a look at the hosts of the “shows” section of RT’s website, and you’ll understand what I mean. These are very independent-minded individuals, whose dissenting views are simply not allowedon MSM; in fact, some of them, like Larry King, Ed Schultz, and Thom Hartmann,[1]held celebrity status on MSM and only joined the RT staff because they were free to air their views without censorship. Ed Schultz, for example, stated that, unlike the usual censorship tactics of MSNBC, RT never quizzed him in advance about his guests or the content of his show; instead, he says that the very reason he likes RT is because of its policy of absolute freedom of speech. Imagine that! Here we have Ed Schultz, a media refugee from MSM, stating that, unlike MSNBC, he’s allowed to say anything he wants to on RT, without any editorial oversight whatsoever.

This is quite phenomenal when you consider the outrageous charges of American politicians and the corporate media that RT is a mere “propaganda tool of the Kremlin,” and that those who work at RT are “useful idiots’ or “Putin’s puppets.” Really? Just take a look at the kind of individuals, most of them Americans or British, hosting their shows on RT. These are very independent, very smart people who refuse to be anyone’s “puppet”; in fact, the very reason they came to RT was because they didn’t want to be puppets of the corporate media. Do you really believe that people like Larry King, Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann, Jesse Ventura, Chris Hedges, Lee Camp, and George Galloway are all stooges for Putin? Give me a break.

The fact that their portrayal of RT is a complete fabrication tells you who the real propagandists are, who truly are guilty of spreading disinformation and lies to the public. Yes, in spreading their malicious lies about RT, they reveal themselves, and if they are deceiving you about this, they are probably deceiving you about just about everything else too. Actually, MSM has been in the public deception business for quite some time; as long as it’s good for the ratings, it’s called “news.”

Take the RussiaGate conspiracy theory, for example, which has zero evidence to support it with. Is it “hacking,” “collusion,” or “trolls?” I forget which meme is current. Similar to the various justifications (one after the other, all of them lies) to support the Iraq War, as soon as one conspiracy is debunked, it is followed by another, in the blink of a media eye, without comment on the fraudulent nature of the prior allegation, as in Orwell’s novel, as if it didn’t exist. And the familiar villain, the usual suspect, the Russian whipping boy, comes to their rescue once again.

Several months ago I penned a piece in CounterPunch about the anti-Russia hysteria that’s been sweeping the nation, so I won’t rehash that. However, what I find telling is that a disproportionate amount of this hysteria is actually directed at Russia Today. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at the FBI report in January of 2017, based on the investigation of supposed Russian interference into the 2016 election: roughly a quarter of it is about RT. When you think of it, that’s a large percentage devoted to a media outlet, especially when you consider that RT was never all that pro-Trump. As I mentioned, RT has a diverse blend of the hosts of featured programs, and they were anything but homogenous in their views on the presidential candidates. It’s true that Peter Lavelle, the host of CrossTalk, believed that Trump should be given a chance, and Larry King gave a favorable interview to Trump; on the other hand, a number of other hosts were highly suspicious and critical of Trump. Okay, well, I admit that there wasn’t a whole lot of support for Hillary Clinton on RT, it’s true, but when you compare lackluster support for Clinton on RT with the overwhelming support that she enjoyed on CNN, can you really justify the claim that RT “interfered” in the 2016 election and CNN didn’t? The FBI report is a joke, really, as a CNN producer described it in private – a “nothing burger.”

So, if it’s true that Putin made so much effort to interfere in the American elections to ensure that Trump would win, and if it’s true that RT is Putin’s propaganda arm, then why didn’t Putin do more to use RT to propagandize in favor of Trump? Are you telling me that the tepid support of Trump on RT was the best propaganda that Putin could come up with? As an ex-KGB officer, I’m sure he could do better than that. It’s the same kind of “nothing burger” sock pocket, failed hot dog sales people that Mueller indicted – the 13 Facebook trolls who failed to wake Sleeping Beauty but were indicted for trying.

Okay, I realize I’m getting into fantasy here, but that’s my point: its total fantasy that MSM has been spinning 24/7. Wake up, people, and smell the Rachel Maddow koolaid you’ve been drinking; these people are professional liars – it’s what they do for a living. When RT’s press credentials were withdrawn at the White House, when their algorithms were suppressed on Google, Twitter, and Facebook, when the Russian Consulate in San Francisco was raided at hardly a moment’s notice, and when RT was singled out and forced to register as a “foreign agent” with FARA – an unprecedented move against a single media outlet – where was CNN or MSNBC? Did they protest this blatant form of media censorship? Only when Russia retaliated with a tit-for-tat response did they even mention it. And this media silence, aside from reporting on the Russian response, was not only true in the case of MSM, but sadly enough, Democracy Now’s joined the media silence. Not a word was uttered in protest of this outrageous attack on the press freedom of RT. It bogs the mind to think that no one seemed to consider that this was not just an attack on RT but an attack on the freedom of press everywhere: to attack one is to attack all, especially when the justifications are based on “trumped up” allegations, which essentially boil down to: “We say Russia Today is a propaganda bullhorn of the Kremlin, and because we say it, you should believe us. After all, have we ever lied to you?” And then all the media bows down and assents to this madness. Forgive me if I’m not impressed with fairy tale logic.

To sum up, I support RT mostly because they are professionals and feature a line-up of fantastic programs and documentaries, which are informative and insightful. As far as I’m concerned, whether it serves Putin’s “agenda” (whatever that is) is beside the point. What matters is the authenticity of the journalism. Americans should be grateful for this source of alternative views that challenge homogenous and hegemonic “mainstream” narratives. While all media either have some interest to serve or ideology to peddle, the health of the media in general can only be measured by its diversity. So, it’s not about whether you “agree” or “disagree” with the Russia Today broadcast; more importantly, the principle of fair play in media access and reach is crucial for the health and future of democracy. That’s why I support Russia Today, and so should you.

Notes.

[1] Though no longer at RT, Tom was the host of “The Big Picture” for at least a couple of years and left the broadcast on good terms.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/14 ... hould-you/
Last edited by liminalOyster on Thu May 17, 2018 11:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
"It's not rocket surgery." - Elvis
User avatar
liminalOyster
 
Posts: 1873
Joined: Thu May 05, 2016 10:28 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby alloneword » Thu May 17, 2018 4:25 am

Incidentally, Ofcom (the UK broadcasting regulator) just ruled in favour of RT keeping their licence:

Russia Today will not lose licence over nerve agent attack in Salisbury, Ofcom rules

That's the only mention of the decision I can find (except on RT itself) - nothing, even, on Ofcom's own site.
User avatar
alloneword
 
Posts: 902
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2007 9:19 am
Location: UK
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby alloneword » Fri May 18, 2018 4:17 pm

liminalOyster » Thu May 17, 2018 1:56 am wrote:

MAY 14, 2018
Why I Support Russia Today (and So Should You)
by DENNIS MORGAN

..Just take a look at the kind of individuals, most of them Americans or British, hosting their shows on RT. These are very independent, very smart people who refuse to be anyone’s “puppet”; in fact, the very reason they came to RT was because they didn’t want to be puppets of the corporate media...


Dunno if you caught Caitlin Johnstone's article (subsequent to the one I posted up-thread) on "How To Silence RT Forever" - it echoes Dennis Morgan's sentiments.

That obsession with lines/connections thing has a name, BTW: 'Apophenia'.
User avatar
alloneword
 
Posts: 902
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2007 9:19 am
Location: UK
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby liminalOyster » Fri May 18, 2018 7:21 pm

Thanks, I did see and like that Johnstone piece. I find it kind of interesting that I don't necessarily love or admire either her or Morgan and yet I feel like they're saying these important and curiously undeniable things that are simply taboo in and anathema to other outlets.

I really have trouble with the suggestion that that the overall *impact/effect* of RT allowing unfettered ideological platform for lefties and progressives and others can possibly be reduced to *just* Russian influencing. The wholesale transmutation of iconoclastic bravery into useful idiot-ism seems to be marching along very nicely.

Re: Apophenia, it is so dystopian that it is as if MSM is exploiting a human tendency towards psychosis to shape opinion, consensus and belief.
"It's not rocket surgery." - Elvis
User avatar
liminalOyster
 
Posts: 1873
Joined: Thu May 05, 2016 10:28 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby liminalOyster » Wed May 30, 2018 10:10 am

Very stretching but worth a read.

Guccifer 2.0's American Fingerprints Reveal An Operation Made In The USA
5/29/18
Elizabeth Lea Vos via Disobedient Media,

In his final report in a three-part series, Guccifer 2’s West Coast Fingerprint, the Forensicator discovers evidence that at least one operator behind the Guccifer 2.0 persona worked from the West Coast of the United States.

The Forensicator’s earlier findings stated that Guccifer 2.0’s NGP-VAN files were accessed locally on the East Coast, and in another analysis they suggested that a file published by Guccifer 2.0 was created in the Central time zone of the United States. Most recently, a former DNC official refuted the DNC’s initial allegations that Trump opposition files had been ex-filtrated from the DNC by Russian state-sponsored operatives.

So, if Guccifer 2.0’s role was negated by the statements of the DNC’s own former “official” in a 2017 report by the Associated Press, why do we now return our attention to the Guccifer 2.0 persona, as we reflect on the last section of new findings from the Forensicator?

The answer: Despite almost two years having passed since the appearance of the Guccifer 2.0 persona, legacy media is still trotting out the shambling corpse of Guccifer 2.0 to revive the legitimacy of the Russian hacking narrative. In other words, it is necessary to hammer the final nail into the coffin of the Guccifer 2.0 persona.

As previously noted, In his final report in a three-part series, the Forensicator discusses concrete evidence that at least one operator behind the Guccifer 2.0 persona worked from the West Coast of the United States. He writes:

“Finally, we look at one particular Word document that Guccifer 2 uploaded, which had “track changes” enabled. From the tracking metadata we deduce the timezone offset in effect when Guccifer 2 made that change — we reach a surprising conclusion: The document was likely saved by Guccifer 2 on the West Coast, US.”

The Forensicator spends the first part of his report evaluating indications that Guccifer 2.0 may have operated out of Russia. Ultimately, the Forensicator discards those tentative results. He emphatically notes:

“The PDT finding draws into question the premise that Guccifer 2 was operating out of Russia, or any other region that would have had GMT+3 timezone offsets in force. Essentially, the Pacific Timezone finding invalidates the GMT+3 timezone findings previously described.”

The Forensicator’s new West Coast finding is not the first evidence to indicate that operators behind the Guccifer 2.0 persona were based in the US. Nine months ago, Disobedient Media, reported on the Forensicator’s analysis, which showed (among other things) that Guccifer 2.0’s “ngpvan” archive was created on the East Coast. While that report received the vast majority of attention from the public and legacy media, Disobedient Media later reported on another analysis done by the Forensicator, which found that a file published by Guccifer 2.0 (on a different occasion) was probably created in the Central Timezone of the US.

Adding to all of this, UK based analyst and independent journalist Adam Carter presented his own analysis which also showed that the Guccifer 2.0 Twitter persona interacted on a schedule which was best explained by having been based within the United States.

The chart above shows a box which spans regular working hours. It indicates that unless Guccifer 2.0 worked the night shift, they were likely working out of the US. Though this last data point is circumstantial, it is corroborated by the previously discussed pieces of independently verifiable hard evidence described by the Forensicator.

When taking all of these separate pieces into account, one observes a convergence of evidence that multiple US-based operators were behind the Guccifer 2.0 persona and its publications. This is incredibly significant because it is based on multiple pieces of concrete data; it does not rely on “anonymous sources within the government,” nor contractors hired by the DNC. As a result, much of the prior legacy press coverage of Guccifer 2.0 as a Russia-based agent can be readily debunked.

Such tangible evidence stands in contrast to the claims made in a recently published Daily Beast article, which reads more like a gossip column than serious journalism. In the Daily Beast’s recital, the outlet cites an anonymous source who claims that a Moscow-based GRU agent was behind the Guccifer 2.0 operation, writing:

“Guccifer 2.0, the “lone hacker” who took credit for providing WikiLeaks with stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee, was in fact an officer of Russia’s military intelligence directorate (GRU), The Daily Beast has learned. It’s an attribution that resulted from a fleeting but critical slip-up in GRU tradecraft.

… But on one occasion, The Daily Beast has learned, Guccifer failed to activate the VPN client before logging on. As a result, he left a real, Moscow-based Internet Protocol address in the server logs of an American social media company, according to a source familiar with the government’s Guccifer investigation.

… Working off the IP address, U.S. investigators identified Guccifer 2.0 as a particular GRU officer working out of the agency’s headquarters on Grizodubovoy Street in Moscow.”

Clearly, the claim made in the Daily Beast’s report is in direct contradiction with the growing mound of evidence suggesting that Guccifer 2.0 operated out of the United States. A detailed technical breakdown of the evidence confirming a West-Coast “last saved” time and how this counters the claims of the Daily Beast can be found in the Forensicator’s work.

The Forensicator explained to Disobedient Media that their discovery process was initiated by the following Tweet by Matt Tait (@pwnallthings), a security blogger and journalist. Tait noticed a change revision entry in one of the Word documents published in Guccifer 2.0’s second batch of documents, (uploaded 3 days after Guccifer 2.0 first appeared on the scene).

The Forensicator corrects Tait, stating that the timestamp is in “wall time,” (local time) not UTC. The Forensicator explains that Tait’s mistake is understandable because the “Z” suffix usually implies “Zulu” (GMT) time, but that isn’t the case for “track changes” timestamps. The Forensicator writes that the document Tait refers to in his Tweet is named Hillary-for-America-fundraising-guidelines-from-agent-letter.docx; it has Word’s “track changes” feature enabled. Guccifer 2.0 made a trivial change to the document, using the pseudonym, “Ernesto Che,” portrayed below:

The Forensicator correlated that timestamp (“12:56:00 AM”) with the document’s “last saved” timestamp expressed in GMT, as shown below courtesy of the Forensicator’s study:

Based on the evidence discussed above, the Forensicator concludes that Guccifer 2.0 saved this file on a system that had a timezone offset of -7 hours (the difference between 0:56 AM and 7:56 AM GMT). Thus, the system where this document was last changed used Pacific Timezone settings.

The logical conclusion drawn from the preceding analysis is that Guccifer 2.0 was operating somewhere on the West Coast of the United States when they made their change to that document. This single finding throws into shambles any other conclusions that might indicate that Guccifer 2.0 was operating out of Russia. This latest finding also adds to the previously cited evidence that the persona was probably operated by multiple individuals located in the United States.

Taken all together, the factual basis of the Russian hacking story totally collapses. We are left instead with multiple traces of a US-based operation that created the appearance of evidence that Kremlin-allied hackers had breached the DNC network. Publicly available data suggests that Guccifer 2.0 is a US-based operation. To this, we add:

The Forensicator’s recent findings that Guccifer 2.0 deliberately planted “Russian fingerprints” into his first document, as reported by Disobedient Media.

A former DNC official’s statement that a document with so-called “Russian fingerprints” was not in fact taken from the DNC, as reported by Disobedient Media.

The media’s role in propagating the connection between early Russian hacking allegations and the Guccifer 2.0 persona, as reported by Disobedient Media.

In the course of the last nine months this outlet has documented the work of the Forensicator, which has indicated that not only were Guccifer 2.0’s “ngp-van” files accessed locally on the East Coast of the US, but also that several files published by the Guccifer 2.0 persona were altered and saved within the United States. The “Russian fingerprints” left on Guccifer 2.0’s first document have been debunked, as has the claim that the file itself was extracted from the DNC network in the first place. On top of all this, a former DNC official withdrew the DNC’s initial allegations that supported the “Russian hack” claim in the first place.

One hopes that with all of this information in mind, the long-suffering Guccifer 2.0 saga can be laid to rest once and for all, at least for unbiased and critically thinking observers.

https://disobedientmedia.com/2018/05/gu ... n-the-usa/
"It's not rocket surgery." - Elvis
User avatar
liminalOyster
 
Posts: 1873
Joined: Thu May 05, 2016 10:28 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby liminalOyster » Sun Jun 10, 2018 4:34 pm

Can't quite put my finger on it but it's almost like there's a subtext implying something or other here. Hmmm.

When Anthony Bourdain Called Out Putin and Trump—in Russia
The Season 3 episode of ‘Parts Unknown,’ released in 2014, saw the late TV traveler venture to Russia. It remains one of the most extraordinary episodes of his CNN program.
Marlow Stern

06.09.18 9:55 PM ET

It’s difficult to imagine a world without Anthony Bourdain, its most trusted and noble traveler; a tender curmudgeon whose raison d’être was, simply put, to convince Americans that beyond their borders lay a world filled with unspeakable beauty.

Even if you never had the distinct pleasure of meeting Bourdain—or Tony, as he was known to his family, friends and colleagues—his felt like a familiar face, one that strangers across the globe opened their homes to knowing that they would be seen.

While many delighted in his books, which showcased his sardonic Jersey-bred wit, nowhere were his talents more in evidence than on the television programs No Reservations and Parts Unknown. He was the consummate (best?) travel guide—empathetic, audacious, devoid of pretense, and prone to introspection.

There are too many standout moments to count. Fleeing the 2006 Lebanon War; subbing in on the kitchen line at El Bulli; his open-hearted visit to Palestine; destroying a ribeye with Bill fucking Murray; a pilgrimage to Yankee Stadium; getting PNG’d from Azerbaijan; the best house party ever at Alison Mosshart’s in Nashville; gabbing over noodles with President Obama in Hanoi; a tour of Japan with Masa (and his infectious laugh); journeying deep into the heart of Trumptown, USA. Some of the most indelible episodes chronicled his friendship with fellow chef Eric Ripert and their Abbott and Costello act. Others, like his return to the old stomping grounds of Provincetown, Massachusetts, saw Bourdain wrestle with his own demons.

Part of what made Bourdain such an effective traveler was his first-rate bullshit detector. He called it like he saw it, and his vision was rarely clouded. On the Season 5 episode of Parts Unknown titled “New Jersey,” he traveled to Atlantic City and admonished Donald Trump for bleeding it dry. The episode aired on May 31, 2015; 16 days later, Trump declared his candidacy for president. When I brought up how prophetic it was to Bourdain, he offered, “It’ll be really prophetic if he does with the presidency what he did with Atlantic City, which is pretty much declare victory and then retreat. If you remember, when he left his casinos behind broken and in shambles, he was quick to point out how well it worked out for him. He made his money, but his investors and Atlantic City were left with a gigantic, hideous white elephant.”

“He strikes me as a businessman—a businessman with an ego. OK, so he’s like Donald Trump—but shorter.”
— Anthony Bourdain on Vladimir Putin

But hands-down the most prescient episode of Parts Unknown was “Russia.” Airing May 11, 2014, it opens with a montage of anti-Putin protests followed by Bourdain’s portentous voiceover: “No matter how transparently autocratic, vengeful, oblivious to even a thin veneer of democracy, Russians love [Putin]. They seem to feel about him like New Yorkers used to feel about Giuliani: he may be a sonofabitch, but he’s our sonofabitch.”

Before you can say Na Zdorovie!, Bourdain is lounging in the lobby of the tony Hotel Metropol, smack-dab in the middle of Moscow. There, he meets his frequent travelmate Zamir Gotta, a Russian TV producer. “Now, my concern is, you know, back in the day, this place was famous for… all of the rooms were bugged,” Bourdain tells him. Zamir laughs it off. After a few vodkas, our host proceeds to lay into Putin… and Trump.

“My perception of Putin? Do you really wanna hear it? A former mid-level manager in a large corporation. Short. I think that’s very important—short”—Zamir loudly clears his throat—“who has found himself master of the universe. And like a lot of short people, if you piss him off, bad things happen to you. He likes to take his shirt off a lot. He strikes me as a businessman—a businessman with an ego. OK, so he’s like Donald Trump—but shorter.”

Though the “Russia” episode aired in May 2014, it was filmed in late 2013, well before Trump not only declared his presidential candidacy, but U.S. intelligence agencies found that the Kremlin had interfered in the presidential election to tip the scales toward Trump—and Trump, in turn, appeared to capitulate to Russia, recently going as far as campaigning for their readmittance to the G7 summit.

“Bad things seem to happen to critics of Vladimir Putin. Journalists, activists, even powerful oligarchs once seemingly untouchable are now fair game if they displease The Leader,” narrates Bourdain, before seguing to a restaurant dinner scene with Boris Nemtsov, a leading Putin critic.

According to Bourdain, he and his producers approached “four or five” Moscow restaurants about scheduling the scene with Nemtsov, and when they found out who the host was dining with, the establishments swiftly canceled the scene. After much hunting, they finally scored a spot at an unnamed restaurant with a British chef.

“Critics of the government—critics of Putin—bad things seem to happen to them,” Bourdain tells Nemtsov over borscht. “This is a case, the Litvinenko case, a known enemy of Putin stricken with a bout of radioactive polonium. Aren’t you concerned?”

“Tony, I was born here 54 years ago. This is my country. Russian people are in trouble. Russian court doesn’t work, Russian education decline every year, and I believe that Russia has a chance to be free. Has a chance. It’s difficult but we must do it,” says Nemtsov.

On Feb. 27, 2015, just nine months after the episode aired, Nemtsov was assassinated, shot four times in the back while crossing a bridge near the Kremlin. Opposition leaders blamed the state—and by extension, Putin—for the murder.

Reflecting on their dinner, Bourdain recalled, “I ask [Nemtsov] directly, ‘Aren’t you concerned? The enemies of Vladimir Putin, bad things have happened to them,’ and he laughed it off and said, ‘It would be too embarrassing. I’m too important. I’m a public figure.’ One has to wonder if that was in somebody’s mind as they shot him to death pretty much on the front lawn of the Kremlin. It’s not like they don’t want you to know who done it, you know? When they kill somebody with nerve gas or radioactive polonium in Central London, they want you to know who done it. That’s the whole point.”

The episode ends with a defeated Bourdain describing—in voiceover—how Russia has recently annexed Crimea and amassed their troops at the Ukrainian border. “The world has done nothing. It will do nothing. As Vladimir well knew,” says Bourdain. “He wins. Again.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/when-anth ... pin-russia



ps. I do think Tony was brave as shit for this episode, in case that's not clear.
"It's not rocket surgery." - Elvis
User avatar
liminalOyster
 
Posts: 1873
Joined: Thu May 05, 2016 10:28 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby liminalOyster » Tue Jun 12, 2018 7:44 pm

DNC member calls WV Sanders supporter a Russian plant

Selina Vickers’ weekend trip to Rhode Island was as cheap as she could make it. She shelled out $143.60 for a train ticket from her home in West Virginia to Providence, where the Democratic National Committee’s rules and bylaws group was meeting.

She paid just $68.07 for an Airbnb in Cranston, Rhode Island, a short commute from Providence. Once there, Vickers did what she always did at DNC meetings — she took notes, recorded video, and made sure that the party was committing to reform its primary rules.

A few days later, Vickers was accused of being a Russia-backed agent of chaos, working to destabilize the Democratic Party from within.

The DNC’s current argument over how to reform its primaries achieved a special kind of absurdity on Monday when longtime DNC member Bob Mulholland asked whether Vickers’ appearances at meetings were paid for by Russians. Mulholland, who often cc’s reporters on his memos about the rules debate, speculated over the weekend that “someone is picking up her expenses” and that this was evidence that “the Putin operation is still active.”

Contacted first by HuffPost, then by The Washington Post, Mulholland conceded that he had no proof that Vickers was being funded by foreign operatives. (Vickers shared her receipts with The Post.) According to Mulholland, he noticed Vickers, who was neither a journalist nor a party official, and learned from her that she backed Jill Stein’s Green Party presidential bid in 2016.

“She was just a symbol, to me, of what has been happening,” Mulholland said. “What happened in California, over many years, is that there were stories of the Republican Party meeting with Green Party activists, paying their filing fees, and then these people discovering they were being put up as plants. I don’t know what Putin was doing with Jill Stein, but you have to consider that, too.”

Mulholland was referring to a 2015 dinner in Moscow that Stein attended, which Senate investigators looked into after beginning a probe of potential foreign involvement in the 2016 presidential election. Vickers, meanwhile, had no idea what Mulholland was talking about. She told him that she had cast a strategic vote for Stein, because she lived in a safely red state, and because she wanted the Mountain Party, a local Green Party affiliate, to keep its ballot access.

“I never told Mr. Mulholland that I was a member of the Green Party,” she said. “In fact, I’m a registered Democrat. I, along with millions of other Democrats supported Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for President. I had a choice of voting for Clinton, or writing in Bernie — which wouldn’t have done anything — or vote for Jill Stein.”

Vickers said that she also supported the Mountain Party’s candidate for governor over Jim Justice, the Democratic nominee that year, who would end up switching to the Republican Party after just nine months in office. And Vickers ran as a Democrat this year, coming less than 500 votes away from securing a ballot slot in a race for a state House of Delegates seat in Fayette County.

At DNC meetings, Vickers represented a vocal and frustrated minority of Democratic activists who remained outraged that the Democratic Party had so many elected superdelegates, and that in 2016 those superdelegates frequently voted en masse for Hillary Clinton in states where voters had backed Sanders. After the party created a Unity Reform Commission to revisit its primary rules, Vickers attended three of its meetings and all but one Rules and Bylaws meeting. Sometimes, as rows of chairs for “observers” sat empty, she had the committee members to herself.

“I get frustrated with some DNC members, and sometimes I think they really miss the mark on things, but I appreciate being able to talk to them in person,” Vickers said. “It has helped me personally. I was so frustrated with the superdelegate issue after the convention. Being able to go to the meetings, and live-streaming them for others that can’t attend, and talking to members about my concerns gives me a way to do something, rather than be at home, disconnected and powerless. I feel that my presence has a positive effect.”

Told about Vickers’ project, and her budget-conscious effort to go to every meeting, Mulholland had more questions.

“That convinces me that somebody’s picking up her tab,” he said. “Look: I worked for Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda for 15 years, and in 1977, we got 18,000 pages from the FBI through the Freedom of Information Act. And a lot of people who worked for the antiwar movement were working for the FBI. So I’m always skeptical of these people whose agenda is not in the Democratic Party’s interest.”

Not many DNC members share Mulholland’s concern. Vickers’ appearance at meetings stood out simply because so few people were attending them. Sitting near the few reporters assigned to cover the conference, holding up a camera that was streaming each meeting, Vickers never concealed her identity, and freely shared her contact information. As media attention moved away from the DNC reform push, Vickers stuck around.

The Providence meeting did not settle the question of superdelegates. The deal crafted in 2016 requires a final decision on superdelegates to be made by June 30; DNC Rules and Bylaws members are likely to make a final recommendation after a conference call, which has yet to be scheduled. The full reform package will then be adopted and explained in August, when the full DNC meets.

“I’m going to keep showing up as long as I can afford to do so,” Vickers said. “I wish Mr. Mulholland the very best and I hope he can find some peace.”

https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/poli ... ce2b7.html



California DNC Member Suggests Superdelegate Reform Is Part Of Russian Plot
Bob Mulholland has no direct proof of Russian meddling in Democratic Party deliberations, but he remains suspicious.
By Daniel Marans

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez (left) and Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, the DNC deputy chairman, are among those backing a controversial plan that would greatly diminish the voice that so-called superdelegates have in the party’s presidential nomination process

Momentum is growing within the Democratic National Committee for a significant reform to the party’s presidential nominating process, but the proposed change has caused a leading California Democrat to question whether Russian meddling is behind the effort.

The Californian, Bob Mulholland, could provide no proof for his claim. But his comments underscore the resistance the reform push is expected to encounter from some party stalwarts.

At issue is the clout exercised by so-called superdelegates in the party’s presidential nominating process. At a Friday meeting of the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee in Rhode Island, a majority of that panel expressed support for dramatically reducing the power of superdelegates at the Democratic National Convention by barring them from having a vote on the convention’s first ballot.

Under the party’s current system, superdelegates automatically get convention seats and a vote, and they are not bound to support a candidate based on their state’s primary or caucus results.

Superdelegates ― who include Democrats serving in Congress and other key party officials ― comprised close to 15 percent of the overall delegate number at the party’s 2016 convention, and most supported Hillary Clinton. That was a bone of contention for supporters of the insurgent nomination bid by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and the continued existence of superdelegates remains a major sticking point for many of these activists.

Thus, stripping superdelegates of a first-ballot say in choosing the nominee would be an important step toward unifying the party ahead of the 2020 presidential election, especially given that the last time Democrats needed more than one ballot to anoint their nominee was in 1952.

But while the proposal has the backing of DNC Chairman Tom Perez, Deputy Chairman Keith Ellison (who’s also a House member from Minnesota), Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia and top Sanders ally Larry Cohen, a small band of DNC members and some Democrats in Congress remain resolutely opposed to any effort to diminish the standing of superdelegates.

Mulholland, a DNC member and longtime key player in California Democratic politics, sent an email Friday to other DNC members from the Golden State that implied Russian President Vladimir Putin might be behind the reform effort.

The basis for his claim? An activist from West Virginia promoting the changes, who he had seen at two national party gatherings, admitted to him that she was a Green Party member and had voted for its nominee, Jill Stein, in the 2016 election.

“I concluded someone is picking up her expenses but there she and others are, demanding we change our Rules,” Mulholland wrote. “The Putin operation is still active.”

I’m a big believer that Putin has not let off the gas.
Bob Mulholland, a Democratic National Committee member from California
Contacted by HuffPost on Sunday, Mulholland conceded he had no evidence the woman, who he did not name, was bankrolled by Putin.

But he said that “when people show up who have no connection to the party and they show up at events, requiring transportation of hundreds of miles, I always think they’re working for somebody.”

He added, “I’m a big believer that Putin has not let off the gas. Anyone who thinks Putin would not be interfering with future elections needs to have their head examined.”

Michael Kapp, a fellow DNC member from California, blasted what he called Mulholland’s “completely unsubstantiated allegation,” saying “it would be laughable if it wasn’t so embarrassing.”

Kapp, who supports the superdelegate proposal and backed Clinton in the 2016 primary, said Mulholland, in airing his allegations, “does a disservice to the millions of Democratic and Democratic-leaning activists and voters who want to see the influence of superdelegates eliminated.”

In his Friday email, Mulholland said, “I don’t know how many DNC Members have been in Moscow having dinner with Putin but Jill Stein was and at Putin’s table.”

Subscribe to the Politics email.
How will Trump's administration impact you?

address@email.com
Votes that went for Stein in several key states ― including Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania ― have caused some Democrats to blame her for Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump and wonder whether Russians helped promote the Green Party candidate as part of their interference in the presidential campaign.

Mulholland’s email also referenced a 2015 dinner Stein attended in Moscow for Russia Today, an international news channel owned by the Russian government.

Jane Kleeb, chairwoman of the Nebraska Democratic Party and a board member of the Sanders-linked group Our Revolution, dismissed any attempt to claim that superdelegate reform is the product of foreign meddling. She said a majority of Democrats support “reforming superdelegates’ role in nominating our next Presidential nominee.”

“Any Democrat who comes up with right-wing conspiracies in order to keep the status quo is part of the problem and not the solution,” Kleeb said.

Earlier Friday, Mulholland sent a separate email to Perez and Ellison in which he compared the push to diminish the clout of superdelegates to the violent suppression of the civil rights movement. In the email, first reported on by The Washington Post, Mulholland affixed a photo of police beating Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) during the 1965 voting rights march in Selma, Alabama.

“Now I understand that the two of you are conspiring with Bernie Sanders to block Congress members John Lewis (see photo of police beating Lewis), Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee and the rest of the congressional delegation, Governors, State Party Chairs and the rest of us DNC Members from entering our Convention floor in 2020 as voters,” he wrote. “I don’t know if you will have paid thugs at the doorways to beat up Congressman Lewis and the rest of us or not.”

The effort to scale back superdelegates’ power began almost two years ago at the Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting immediately preceding the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Sanders supporters pushed for a slate of reforms to the nominating process that were summarily rejected by the party.

But officials brokered a compromise to convene a Unity and Reform Commission that included Sanders appointees roughly proportional to his share of the primary vote and was charged with examining ways to improve the presidential nominating process and the functioning of the DNC. The commission released a series of recommendations in December, including a call for eliminating about two-thirds of the number of superdelegates.

The new plan to retain the number of superdelegates but prevent them from meaningfully affecting the nomination, if recent history is any guide, is agreeable to reformers because of its greater simplicity and likelihood of passage by the entire DNC membership.

Unlike the Unity Commission’s original proposal, which would have required approval by two-thirds of the DNC’s membership, the new superdelegate proposal would require just a simple majority.

The Rules and Bylaws Committee has until June 30 to decide on its final proposals to the entire DNC membership. The DNC will then vote on the recommendations at an Aug. 23-25 national meeting in Chicago.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bo ... 7a3d73e7bb
"It's not rocket surgery." - Elvis
User avatar
liminalOyster
 
Posts: 1873
Joined: Thu May 05, 2016 10:28 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby Grizzly » Tue Jun 12, 2018 10:50 pm

^^^

Insanity.
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”

― Joseph mengele
User avatar
Grizzly
 
Posts: 4722
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2011 4:15 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby Elvis » Tue Jun 12, 2018 10:53 pm

Mulholland had more questions.

“That convinces me that somebody’s picking up her tab,” he said. “Look: I worked for Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda for 15 years, and in 1977, we got 18,000 pages from the FBI through the Freedom of Information Act. And a lot of people who worked for the antiwar movement were working for the FBI. So I’m always skeptical of these people whose agenda is not in the Democratic Party’s interest.


Ya ever want to just strangle somebody? :lol:
“The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.” ― Joan Robinson
User avatar
Elvis
 
Posts: 7411
Joined: Fri Apr 11, 2008 7:24 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby Grizzly » Wed Jun 13, 2018 2:58 am

these people whose agenda is not in the Democratic Party’s interest.”


See my post recent post here: DNC doubles down. Democrats Bid to block Bernie Sanders?

http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=41133&p=659282#p659282
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”

― Joseph mengele
User avatar
Grizzly
 
Posts: 4722
Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2011 4:15 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

PreviousNext

Return to General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 44 guests