As Anti-Trump / Anti-Russia Campaign Fails ...

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Re: As Anti-Trump / Anti-Russia Campaign Fails ...

Postby Nordic » Thu Aug 03, 2017 3:37 am

The Consul » Tue Jul 18, 2017 9:46 am wrote:
Nordic » Mon Jul 17, 2017 9:28 pm wrote:
Unless you think the whole Magnitsky Act and everything associated with it is a load of bullshit


It is a load of bullshit.

In what way?


Unless you think everything we have heard in the west about Putin is ridiculous propaganda and that he is a legitimate statesman ...


Again, yes, everything we have heard in the west is ridiculous propaganda.

Yea, he is a legitimate statesman.

These aren't "beliefs", they are facts.

The big question everyone should be asking, especially people as smart and talented as The Consul, and others here, is why would you believe other than the facts?



If what you say is true, then it's ALL propoganda and there are no facts.
Like they say, you want to know the truth, avoid having any opinions. Because of this I will probably only ever regard the truth with suspicion depending on who is delivering today's contest of fact.
I view election fraud with the same concern as Putin.
I think HRC is dangerous, though not as much as DJT and with either, war is a cost of doing business and a sign of grandeur.
It is easy to say DNC/dems failed (and they did) without mentioning influence of Koch/Mercer cabal.
As I mentioned in my rant, I have no doubt this whole campaign is a Mindfuck Inc. Operation. However, I do believe the only thing that protects us is the constitution, and what these rat bastards (Kochs) want more than anything is to destroy regulatory governance. I fear that as much as Putin. I grew up in a place where the Robber Barons were unchained. Evil knows no silker shirt than a boss who writes the laws and a crew who bow down like beaten whores who've been told there will be no more pay.

Magnitsky act is bullshit? How so?

And I agree it is a distraction. And I have said before the media floated DJT up like a big baloon and now the descent in flames will only provide better ratings because their whole scheme is dying (45 knows this and was prepared). Almost all the schemes are dying. That's what schemes do. It's the new yellow journalism. And we are in Eco's Ur-Fascism right now. And nobody, but nobody, could ever convince me that Donald Trump is anything but a fascist and his movement needs to be stopped asap, my brotherly droogs, or we wont just be trying to tread shit, we'll be ought but crusty patties under the jackboots of the post truth nirvana.



[quote]

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/08/02/a ... -cold-war/

A Blacklisted Film and the New Cold War
August 2, 2017

Special Report: As Congress still swoons over the anti-Kremlin Magnitsky narrative, Western political and media leaders refuse to let their people view a documentary that debunks the fable, reports Robert Parry.


By Robert Parry

Why is the U.S. mainstream media so frightened of a documentary that debunks the beloved story of how “lawyer” Sergei Magnitsky uncovered massive Russian government corruption and died as a result? If the documentary is as flawed as its critics claim, why won’t they let it be shown to the American public, then lay out its supposed errors, and use it as a case study of how such fakery works?


Film director Andrei Nekrasov, who produced “The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes.”
Instead we – in the land of the free, home of the brave – are protected from seeing this documentary produced by filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov who was known as a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin but who in this instance found the West’s widely accepted Magnitsky storyline to be a fraud.

Instead, last week, Senate Judiciary Committee members sat in rapt attention as hedge-fund operator William Browder wowed them with a reprise of his Magnitsky tale and suggested that people who have challenged the narrative and those who dared air the documentary one time at Washington’s Newseum last year should be prosecuted for violating the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA).

It appears that Official Washington’s anti-Russia hysteria has reached such proportions that old-time notions about hearing both sides of a story or testing out truth in the marketplace of ideas must be cast aside. The new political/media paradigm is to shield the American people from information that contradicts the prevailing narratives, all the better to get them to line up behind Those Who Know Best.

Nekrasov’s powerful deconstruction of the Magnitsky myth – and the film’s subsequent blacklisting throughout the “free world” – recall other instances in which the West’s propaganda lines don’t stand up to scrutiny, so censorship and ad hominem attacks become the weapons of choice to defend “perception management” narratives in geopolitical hot spots such as Iraq (2002-03), Libya (2011), Syria (2011 to the present), and Ukraine (2013 to the present).

But the Magnitsky myth has a special place as the seminal fabrication of the dangerous New Cold War between the nuclear-armed West and nuclear-armed Russia.

In the United States, Russia-bashing in The New York Times and other “liberal media” also has merged with the visceral hatred of President Trump, causing all normal journalistic standards to be jettisoned.

A Call for Prosecutions

Browder, the American-born co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management who is now a British citizen, raised the stakes even more when he testified that the people involved in arranging a one-time showing of Nekrasov’s documentary, “The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes,” at the Newseum should be held accountable under FARA, which has penalties ranging up to five years in prison.


Hedge-fund executive William Browder in a 2015 deposition.
Browder testified: “As part of [Russian lawyer Natalie] Veselnitskaya’s lobbying, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, Chris Cooper of the Potomac Group, was hired to organize the Washington, D.C.-based premiere of a fake documentary about Sergei Magnitsky and myself. This was one the best examples of Putin’s propaganda.

“They hired Howard Schweitzer of Cozzen O’Connor Public Strategies and former Congressman Ronald Dellums to lobby members of Congress on Capitol Hill to repeal the Magnitsky Act and to remove Sergei’s name from the Global Magnitsky bill. On June 13, 2016, they funded a major event at the Newseum to show their fake documentary, inviting representatives of Congress and the State Department to attend.

“While they were conducting these operations in Washington, D.C., at no time did they indicate that they were acting on behalf of Russian government interests, nor did they file disclosures under the Foreign Agent Registration Act. United States law is very explicit that those acting on behalf of foreign governments and their interests must register under FARA so that there is transparency about their interests and their motives.

“Since none of these people registered, my firm wrote to the Department of Justice in July 2016 and presented the facts. I hope that my story will help you understand the methods of Russian operatives in Washington and how they use U.S. enablers to achieve major foreign policy goals without disclosing those interests.”

Browder’s Version

While he loosely accused a number of Americans of felonies, Browder continued to claim that Magnitsky was a crusading “lawyer” who uncovered a $230 million tax-fraud scheme carried out ostensibly by Browder’s companies but, which, according to Browder’s account, was really engineered by corrupt Russian police officers who then arrested Magnitsky and later were responsible for his death in a Russian jail.


Sergei Magnitsky
Browder’s narrative has received a credulous hearing by Western politicians and media already inclined to think the worst of Putin’s Russia and willing to treat Browder’s claims as true without serious examination. However, beyond the self-serving nature of Browder’s tale, there are many holes in the story, including whether Magnitsky was really a principled lawyer or instead a complicit accountant.

According to Browder’s own biographical description of Magnitsky, he received his education at the Plekhanov Institute in Moscow, a reference to Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, a school for finance and business, not a law school.

Nevertheless, the West’s mainstream media – relying on the word of Browder – has accepted Magnitsky’s standing as a “lawyer,” which apparently fits better in the narrative of Magnitsky as a crusading corruption fighter rather than a potential co-conspirator with Browder in a complex fraud, as the Russian government has alleged.

Magnitsky’s mother also has described her son as an accountant, although telling Nekrasov in the documentary “he wasn’t just an accountant; he was interested in lots of things.” In the film, the “lawyer” claim is also disputed by a female co-worker who knew Magnitsky well. “He wasn’t a lawyer,” she said.

In other words, on this high-profile claim repeated by Browder again and again, it appears that presenting Magnitsky as a “lawyer” is a convenient falsehood that buttresses the Magnitsky myth, which Browder constructed after Magnitsky’s death from heart failure while in pre-trial detention.

But the Magnitsky myth took off in 2012 when Browder sold his tale to neocon Senators Ben Cardin, D-Maryland, and John McCain, R-Arizona, who threw their political weight behind a bipartisan drive in Congress leading to the passage of the Magnitsky sanctions act, the opening shot in the New Cold War.

A Planned Docudrama

Browder’s dramatic story also attracted the attention of Russian filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov, a well-known critic of Putin from previous films. Nekrasov set out to produce a docudrama that would share Browder’s good-vs.-evil narrative to a wider public.


Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses UN General Assembly on Sept. 28, 2015. (UN Photo)
Nekrasov devotes the first half hour of the film to allowing Browder to give his Magnitsky account illustrated by scenes from Nekrasov’s planned docudrama. In other words, the viewer gets to see a highly sympathetic portrayal of Browder and Magnitsky as supposedly corrupt Russian authorities bring charges of tax fraud against them.

However, Nekrasov’s documentary project takes an unexpected turn when his research turns up numerous contradictions to Browder’s storyline, which begins to look more and more like a corporate cover story. For instance, Magnitsky’s mother blames the negligence of prison doctors for her son’s death rather than a beating by prison guards as Browder had pitched to Western audiences.

Nekrasov also discovered that a woman who had worked in Browder’s company blew the whistle before Magnitsky talked to police and that Magnitsky’s original interview with authorities was as a suspect, not a whistleblower. Also contradicting Browder’s claims, Nekrasov notes that Magnitsky doesn’t even mention the names of the police officers in a key statement to authorities.

When one of the Browder-accused police officers, Pavel Karpov, filed a libel suit against Browder in London, the case was dismissed on technical grounds because Karpov had no reputation in Great Britain to slander. But the judge seemed sympathetic to the substance of Karpov’s complaint.

Browder claimed vindication before adding an ironic protest given his successful campaign to prevent Americans and Europeans from seeing Nekrasov’s documentary.

“These people tried to shut us up; they tried to stifle our freedom of expression,” Browder complained. “[Karpov] had the audacity to come here and sue us, paying high-priced libel lawyers to come and terrorize us in the U.K.”

The ‘Kremlin Stooge’ Slur

A pro-Browder account published at the Daily Beast on July 25 – attacking Nekrasov and his documentary – is entitled “How an Anti-Putin Filmmaker Became a Kremlin Stooge,” a common slur used in the West to discredit and silence anyone who dares question today’s Russia-hating groupthink.


Russian police officer Pavel Karpov (right) meets the actor who portrays him in the docudrama portions of “The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes.”
The article by Katie Zavadski accuses Nekrasov of being in the tank for the Kremlin and declares that “The movie is so flattering to the Russian narrative that Pavel Karpov — one of the police officers accused of being responsible for Magnitsky’s death — plays himself.”

But that’s not true. In fact, there is a scene in the documentary in which Nekrasov invites the actor who plays Karpov in the docudrama segment to sit in on an interview with the real Karpov. There’s even a clumsy moment when the actor and police officer bump into a microphone as they shake hands, but Zavadski’s falsehood would not be apparent unless you had somehow gotten access to the documentary, which has been effectively banned in the West.

In the documentary, Karpov, the police officer, accuses Browder of lying about him and specifically contests the claim that he (Karpov) used his supposedly ill-gotten gains to buy an expensive apartment in Moscow. Karpov came to the interview with documents showing that the flat was pre-paid in 2004-05, well before the alleged hijacking of Browder’s firms.

Karpov added wistfully that he had to sell the apartment to pay for his failed legal challenge in London, which he said he undertook in an effort to clear his name. “Honor costs a lot sometimes,” the police officer said.

Karpov also explained that the investigations of Browder’s tax fraud started well before the Magnitsky controversy, with an examination of a Browder company in 2004.

“Once we opened the investigation, a campaign in defense of an investor started,” Karpov said. “Having made billions here, Browder forgot to tell how he did it. So it suits him to pose as a victim. … Browder and company are lying blatantly and constantly.”

However, since virtually no one in the West has seen this interview, you can’t make your own judgment as to whether Karpov is credible or not.

A Painful Recognition

Yet, in reviewing the case documents and noting Browder’s inaccurate claims about the chronology, Nekrasov finds his own doubts growing. He discovers that European officials simply accepted Browder’s translations of Russian documents, rather than checking them independently. A similar lack of skepticism prevailed in the United States.


Couple walking along the Kremlin, Dec. 7, 2016. (Photo by Robert Parry)
In other words, a kind of trans-Atlantic groupthink took hold with clear political benefits for those who went along and almost no one willing to risk the accusation of being a “Kremlin stooge” by showing doubt.

As the documentary proceeds, Browder starts avoiding Nekrasov and his more pointed questions. Finally, Nekrasov hesitantly confronts the hedge-fund executive at a party for Browder’s book, Red Notice, about the Magnitsky case.

The easygoing Browder of the early part of the documentary — as he lays out his seamless narrative without challenge — is gone; instead, a defensive and angry Browder appears.

“It’s bullshit,” Browder says when told that his presentations of the documents are false.

But Nekrasov continues to find more contradictions and discrepancies. He discovers evidence that Browder’s web site eliminated an earlier chronology that showed that in April 2008, a 70-year-old woman named Rimma Starova, who had served as a figurehead executive for Browder’s companies, reported the theft of state funds.

Nekrasov then shows how Browder’s narrative was changed to introduce Magnitsky as the whistleblower months later, although he was then described as an “analyst,” not yet a “lawyer.”

As Browder’s story continues to unravel, the evidence suggests that Magnitsky was an accountant implicated in manipulating the books, not a crusading lawyer risking everything for the truth.

A Heated Confrontation

In the documentary, Nekrasov struggles with what to do next, given Browder’s financial and political clout. Finally securing another interview, Nekrasov confronts Browder with the core contradictions of his story. Incensed, the hedge-fund executive rises up and threatens the filmmaker.


Financier William Browder (right) with Magnitsky’s widow and son, along with European parliamentarians.
“I’d be very careful going out and trying to do a whole sort of thing about Sergei [Magnitsky] not being the whistleblower, it won’t do well for your credibility on this show,” Browder said. “This is sort of the subtle FSB version,” suggesting that Nekrasov was just fronting for the Russian intelligence service.

In the pro-Browder account published at the Daily Beast on July 25, Browder described how he put down Nekrasov by telling him, “it sounds like you’re part of the FSB. … Those are FSB questions.”

But that phrasing is not what he actually says in the documentary, raising further questions about whether the Daily Beast reporter actually watched the film or simply accepted Browder’s account of it. (I posed that question to the Daily Beast’s Katie Zavadski by email, but have not gotten a reply.)

The documentary also includes devastating scenes from depositions of a sullen and uncooperative Browder and a U.S. government investigator, who acknowledges relying on Browder’s narrative and documents in a related case against Russian businesses.

In an April 15, 2015 deposition of Browder, he, in turn, describes relying on reports from journalists to “connect the dots,” including the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which is funded by the U.S. government and financial speculator George Soros. Browder said the reporters “worked with our team.”

While taking money from the U.S. Agency for International Development and Soros, the OCCRP also targeted Ukraine’s elected President Viktor Yanukovych with accusations of corruption prior to the Feb. 22, 2014 coup that ousted Yanukovych, an overthrow that was supported by the U.S. State Department and escalated the New Cold War with Russia.

OCCRP played a key role, too, in the so-called Panama Papers, purloined documents from a Panamanian law firm that were used to develop attack lines against Russian President Vladimir Putin although his name never appeared in the documents.

After examining the money-movement charts published by OCCRP about the Magnitsky case, Nekrasov notes that the figures don’t add up and wonders how journalists could “peddle these wooly maths.” He also observed that OCCRP’s Panama Papers linkage of Magnitsky’s $230 million fraud and payments to an ally of Putin made no sense because the dates of the Panama Papers transactions preceded the dates of the alleged Magnitsky fraud.

The Power of Myth

Nekrasov suggests that the power of Browder’s convoluted story rested, in part, on a Hollywood perception of Moscow as a place where evil Russians lurk around every corner and any allegation against “corrupt” officials is believed. The Magnitsky tale “was like a film script about Russia written for the Western audience,” Nekrasov says.


Red Square in Moscow with a winter festival to the left and the Kremlin to the right. (Photo by Robert Parry)
But the Browder’s narrative also served a strong geopolitical interest to demonize Russia at the dawn of the New Cold War.

In the documentary’s conclusion, Nekrasov sums up what he had discovered: “A murdered hero as an alibi for living suspects.” He then ponders the danger to democracy: “So do we allow graft and greed to hide behind a political sermon? Will democracy survive if human rights — its moral high ground — is used to protect selfish interests?”

But Americans and Europeans are being spared the discomfort of having to answer that question or to question their representatives about the failure to skeptically examine this case that has pushed the planet on a course toward a possible nuclear war.

Instead, the mainstream Western media has hurled insults at Nekrasov even as his documentary is blocked from any significant public viewing.

Despite Browder’s professed concern about the London libel case that he claimed was an attempt “to stifle our freedom of expression,” he has sicced his lawyers on anyone who might be thinking about showing Nekrasov’s documentary to the public.

The documentary was set for a premiere at the European Parliament in Brussels in April 2016, but at the last moment – faced with Browder’s legal threats – the parliamentarians pulled the plug. Nekrasov encountered similar resistance in the United States. There were hopes to show the documentary to members of Congress but the offer was rebuffed. Instead a room was rented at the Newseum near Capitol Hill.

Browder’s lawyers then tried to strong arm the Newseum, but its officials responded that they were only renting out a room and that they had allowed other controversial presentations in the past.

“We’re not going to allow them not to show the film,” said Scott Williams, the Newseum’s chief operating officer. “We often have people renting for events that other people would love not to have happen.”

In an article about the controversy in June 2016, The New York Times added that “A screening at the Newseum is especially controversial because it could attract lawmakers or their aides.”

One-Time Showing

So, Nekrasov’s documentary got a one-time showing with a follow-up discussion moderated by journalist Seymour Hersh. However, except for that audience, the public of the United States and Europe has been essentially shielded from the documentary’s discoveries, all the better for the Magnitsky myth to retain its power as a seminal propaganda moment of the New Cold War.


Donald Trump Jr., speaking at the 2016 Republican National Convention.
After the Newseum presentation, a Washington Post editorial branded Nekrasov’s documentary Russian “agit-prop” and sought to discredit Nekrasov without addressing his many documented examples of Browder’s misrepresenting both big and small facts in the case.

Instead, the Post accused Nekrasov of using “facts highly selectively” and insinuated that he was merely a pawn in the Kremlin’s “campaign to discredit Mr. Browder and the Magnitsky Act.”

Like the recent Daily Beast story, which falsely claimed that Nekrasov let the Russian police officer Karpov play himself, the Post misrepresented the structure of the film by noting that it mixed fictional scenes with real-life interviews and action, a point that was technically true but willfully misleading because the fictional scenes were from Nekrasov’s original idea for a docudrama that he shows as part of explaining his evolution from a believer in Browder’s self-exculpatory story to a skeptic.

But the Post’s deception – like the Daily Beast’s falsehood – is something that almost no American would realize because almost no one has gotten to see the film.

The Post’s editorial gloated: “The film won’t grab a wide audience, but it offers yet another example of the Kremlin’s increasingly sophisticated efforts to spread its illiberal values and mind-set abroad. In the European Parliament and on French and German television networks, showings were put off recently after questions were raised about the accuracy of the film, including by Magnitsky’s family.

“We don’t worry that Mr. Nekrasov’s film was screened here, in an open society. But it is important that such slick spin be fully exposed for its twisted story and sly deceptions.”

The Post’s arrogant editorial had the feel of something you might read in a totalitarian society where the public only hears about dissent when the Official Organs of the State denounce some almost unknown person for saying something that almost no one heard.

It is also unlikely that Americans and Europeans will get a chance to view this blacklisted documentary in the future. In an email exchange, the film’s Norwegian producer Torstein Grude told me that “We have been unsuccessful in releasing the film to TV so far. ZDF/Arte [a major European network] pulled it from transmission a few days before it was supposed to be aired and the other broadcasters seem scared as a result. Netflix has declined to take it. …

“The film has no other release at the moment. Distributors are scared by Browder’s legal threats. All involved financiers, distributors, producers received thick stacks of legal documents (300+ pages) threatening lawsuits should the film be released.” [Grude sent me a special password so I could view the documentary on Vimeo.]

The blackout continues even though the Magnitsky issue and Nekrasov’s documentary have become elements in the recent controversy over a meeting between a Russian lawyer and Donald Trump Jr. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “How Russia-gate Met the Magnitsky Myth.”]

So much for the West’s vaunted belief in freedom of expression and the democratic goal of encouraging freewheeling debates about issues of great public importance. And, so much for the Post’s empty rhetoric about our “open society.”

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

[\quote]
"He who wounds the ecosphere literally wounds God" -- Philip K. Dick
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where the rainbow ends, Hollywood awaits

Postby IanEye » Thu Aug 03, 2017 8:43 am

*



you can see it everywhere
the famine & the fear
the doubt & the drought
desperation & despair
you can see it all around
massacres abound
dead bodies all around
atrocities abound
missing persons can' t be found
dictators get dethroned
new clowns are quickly found


*
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Re: As Anti-Trump / Anti-Russia Campaign Fails ...

Postby semper occultus » Thu Aug 03, 2017 10:26 am

The "moral" case against Russia - if it needs to be re-butted - rather falls at the first fence when contextualised by the geo-politically reckless support, connivance & bed-sharing of the US foreign policy establishment ( & seemingly the Democrats in particular ) with the Ukrainian klepto-fascists

says alot that one of the US's most distinguished journalists Seymour Hersh can no longer get published in any of the resectable US outlets & his counter-narratives are ending up in the London Review of Books & Die Welt in Germany
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Re: As Anti-Trump / Anti-Russia Campaign Fails ...

Postby seemslikeadream » Sat Aug 05, 2017 11:30 am

The Kremlin Appears to be Aiding Trump's Smear Campaign Against H.R. McMaster

Trump is getting help from the Russians. Shocker, I know.
BOB CESCA16 HOURS AGO

The only people who aren't completely disposable to Donald Trump are his kids. Everyone else might as well have a "sell by" date on their foreheads. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not complaining. It doesn't require all that much research to learn how Trump makes allies then stabs them in the back. Just ask his myriad subcontractors who thought they were entering into the deal of a lifetime only to be summarily dicked out of being paid. Not for nothing, but Trump has confessed to stiffing his people, which raises an important question: why do people still agree to work for him?

Who the hell knows. Brush with celebrity, maybe?

Trump's west wing staffers are rapidly discovering -- too late -- the style for which their boss has been famous since the 1980s. Again, you shouldn't feel sorry for any of them. They're adults with internet access and they should've known they were welcoming legal jeopardy and career suicide by joining the Trump team. Notice, too, all of the prospective nominees who've declined the White House's offers to serve. They're clearly much smarter than the others who've permanently attached their names to, hands down, the worst president in American history -- a traitor and global laughing stock whose only supporters are poorly-educated cultists who've been systematically brainwashed by the conservative entertainment complex.

So far, Sean Spicer, Reince Priebus and Anthony Scaramucci, to name a few, have willingly stepped face-first into the Trump propeller. Jeff Sessions just barely escaped being julienned, simply because he refused to accept Trump's mandate to squelch the Trump-Russia investigation.

And then there are Trump's generals. The word is that they had no choice but to obey the orders from their commander-in-chief. We're talking about Secretary Mattis, chief of staff John Kelly and H.R. McMaster. It's unclear whether they possessed the latitude to decline Trump's employment offers, but if they were compelled to take up their current gigs in the Trump administration, perhaps some sympathy is in order. Or not.

Either way, it looks like H.R. McMaster, Trump's National Security Adviser, is next on the chopping block. Not surprising, of course. Word is that Trump is unhappy with McMaster regarding Afghanistan, as well as the firing of Ezra Cohen-Watnick, and who knows what else. So, the White House is engaged in a not-so-quiet effort to push McMaster out by engaging in a nefarious smear campaign, which will likely be followed by his resignation.

CNN reports:

Some right-wing media outlets this week began a sustained attack on McMaster after he removed a top intelligence adviser, seen as a continuation of his effort to purge acolytes of his predecessor, Gen. Michael Flynn, from the National Security Council.
Some conservatives also raised objections to his decision earlier this year to extend a security clearance for Susan Rice, President Barack Obama's final national security adviser who has been accused by some conservatives of mishandling classified information involving Trump campaign associates.
A senior administration official said Thursday that McMaster has written letters to all past national security advisers -- including Rice -- extending their security clearances. The official characterized the letters as a pro-forma move that allows the former advisers to participate in administration discussions about national security matters that originated under their tenure.
Meanwhile, the alt-right has joined the smear campaign.

“MCMASTER PURGES NSC STAFFER FOR WARNING OF ISLAMIST-LEFTIST THREAT,” conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich tweeted on Wednesday, before proceeding on a tirade about the national security adviser.
Cernovich subsequently claimed that McMaster had “been leaking information to David Petraeus” and “had direct contact with George Soros.” Those claims, plus at least a dozen more, were all published on McMasterleaks.com, a website Cernovich created. The site features an anti-Semitic illustration of Soros and McMaster by right-wing cartoonist Ben Garrison, according to Newsweek.
So, yeah. They're linking McMaster to two longtime enemies: Susan Rice and George Soros. Clever... and original.

On top of all that, it looks like Trump is getting the 2016 band back together on this front. Yes, Trump is getting help from the Russians. Shocker, I know. It seems the alleged criminal conspiracy between the Trump White House and Russia appears to be continuing in earnest.

It turns out that a watchdog group has discovered a high level of anti-McMaster chatter from Russian trolls and bots on social media. A group called The Alliance for Securing Democracy has been tracking bots and trolls linked to the Kremlin, and guess which Trump administration official is popping up among trending topics?

Image

Once again, whatever Trump happens to be talking about at any given moment somehow ends up being repeated by thousands of trolls and bots linked to Vladimir Putin and Russian intelligence. Sure, it could be that the Russians really love Trump and are busily and innocently debating his rallies and stupid, stupid tweets. Or it could be that the conspiracy to hijack American democracy continues today, as forecasted by James Comey, James Clapper and other intelligence community officials.

If McMaster survives through Labor Day, it'll only be because Trump got bored with smearing him and has instead turned his attention to stabbing another administration official in the back. With Putin's help, apparently.
https://thedailybanter.com/2017/08/trum ... -mcmaster/





FRIDAY, AUG 4, 2017 03:35 PM CDT
Right-wing media and Russian bots unite to target Trump’s national security adviser
H.R. McMaster has started to clean house at the National Security Council — and Trump trolls have taken notice




All of the president’s men may now be generals — but that doesn’t mean that they’ve all been rewarded with the praise from Donald Trump’s base befitting loyal soldiers running into a losing battle. Following yet another week of drama surrounding high-profile staff shake-ups, the White House is now fending off an intraparty barrage of attacks against Trump’s top national security adviser, H.R. McMaster.

The retired three-star Army lieutenant general, with the reported blessing of the newly installed chief of staff John Kelly (yet another retired general), dismissed several officials who joined the administration under another general — Michael Flynn. Even as the White House appeared overcome by the resignations of two communications directors and a chief of staff in rapid succession, McMaster has carried out his months-long quest to clear Flynn’s baggage.

“McMaster basically has this list and over the next two weeks he’s going to phase out” more senior officials loyal to Trump, an unnamed source told the conservative Free Beacon. “They’re taking out people who were chosen to best implement the president’s policy that he articulated during the campaign.”

McMaster continued clearing house this week, firing top national security administration officials, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, Rich Higgins, and Derek Harvey — and exacerbating the already splintered White House.

The dismissals of Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the National Security Council’s controversial 31-year-old senior director for intelligence, particularly pissed off allies of Trump’s more nationalist policies in and out of the White House. McMaster had long sought to dismiss Cohen-Watnick, who clashed with some other members of the council, but was prevented after interventions by Trump’s chief White House strategist, Steve Bannon.

It’s little surprise, then, that conservatives and Russian bots have taken notice of McMaster’s latest moves.

A critical Breitbart column was tweeted by Mike Cernovich, a leading figure in the alt-right movement who called McMaster “a Deep State Plant”
http://www.salon.com/2017/08/04/right-w ... y-adviser/


Dmitry Medvedev‏Verified account
@MedvedevRussiaE
The Trump administration has shown its total weakness by handing over executive power to Congress in the most humiliating way


Russia's state TV

challenges posed by Congress forcing Trump to sign sanctions.

Host concludes:"We need to elect our own U.S. Congress."


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNoPj_ws_xE


Reporter says ‘Russian propaganda outlet’ pushed him to cover conspiracy theory at the center of a White House lawsuit


Hunter Walker
National Correspondent
Yahoo NewsAugust 2, 2017


WASHINGTON — Reporter Andrew Feinberg says a Russian state-owned news site he once worked for pressured him to advance a conspiracy theory about the fatal shooting of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich.

Feinberg, who was the White House correspondent for Sputnik, first made the allegations when he left the Russian outlet in May. However, his story is newly relevant in light of a lawsuit filed this week that accused President Trump and the White House of playing a role in a “fake news” story designed to advance the same conspiracy theory.

Feinberg started at Sputnik in January, just as Trump took office. He was the outlet’s first reporter to work inside the West Wing. In a conversation with Yahoo News on Wednesday, Feinberg alleged that Sputnik wanted him to bring up a news article that’s at the center of the lawsuit in the White House press briefing room.

The story, which was published on the Fox News website on May 16 and retracted a week later, suggested Rich may have played a role in last year’s leak of DNC emails. The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that the email leak was orchestrated by the Russian government to help Trump defeat his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. There are multiple investigations into whether Trump and his campaign colluded with Russia.

Feinberg said that during a meeting held on May 26, his superiors asked him bring up the story in the press briefing.

“It was, ‘We want you to ask about Seth Rich and just, you know, ask about the case and if those revelations should put an end to the Russia hacking narrative and the investigation,” said Feinberg.

According to Feinberg, his bosses handed him a termination letter when he declined. He described the situation as “disturbing.”

“It’s really telling that the White House is pushing the same narrative as a state-run Russian propaganda outlet,” Feinberg said.

Feinberg previously discussed his departure from Sputnik with Yahoo News in May, on the day he left his job. He said he didn’t initially have reservations about working for a government-owned site but came to feel they wanted him to falsely “spin” the news.

“I thought as long as I just do what everyone else does … as long as I do the job fairly and accurately, I thought it would be OK,” Feinberg said at the time. “There are lots of state-owned news outlets; Sputnik’s not the only one.”

The lawsuit was filed by a Washington private investigator named Rod Wheeler in a New York federal court on Tuesday. Wheeler’s suit alleges that a Dallas financier and Republican donor named Ed Butowsky worked with Fox News reporter Malia Zimmerman to create a false news story linking Rich’s death to the DNC email leak.

Rich was shot in Washington, D.C., last July, shortly after the emails were published by WikiLeaks. Police have said they believe he was killed in a botched robbery, though the murder remains unsolved. There has been no evidence linking Rich to the theft of the emails or their publication.

According to Wheeler’s suit, Butowsky and Zimmerman wanted to advance “a political agenda for the Trump administration.” Trump has vehemently denied that he or anyone in his orbit worked with Russia.

Wheeler’s suit suggested that the Fox News story pinning the leak on Rich was designed to put the allegations of Russian collusion to rest and potentially end the probes. Before the story was published, Wheeler and Butowsky met with Trump’s former press secretary Sean Spicer at the White House. The lawsuit included alleged quotes from Butowsky suggesting Trump himself had input on drafts of the Fox News story and was eager to see it published.

The Fox News story included quotes attributed to Wheeler that said he believed Rich communicated with WikiLeaks. Wheeler insists those quotes were fabricated, though he made comments similar to those included in the story in a television interview. The Fox News story also included the claim that an anonymous federal investigator confirmed Rich was in contact with WikiLeaks. Rich’s family and D.C. police denounced the article almost immediately.

Fox News retracted the story on May 23. The network released a statement saying the article was “not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting.” In the wake of the lawsuit, the network’s president of news Jay Wallace released a statement that said “the accusation that foxnews.com published Malia Zimmerman’s story to help detract from coverage of the Russia collusion issue is completely erroneous.” Wallace further said the network’s internal investigation into the matter found no evidence that Wheeler was misquoted. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has said Trump had “no knowledge of the story and it is completely untrue that there was White House involvement in the story.”

Conspiracies about Rich were widespread online after his death. But prior to its retraction, the Fox News story was the first mainstream news article to bolster the theories.

Based on Feinberg’s story, his bosses at Sputnik asked him to bring up the Fox News article in the briefing three days after the story was retracted. While Feinberg said his editor did not directly bring up the Fox News story he felt the implication was clear since the article was the only alleged new development in the Rich case.

“They didn’t mention the Fox story, but it was clear what they were talking about with ‘revelations,’” Feinberg said.

According to Feinberg, he responded with “a hard no” and was then handed his walking papers.

“It was the same meeting. It was, ‘We want you to do this.’ I said, ‘No.’ They said, ‘We have a termination letter for you,’” Feinberg recounted.

Feinberg said the meeting included his editor, Peter Martinichev, and a man he’d never seen before named Mikhail Safronov, who identified himself as Sputnik’s D.C. bureau chief.

“I never saw him in the office before,” Feinberg said of Safronov.

Feinberg first discussed his departure from Sputnik with Yahoo News on May 26, the day he left the news outlet. At the time, Feinberg identified the Rich story as one of two main fake narratives he was asked to promote during his time at Sputnik. Feinberg said Sputnik also pressed him to ask questions that suggested the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad was not responsible for chemical attacks in that country. There is firm evidence linking Assad to chemical weapons but he has denied responsibility. Assad is a staunch ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On the day he left Sputnik, Feinberg said his editors pressured him to ask about Rich at the briefing throughout his final week on the job.

“This week they were pushing on Seth Rich. They were pushing on Seth Rich and I kept saying no,” Feinberg said in the May conversation.

Sputnik did not respond to a request for comment on this story. The company is operated by Rossiya Segodnya, a news conglomerate that is wholly owned by the Russian government. Rossiya Segodnya was established by an executive order from Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2013. Sputnik’s website describes the company as being “entirely geared toward foreign audiences” and dedicated to providing “alternative news content.” The U.S. intelligence community labeled Sputnik and Russia’s other foreign media outlets as a key part of Moscow’s propaganda machine in its report on Kremlin interference in the 2016 presidential election. That report alleged Sputnik and other English-language Russian media companies worked in concert with online trolls and bots to advance narratives and conspiracy theories as part of an influence campaign designed to aid Trump.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/reporter-say ... 07907.html
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.
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