Now we have the “Russia-hacked-the-voting-systems-of-21-states” to add to this trash heap of debunked official claims. Is this a healthy climate?
Last Friday, most major media outlets touted a major story about Russian attempts to hack into U.S. voting systems, based exclusively on claims made by the Department of Homeland Security. “Russians attempted to hack elections systems in 21 states in the run-up to last year’s presidential election, officials said Friday,” began the USA Today story, similar to how most other outlets presented this extraordinary claim.
This official story was explosive for obvious reasons, and predictably triggered instant decrees – that of course went viral – declaring that the legitimacy of the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election is now in doubt.
Virginia’s Democratic Congressman Don Beyer, referring to the 21 targeted states, announced that this shows “Russia tried to hack their election”:
The same day @realDonaldTrump refers to "Russia Hoax," Homeland Security Dept. tells 21 states that Russia tried to hack their elections. https://t.co/X6UrqFMUTW
— Rep. Don Beyer (@RepDonBeyer) September 22, 2017
MSNBC’s Paul Revere for all matters relating to the Kremlin take-over, Rachel Maddow, was indignant that this wasn’t told to us earlier and that we still aren’t getting all the details. “What we have now figured out,” Maddow gravely intoned as she showed the multi-colored maps she made, is that “Homeland Security knew at least by June that 21 states had been targeted by Russian hackers during the election. . .targeting their election infrastructure.”
DHS didn't bother to tell the 21 states Russia tried to hack during the election until this afternoon. https://t.co/48CNZL8MBp
— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) September 23, 2017
They were one small step away from demanding that the election results be nullified, indulging the sentiment expressed by #Resistance icon Carl Reiner the other day: “Is there anything more exciting that [sic] the possibility of Trump’s election being invalidated & Hillary rightfully installed as our President?”
So what was wrong with this story? Just one small thing: it was false. The story began to fall apart yesterday when Associated Press reported that Wisconsin – one of the states included in the original report that, for obvious reasons, caused the most excitement – did not, in fact, have its election systems targeted by Russian hackers:
The spokesman for Homeland Security then tried to walk back that reversal, insisting that there was still evidence that some computer networks had been targeted, but could not say that they had anything to do with elections or voting. And, as AP noted: “Wisconsin’s chief elections administrator, Michael Haas, had repeatedly said that Homeland Security assured the state it had not been targeted.”
Then the story collapsed completely last night. The Secretary of State for another one of the named states, California, issued a scathing statement repudiating the claimed report:
Sometimes stories end up debunked. There’s nothing particularly shocking about that. If this were an isolated incident, one could chalk it up to basic human error that has no broader meaning.
But this is no isolated incident. Quite the contrary: this has happened over and over and over again. Inflammatory claims about Russia get mindlessly hyped by media outlets, almost always based on nothing more than evidence-free claims from government officials, only to collapse under the slightest scrutiny, because they are entirely lacking in evidence.
The examples of such debacles when it comes to claims about Russia are too numerous to comprehensively chronicle. I wrote about this phenomenon many times and listed many of the examples, the last time in June when 3 CNN journalists “resigned” over a completely false story linking Trump adviser Anthony Scaramucci to investigations into a Russian investment fund which the network was forced to retract:
Or that time when Slate claimed that Trump had created a secret server with a Russian bank, all based on evidence that every other media outlet which looked at it were too embarrassed to get near? Or the time the Guardian was forced to retract its report by Ben Jacobs – which went viral – that casually asserted that WikiLeaks has a long relationship with the Kremlin? Or the time that Fortune retracted suggestions that RT had hacked into and taken over C-SPAN’s network? And then there’s the huge market that was created – led by leading Democrats – that blindly ingested every conspiratorial, unhinged claim about Russia churned out by an army of crazed conspiracists such as Louise Mensch and Claude “TrueFactsStated” Taylor?
And now we have the Russia-hacked-the-voting-systems-of-21-states to add to this trash heap. Each time the stories go viral; each time they further shape the narrative; each time those who spread them say little to nothing when it is debunked.
None of this means that every Russia claim is false, nor does it disprove the accusation that Putin ordered the hacking of the DNC and John Podesta’s email inboxes (a claim for which, just by the way, still no evidence has been presented by the U.S. government). Perhaps there were some states that were targeted, even though the key claims of this story, that attracted the most attention, have now been repudiated.
But what it does demonstrate is that an incredibly reckless, anything-goes climate prevails when it comes to claims about Russia. Media outlets will publish literally any official assertion as Truth without the slightest regard for evidentiary standards.
Seeing Putin lurking behind and masterminding every western problem is now religious dogma – it explains otherwise-confounding developments, provides certainty to a complex world, and alleviates numerous factions of responsibility – so media outlets and their journalists are lavishly rewarded any time they publish accusatory stories about Russia (especially ones involving the U.S. election), even if they end up being debunked.
A highly touted story yesterday from the New York Times – claiming that Russians used Twitter more widely known than before to manipulate U.S. politics – demonstrates this recklessness. The story is based on the claims of a new group formed just two months ago by a union of neocons and Democratic national security officials, led by long-time liars and propagandists such as Bill Kristol, former acting CIA chief Mike Morell, and Bush Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff. I reported on the founding of this group, calling itself the Alliance for Securing Democracy, when it was unveiled (this is not to be confused with the latest new Russia group unveiled last week by Rob Reiner and David Frum and featuring a different former national security state official (former DNI James Clapper) – calling itself InvestigateRussia.org – featuring a video declaring that the U.S. is now “at war with Russia”).
The Kristol/Morell/Chertoff group on which the Times based its article has a very simple tactic: they secretly decide which Twitter accounts are “Russia bots,” meaning accounts that disseminate an “anti-American message” and are controlled by the Kremlin. They refuse to tell anyone which Twitter accounts they decided are Kremlin-loyal, nor will they identify their methodology for creating their lists or determining what constitutes “anti-Americanism.”
They do it all in secret, and you’re just supposed to trust them: Bill Kristol, Mike Chertoff and their national security state friends. And the New York Times is apparently fine with this demand, as evidenced by its uncritical acceptance yesterday of the claims of this group – a group formed by the nation’s least trustworthy sources.
But no matter. It’s a claim about nefarious Russian control. So it’s instantly vested with credibility and authority, published by leading news outlets, and then blindly accepted as fact in most elite circles. From now on, it will simply be Fact – based on the New York Times article – that the Kremlin aggressively and effectively weaponized Twitter to manipulate public opinion and sow divisions during the election, even though the evidence for this new story is the secret, unverifiable assertions of a group filled with the most craven neocons and national security state liars.
That’s how the Russia narrative is constantly “reported,” and it’s the reason so many of the biggest stories have embarrassingly collapsed. It’s because the Russia story of 2017 – not unlike the Iraq discourse of 2002 – is now driven by religious-like faith rather than rational faculties.
No questioning of official claims is allowed. The evidentiary threshold which an assertion must overcome before being accepted is so low as to be non-existent. And the penalty for desiring to see evidence for official claims, or questioning the validity and persuasiveness of the evidence that is proffered, are accusations that impugn one’s patriotism and loyalty (simply wanting to see evidence for official claims about Russia is proof, in many quarters, that one is a Kremlin agent or at least adores Putin – just as wanting to see evidence in 2002, or questioning the evidence presented for claims about Saddam, was viewed as proof that one harbored sympathy for the Iraqi dictator).
Regardless of your views on Russia, Trump and the rest, nobody can possibly regard this climate as healthy. Just look at how many major, incredibly inflammatory stories, from major media outlets, have collapsed. Is it not clear that there is something very wrong with how we are discussing and reporting on relations between these two nuclear-armed powers?
What I think is very significant here, is how no one mentions or even cares to remember that the 2012 election was also “hacked” repeatedly, but as the outcome was favorable to the media, we hear nothing about it.
My respect for Greenwald has grown. His interview and subsequent reporting on Edward Snowden is an act of patriotism.
You clearly have a reason for writing this story. Is your over-arching belief that Americans are creating a monster out of Vladimir Putin? If so that does not need to be done. He has a consistent agenda of causing chaos in states that oppose his will. (See Ukraine and Georgia) This is proven. There is no democracy or viable opposition to his control in Russia and has jailed or murdered political opponents. So we don’t need fake stories to villify him. He has done it to himself.
Say hi to Daddy Vlady, #InterceptAssholes!
Noticed that Oregon was one of the identified states. But here in Oregon, we vote entirely on paper ballots, which are counted by computers not connected to the Internet. Just saying.
And I agree with Joe L. that the US has no high moral ground here. Still not okay for Russia to interfere (if it did), but outrage is a little problematic…
America you are something else. You are the country that has pulled off more regime change and interfered in more countries inner politics than any other country on this planet. Many people wanted to put a person, Hillary Clinton, who I believe is largely responsible for the coup in Honduras as President which is very ironic considering now the US is crying about another country “possibly” interfering in its’ own elections.
To me, what the allegations against Russia should be bringing to the table is America’s own record of interfering in other countries governance – which still occurs to this day. You can go back to Iran in 1953, Guatemala 1954, Chile 1973 and work your way up to Honduras in 2009 along with the coup in Ukraine in 2014. We could also add in the “regime change” wars such as in Iraq, Libya, Syria etc. – where the US is leading the charge.
America, you take the cake when it comes to interfering in other countries and yet still feel obliged to point fingers. Utterly amazing…
Glenn you are becoming an unfortunate shill, quote mining and not including the entire quotes from your sources. California said that the DHS had been wrong in regards to which networks were breached (it was the DoT, not SOS) but that the DHS was NOT wrong in saying that Russia had in fact been in their systems, and Wisconsin came forward saying the same exact thing.
These pieces you are writing lately are becoming less and less fact based polemics and instead becoming more and more emotional opinion-editorial based articles.
The group comprised of three intelligence veterans aren’t the only one talking about Russian presence on twitter. Bloomberg and Twitter have been on the issue for over a year and a half. Read “Hillary Clinton’s Twitter Chart of Doom.”
First you guys get a source exposed during an NSA investigation, and now you misquote sources in your stories and mislead readers with submitting corrections or redactions. Sad. At least the institutional press has the integrity to do what you won’t.
Can you please explain how if the allegation that the russians attempted to hack Wisconsin election systems is false then why does the Wisconsin Elections Commission itself state:
“1 – DHS has confirmed that Russian scanning activity on July 30 and 31, 2016 had actually occurred on an inactive IP address assigned to a Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development job center site. DET subsequently blocked access to Wisconsin systems from the suspicious IP address associated with the scanning activity.
2 – In another event in August 2016, DET’s firewalls blocked an advertisement embedded in a publicly available website from being displayed on a WEC computer. The ad could have led the user to a suspicious IP address, but DET’s web content filtering system proactively blocked the ad, and the user had no opportunity to be directed to the suspect IP address. DET advised DHS of this suspect IP address, which DHS later determined is connected to Russian government cyber actors.”
Does reading a news story on some news website give you more insight than the people who actually looked at the evidence?
Read it from the source here:
http://elections.wi.gov/node/5265
And as Monty pointed out earlier the State of California also acknowledged the Russian hacking attempts. Yes the specific network originally naimed by DHS was wrong. The attempt did still occur according the people working directly on finding out.
So we are still at 21 states.
Unless you have some other hard hitting facts from USA Today to enlighten us with.
This is so disappointing. I thought you were one of the last honest reporters not trying to push an agenda. I guess I was wrong.
Here’s a great new (10-5) Lee Camp rant on Maddow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UknXRayNr_M
Of course the goal is a big war!
They are at this moment just “inserting” in people´s
minds that Russia, Putin is the enemy!
It´s about to happen, the two militaries are already
face to face on the banks of the Euphrates!
There are things on earth, that are simply
out of humans grasping range!
You were so eager, to accuse the DHS of levelling an unfounded accusation, that you failed to examine the foundation of your accusation against the DHS. As I said in an earlier comment, I have very little faith in the DHS, but you did falsely claim to have debunked them, and now LOOK at all the trump-huffers you’ve emboldened.
From start to finish, your argument is baseless:
• The quote you claimed to debunk was by USA Today; not the DHS.
• You relied on Thomsen’s straw man, despite the fact that it disputed a claim that the DHS didn’t make.
• You relied on Bauer’s straw man, despite the fact that it disputed a claim that the DHS didn’t make.
• You relied on Padilla’s vague denial of nothing specific, despite the fact that it is a vague denial of nothing specific.
• You topped that nothing burger with totally random examples of unrelated Russian accusations, made by unrelated organizations.
Why were your standards so low?
Bauer’s BS doesn’t read like someone who was fed a changing story; it reads like someone who failed, multiple times, to understand what he was being told… and then blamed his failure on the person he was too dimwitted to understand.
Aside from any hacking attempts, Russia inarguably sought to influence the election, using manipulative propaganda that was so effective that it may easily have tipped the result. That much is already apparent. So why are you grasping at straws, in an attempt to portray Russia as falsely accused?
In response to your wholly inappropriate comparison to “the Iraq discourse of 2002”:
The FACT that Russia sought to influence the election doesn’t make me want to attack Russia. Russia should be expected to engage in every possible form of manipulation and subterfuge. That behaviour is in keeping with Russia’s character, in general, and Putin’s character, in particular. Moreover, it’s also in keeping with America’s character.
I don’t blame Russia’s attempts, for Russia’s successes.
I DO blame America’s slavish devotion to feigning perfection, which makes state officials so much more motivated to deny vulnerabilities than they are to identify and secure them. I DO blame Facebook’s/Twitter’s/Google’s/Youtube’s conscienceless complicity in augmenting the voices of the large, rich & organized, while suppressing the voices of the small, poor & individual. I DO blame an ineffectual news media, run by insulated billionaires and fronted by indoctrinated spokes-models.
As a result of your shockingly inept argument, a flock of trump-huffers now believe your inaccurate assertion that, “Yet another major Russia story fell apart.” That bolsters their desire to believe that the broader allegation, that Russia influenced the election, isn’t true. You knew they would jump to that conclusion; that’s why you added your, “None of this means…” section. But that section doesn’t begin to counterbalance your reckless claim.
You’re now a hero to idiots who consider an ad hominem a clever rebuttal, and who consider calling someone, “So called Lisa,” a clever ad hominem.
Sad.
I hope you’ll do better in the future.
Well, Hillary, you did much better in that long-winded Putin-splainin’ than you did in failing to mention anything concerning policy in any of your debates. Maybe ignoring facts and blaming Russia for everything will ensure a victory next time.
Pssst, first person. Hillary is hiding under your bed, right now, with knives. She means to kill you. She means to kill us all. Don’t look! Flee the house. But don’t go to the police. While she is under your bed, she is also at the local police station, which she now runs. Her agents are working to install her as Governor of your state as well. Which state? It doesn’t matter. She runs all 50 states.
It’s gotta be more than a coincidence
Yours is an almost verbatim account of the anonymous Russian postings that appeared on my Facebook/Twitter/Google/Youtube pages and feeds a few hours before – and I didn’t realize until now how it happened – my devotion to Hillary was transmuted into emboldened trump-huffing.
Shhh.
Everybody is seeking to influence elections, Bimbo. The are countless government officials and state media outlets from various countries that supported Clinton, and supported her foundation with money too.
There are israeli dual citizens all over the place in the US Government, Congress, Fed, and major US corporations and media outlets. I suspect that israeli influence in US politics if far, far bigger that the russian one, the whole world basically considers the US to be an israeli puppet.
Crying about russian influence while being swamped by israeli influence. The chutzpah! The whole world is laughing at America.
Come back to me when you see russian-american dual citizens all over the place in the US Institutions and Governing Elite.
Spectacular.
You’re super insightful to intuitively understand that blaming Russia, for what Russia did, is actually a declaration that no one else on earth has ever done anything similar.
You’re intensely intelligent to see through the fact that I didn’t say that, and you’re ultra clever to reply as though I did. (Don’t let anyone tell you what a straw man is.) People who disagree with you absolutely ARE guilty of everything, and anything, you can dream up.
What’s more, you were looking into my very soul – not projecting at all – when you accused me of “crying” in the same paragraph where you mewled, “The whole world is laughing at America.”
Furthermore, you’re remarkably astute – not incoherent and hostile – to direct your issues with Israel’s corrosive and ubiquitous influence, at a random stranger, in the context of Russia’s interference in an American election.
Further still, it’s definitely not a sign that your virulent idiocy poses a danger to yourself, and others, when you find yourself bemoaning Israel’s disproportionate influence, yet explicitly recommending that we all turn a blind eye, until Russia holds as much sway as Israel.
It’s not imbecilic at all to wait until you’re drowning, before you consider patching a leaky boat.
I suppose I could TRY to gently enlighten you, by politely pointing out the fact that saying Russia is an underhanded and pernicious adversary, doesn’t negate the fact that Israel is an underhanded and pernicious ‘ally’, but courtesy is an inappropriate response to venomous idiocy.
Even more inappropriate than flattery.
Are you one of the bimbos from down below? Is that it? Did I hurt your only feeling?
You were told to come back when you see russian-american dual citizens all over the place in the US Institutions, Businesses, Media and Governing Elites.
Until that happens, you are free to waste the time of someone else.
The whole world is laughing at you again.
Hillary lost because she overlooked Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio. She was arrogant and failed to do the electoral college math. Period!
The story was likely shared millions of times by college-educated millennials, a key advertising demographic. This sort to twixhiliration (twitter exhilaration) even spreads to high-ranking politicians like U.S. Representative Don Beyer (D-Virginia). The USA Today will have great analytics for advertisers and demand higher rates, generating more revenue to report on their next quarterly profit report. At the end of the day Gannet Company (who owns USA Today) gets a healthy stock price bump –and they could care less as to the validity of the story. Maybe they’ll print an editor’s note, that nobody will read, retracting the story. Or maybe they won’t. It’s not like there is a government organization or a professional board of journalism to investigate them. I’m sure there are one or two ‘boards’ whose mission is ‘to improve the profession’ operating barely above water or the red. I literally guessed and wrote the previous sentence before I looked up this organization: The Society of Professional Journalists, whose mission is to aid and encourage high professional standards and ethical behavior, and is currently running a deficit of -$18,177, according to its latest tax filings.
Greenwald compares the belief of Putin as some mastermind, behind all of the West’s ills, to religious dogma. Purveyors have a financial stake in dogma, while adherents have an emotional one. It’s the perfect tool for robust manipulation. For dogma, social media is like steroids, providing rapid gains. Worse, the dogma’s spread bullies non-adherents into conforming to its norms. This new social dogma (SoDO) is like a super-virus in its permeability, uptake, and suppression of all contrarian ideas.
“Just look at how many major, incredibly inflammatory stories, from major media outlets, have collapsed.“
Is this not the aim of disinformation? To sow distrust in established institutions in order to control the narrative?
It seems that Mr Greenwald, in his early pursuit of the ‘Russia didn’t do it!” narrative, is yet another unwitting accomplice in this process.
Glenn can you explain why MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell is so committed to having war hawk Max Boot on almost every week as some kind of expert on foreign policy? Why such a commitment to a deadly war pusher?
O’Donnell had boot on again tonight (Thursday)
This article discusses the scope of the story, posts one article about how the claim of Wisconsin’s election system was targeted is incorrect, where apparently the another civic department was subjected to scans.
And posts another from California which is a relatively similar story:
(He could have posted a link, he could have posted the entire comment, but I suppose he’s going narrative impact.)
http://www.sos.ca.gov/administration/news-releases-and-advisories/2017-news-releases-and-advisories/dhs-incorrectly-notified-california-secretary-state-about-russian-scanning/
While I agree the story is over stated the information was always fuzzy to begin with. While scanning is a hacking activity, my impression is that this is a relatively low effort activity and not particularly consequential in and of itself. Bots scan sites for known security vulnerabilities all the time.
The more serious claims about Illinois, Arizona, and effort to spearfish local election official which are by far the most concerning and clear claims, have not been addressed at all.
( Going by this http://www.npr.org/2017/09/22/552956517/ten-months-after-election-day-feds-tell-states-more-about-russian-hacking )
As for the whole twitter bots part, I’m not sure why this is even included except for him to bolster his narrative about the media being sloppy with its claims as he explicitly states. I take issue with this because:
A) Its not like the use of bots is an uncommon, they’re easy to set up and regularly used. (I view this as a common knowledge fact.)
B) There are a number of people out there already studying the Russian twitter bot phenomenon. Some of them seem to be data science nerds who make a hobby out of this, and would likely be delighted to discuss what their methodology at pedantic length with Mr. Greenwald. What impact the twitter bots have is highly speculative but they’re out there.
This whole section is kind of weak because he’s making his appeal to the reader of what is a commonly known fact. The fact that companies and nations use them to engage in social engineering is common knowledge. While Kristol et. al might not be sourcing his opinion there are plenty of other people already doing this. The more I think about this the more this section bugs me because he’s criticizing other parties for their lack of research while providing no evidence to support his own claims in this instance. This is just lazy.
{ They refuse to tell anyone which Twitter accounts they decided are Kremlin-loyal, nor will they identify their methodology for creating their lists or determining what constitutes “anti-Americanism.” }
You can seriously just Google this and evaluate this for yourself. So many of these people provide data, which Mr. Greenwald has failed to do. This statement is not questioning the relevant impact of the bots ( A stronger line of argument. ) he questioning their very existence.
This whole article is about how major media reporting is inflammatory and flimsy, which while I agree with this isn’t exactly a new phenomena, and Mr. Greenwald does his own fair share of omission and cherry picking.
Senator Warner repeated the “21 states” story again today. Outrageous.
The Russia scandal has done to Glenn what 9/11 did to Christopher Hitchens. He’s unhinged, as his opposition to clear evident proof (anyone for Trump’s open invitation to Russia to hack the election anyone?) illustrates. Oh, and Don Jr.’s meeting. Oh, and his loans from Russian banks. Oh, and the groveling of Caligula a L’Orange when it comes to Putin. The only question remains: Hitchens compared Bush to Thomas Jefferson. When will Greenwald pull that trigger? We are waiting, we are waiting.
Btw – for the record, I’m a world famous ancient historian who chooses to remain anonymous, so I’m pretty fucking good at analyzing evidence (I’ve been published in some of the world’s best presses). Glenn gets a D in my grade book for critical analysis – so too do most of the comments in this thread.
In the words of the tyrant this article and thread feed . . . Sad
“Btw – for the record, I’m a world famous ancient historian who chooses to remain anonymous, so I’m pretty fucking good at analyzing evidence (I’ve been published in some of the world’s best presses)”
oh boy! way to undermine everything you will ever say ever.
‘sad’.
“Btw – for the record, I’m a world famous ancient historian…”
I think you mean that you are a world famous historian of ancient history. With the arguments you made in your first paragraph, I don’t think I’ll pursue what must be a Danielle Steel version of history. As far as “being published in some of the world’s best presses,” so is Niall Ferguson.
Skepticism is always permissible and is actually essential. Readers who are not skeptical are usually gullible, and that covers a large swath of Glenn’s readership.
Glenn is playing an all or nothing game here, also known as throwing the baby out with the bath water, i.e, ‘because there have been a series of disproven stories, ergo there is nothing there.’ Of course, he also buries a hedge in the middle of the article to cover himself if and when these allegations are proven true, something he often doesn’t bother to do. His readers of course have been trained by Glenn to believe Russia is a farce and conveniently ignore this.
Also, as has been pointed out, despite Glenn’s derision, the investigations are ongoing based on a wealth of circumstantial evidence, which apparently only Glenn’s fan club choose to ignore (chief among them the nonstop lying, at times under oath by Trump administration officials about all things Russia). But let’s see what Müller comes up with and how Glenn reacts then.
Lastly, it seems conveniently left out in this article that it was the Trump administration’s Justice Department that disseminated this apparently inaccurate information in the first place.
Christ I hate how petty Greenwald has become. So news outlets are putting out “news” without checking the facts. They do that all of the time and every topic imaginable. It’s the news. It’s not Trump, or Russia, or Clinton. It’s the news.
But to turn a critique of the media into a case of doubting Russian interference – the title “is skepticism permissible yet?” shows this to be some of the intent of the article – is just foolish and below Greenwald’s intellectual capacity. There’s too much to the Russian story and it is being taken far too seriously to throw water on it because the media is often wrong.
It is okay to call out the media’s silly season, but that’s all we should be doing on Russia. BTW, less anyone care, I hate Clinton. I’m not whining because my candidate didn’t win.
The ridiculous, all-too-convenient idea that the Russian election interference story was driven by a refusal to accept Hillary Clinton’s defeat is a central tenet of the theory Glenn Greenwald is promoting. It is repeated frequently by his supporters on this site. The moment I read this claim in Glenn’s first pieces on this, I knew something was wrong. I wouldn’t put anything past the Trump campaign, and I intensely dislike Hillary Clinton. To try to posit one simple factor, shock over Clinton’s loss, to explain the behavior and thinking of millions of people is simplistic. The fact that Donald Trump, Kellyanne Conway, and Steve Bannon have repeatedly made the same claim places it squarely within the context of their habitual attempts to change the subject.
great piece as always Glenn, and sadly we see the same thing with the reporting on Syria and the smearing and blacklisting of Mint Press, Rania Khalek, Eva Bartlett, Max Blumenthal and others for reporting the uncomfortable truth that this is yet another corrupt imperial project like Afghanistan and Iraq and they are dismissed as Assadists. Anywho what a sick sad state of affairs and the Russia conspiracy theories that fucking left-wing outlets are pushing is just as sickening as the Syria propaganda or throwing Venezuela under the bus to empower US-UK backed oligarchs in that country.
Glenn – what exactly do the Ruskies have on you?
Where do you want to put the glass coffin containing Joe McCarthy’s fetid remains?
Wow. Your readership sure doesn’t like it when you don’t toe the party line. Thanks for some honest reporting.
Does anybody know how many Americans were disenfranchised by red states purging their voter rolls before the election? Or do the (fake) stories of Russia hacking the DNC and Podesta inform us of a much bigger threat to American (so-called) democracy?
Obama popping over to Europe to tell Scotch not to vote to leave the UK, the UK not to leave the EU, the Germans to vote for Merkel. All good. But a meeting between some Russian lawyer and Trump’s son .. perhaps the gravest interference in a sovereign election in democratic history.
Man, don’t call them “Scotch” in person. They’ll tell you that scotch is a liquor. They are Scotts.
Sorry Robert F, they are Scots. Hoots mon there’s a moose loose aboot this hoose, Lord Rockinghams X1 1958. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jeu72y0f4Kc
Skepticism of what?
After the Russian – Trump Jr meeting, the fact Russia tried to interfere in the US election no longer even controversial.
skepticism of the many, many false claims about russian interference in the election, from hacking podesta’s email to hacking state voting machines.
“the many, many false claims”
Please. Either enumerate them all and expose the fallacy of your nonsensical and demagogic claim, or stop that propaganda.
At most, there are 10 -15 stories, out of hundreds, if not thousands, claims that had been exposed as bad journalism. There is not actually a single one that was proven false, not even under the flimsy standards employed by Greenwald and the likes.
Bad journalism is a proof of nothing, and a disproof of nothing. Trump jr meeting with a Putin representative, shortly before one of Wikileaks BS releases, is more than a smoking gun. In the least, it is a proof Russia tried. It is also likely a proof Trump colluded with it.
The ground of Russian interference is slowly slipping from under the feet of foolish denialism. I suggest you abandon that nonsense sooner rather than latter.
In the home-page summary of this article, you said: Now we have the “Russia-hacked-the-voting-systems-of-21-states” to add to this trash heap of debunked official claims.
I reviewed the testimony, and I can’t find any official claim of that from Liles, Manfra, or Priestap.
The closest “official claim” I could find was Liles’ (DHS) claim, “Internet-connected election-related networks, including websites, in 21 states were potentially targeted by Russian government cyber actors.”
This article does NOTHING to disprove THAT.
On a different note:
If you could, please provide the names of the “Left wing outlets” you referred to.
I’ve been choking back my puke, for what seems like forever, over the Republican lie that the media has a left-leaning bias. The plainly observable fact is that every large media outlet subscribes to corporate fascism, and independent media mainly consists of insurgent outlets that serve a more maniacal, more openly racist form of fascism.
If you could direct me to actual “Left wing outlets,” I’d be forever grateful.
Of course, it’s not possible to disprove that things “were potentially targeted”.
Exactly, and what it is not possible to disprove, has obviously NOT been “debunked”.
Greenwald got the “official statement” wrong; the ACTUAL statement doesn’t support his narrative at all.
It seems that he confused inaccurate paraphrasing by USA Today, with an “official statement”. That shouldn’t happen.
wsws.org <- actual left wing outlet
Thanks. I’ll check it out.
You can look to every President and find a huge lie, every news organization has told huge lies, scientist cook data in journal articles, advertising is filled with lies half truths and omissions of truth. Lying to manipulate public opinion is the reason some organizations exist.
I am surprised when people are surprised about all this lying. Secrecy is the foundation of most lies. This why government secrecy is so corrosive. I would think you could correlate the rising lack of trust of the government with the rise of government secrecy. The same could be said for news organizations. We constantly make the mistake that large news organizations reason they exist is to inform the public but we forget they are entertainment organizations whose reason to exist is to make money for the owners/stock holders.
I fully expect the killings in Las Vegas to be painted in the same vein since the right can no longer defend their propaganda that this was a democratic shooting spree.
No, Mr. Greenwald, you cannot be skeptical.
To be skeptical of the Democratic explanation is to be in favour of Donald Trump.
And it is unthinkable for all decent people to be in favour of Donald Trump.
Why? Because everyone knows that Trump is wrong.
Facts, nuance, simultaneity — this is stuff for eggheads, people who sense that real political acts must have at least the complexity of a novel.
Scott Adams is depressingly correct. Facts do not matter. The mob feeds on emotion, not fact.
The problem is that we don’t actually *have* a side which is not that way. Telling lies about Trump confirms that the Democratic Party is a bunch of shifty liars, but Trump himself is *also* a shifty liar — just go back and listen to his campaign speeches, he contradicts himself within five minutes a few times, and is purely playing on the emotions of the crowd, himself.
Of the two, I’m not sure which one I dislike more: the Republican side, which is doing this but is pretty up-front about being horrible people who want to do things which will destroy the country, or the Democratic side, which is also doing this but constantly pretends it is providing an alternative. When the only real difference is the name on the letterhead, who cares?
Assange says he knows the source of the DNC leaks and that it wasn’t Russia. Time to let him state what he knows and let him put it on the record. Odds are the DNC did it to themselves and they know it which is why they are pulling the entire country through this useless Russia knot hole.
Assange stating who supplied the leaked documents violates the protection of the leakers. It literally eliminates the single reason people feel safe leaking to wikileaks. As much as I would like to be able to identify who leaked, it isn’t worth violating the protections of those in need.
That’s easily solved, just grant them all immunity like they did for all of Hillary’s closest aids
I think we ALL know at this point–even the Democrats–that there is simply NOTHING AT ALL to this Russia nonsense.
Certitude is the hallmark of ignorance.
Thank you for your certitude on this point, Thomas.
Russia certainly know there is nothing to it, Vic.
Your certitude of my certitude is funny.
Somebody could start a counter on the Web totaling up the days since the “Russia hacked the election” story got started based on anonymous sources. More than a year now, and we are still waiting for the evidence!
Exactly! As Glenn points out…this is reminiscent of the lead up to war in Iraq.
Isn’t it crazy that the “elite left” like Carl Reiner, are now the ones creating the red scare and neo-McCarthyism? These people on the “left” would have been the ones fighting McCarthyism back on the day. The hypocrisy is astounding! No doubt, they are working to blacklist celebrity activists like Susan Sarandon and Cornell West.
Only the most credulous bought the idea that Clinton’s defeat was attributable to Putin in the weeks after the election. Those still buying it a year on need to take a very long, hard look at themselves.
ClintonPodestaTandenBots will continue this ploy because it is the endless US corporate media game plan aka a see-thru salted netanyahu of corruption that will not end without a party elimination and/or forced expulsion-
Skepticism is fine and correction is fine, but you have the Reality Winner NSA report, you are the reason she is in jail.
Of course, she is now sitting in a jail cell due to your handling of the information, but don’t let that bother you…
What should bother you is the reasons why you are turning a blind eye to the attempts to influence our process, starting with Cambridge Analytica and the various botnets that were employed.
But since you got Winner busted and you seem intent on discrediting an investigation that is not finished yet, I suspect we can figure out the answer as to why.
I really used to respect you, now I just suspect you.
Okay.
But Glenn’s current article is nothing more than showing you actual *evidence* of the lies sold to the dishonest and ignorant.
It’s like you are blaming him for lies told to you by the Washington Post!
Why is Israel’s influence on US policy before and after elections not discussed more openly?
shhhhh ….
The winner of the US Presidential election is the ruling class.
How many thousands of hours are spent by civilians to quarrel over this or that empty platform or fake position cynically adopted by the politicians?
How much money is donated by ordinary people who foolishly think that their contribution to the fake populists will make a difference in the outcome?
How does necessary discussion of OUR PRIORITIES get displaced by the campaign talking points and the chatter from the propagandists and partisan hacks?
How does the “quadrennial election extravaganza” (h/t Chomsky and Paul Street) disrupt the working class’ movement building and class struggle from below?
What about the use of twitter and Facebook to spread disinformation? Seems like strong proof there.
Ray McGovern again interviewed by LaRouchePAC, this one from July 2017:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__6wROkp8Dk
McGovern is a very smart man! Will check it out, thanks.
Why Some U.S. Ex-Spies Don’t Buy the Russia Story
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-10/why-some-u-s-ex-spies-don-t-buy-the-russia-story
In Michigan, as in Wisconsin, the existing ballots were ran thru the counters multiple times – giving 2-3 times as many votes as ballots. Why hasn’t any black precinct captain gone to jail or even got charged? Black privilege?
I love Greenwald’s reporting, but instead of just saying that most of the Russia stories are false, and constantly targeting Maddow, what about getting to the bottom of it, and finding out and telling us which are the real Russia stories and telling us how, if at all, involved Russia is in subverting democracy?
I certainly don’t believe Fox News; that there is no Russia story, and based on this I guess I can’t believe MSNBC… Well WTF!? Who do we believe? No one, I guess. What do we do? Nothing, I guess. Just keep reading alternative news and acting smart with our replies to stories like these.
Really though. What is the truth about Russia, Greenwald? Please, report on that instead of the ineptitude of journalists. We have those stories in spades.
I’m not going to act like so many of the commenters here and pretend I know exactly what’s what with this Russia thing. What I want is someone that gives a shit, someone that will get to the bottom of it and tell us the truth. Greenwald, I hope that person is you.
So frustrated.
Lower your expectations.
Learn to think for yourself. Have the confidence to think critically.
Greenwald isn’t omniscient or omnipotent–no one is.
How condescending. Just what I expect in the comments section.
The truth of Russia’s relationship with Trump is, I suspect, that there is an international oligarchical syndicate (loosely reticulated, semi-criminal, but still quite powerful), some of which is located in Russia, to which Trump & Co. are connected in some ordinary smutty way, and which arose over the past three decades out of the destruction of communism and restoration of capitalism in Russia at the end of the Cold War – an event which, as Putin himself has noted, portended a breakdown of world order.
The Democratic Party, along with the mainline media and the intelligence agencies (and now Hollywood panjadrums like Morgan Freeman), is cynically exploiting this more complex and problematic reality by reducing it to a sensational sleuthing exercise. It serves to cover up the party’s egregious failures over the same period of time and in the 2016 election, as one of the two major parties of the U.S. political establishment which has all but abandoned any commitment to democratic principles.
We can expect no truth out of any inquiry into Russua’s “meddling” in the 2016 U.S. election because the investigators have already decided that they want a certain outcome.
My friend, Robert Parry and others have written some informative articles over at consortiumnews.com regarding Russiagate. Perhaps they have what you seek.
Russia subverting democracy?! Why, we brought democracy to Russia in 1990 by putting Boris Yelstin in power!
The truth is… we’ll never know. I believe that WikiLeaks got the DNC e-mails directly from an insider with no Russian involvement, and I doubt the so-called consensus of the U.S. intelligence agencies. But there won’t be any proof one way or another, such is the nature of online hacking. I’m just going on the track record of WikiLeaks never having been caught lying, unlike U.S. intel people like James Clapper.
The bottom of this story has already been reached. Governments hack each other. Governments do Psy-Ops on each other. Governments spy on each other. Do you seriously think we haven’t been doing the same things, and worse for years? Do some research. If Clinton had been a better candidate and won with the landslide she assured up she would win with, we would not be talking about this.
If that’s so, if Democrats are willing to overlook Russian subterfuge just because they won, that would make them as bad as Republicans who are adamant that there is no Russian thing… Oh wait…
I still think i disagree though.
“Do some research.” More condescension.
It would likely be impossible to get to the bottom of it. National interference is very hard to prove, especially when done by nations competent in it. At best the evidence will be ambiguous and not directly linked to the nation-state. Usually the real evidence is acquired after the fact.
A very serious question. Is there anyone on the right with the same integrity as Greenwald and Scahill etc, Who will refuse to promote an agenda on lack of evidence that might otherwise appear favorable. I think a lot of people would like to promote a narrative that shows Trump to be illegitimate but these guys take an ethical stand based on evidence.. Who on the right shows this kind of integrity?
To Those Who Are Flippantly Dismissive:
Did none of you read this far?
“NONE OF THIS means that every Russia claim is false, nor does it disprove the accusation that Putin ordered the hacking of the DNC and John Podesta’s email inboxes (a claim for which, just by the way, still no evidence has been presented by the U.S. government). Perhaps there were some states that were targeted, even though the key claims of this story, that attracted the most attention, have now been repudiated.
But what it does demonstrate is that an incredibly reckless, anything-goes climate prevails when it comes to claims about Russia. Media outlets will publish literally any official assertion as Truth without the slightest regard for evidentiary standards.”
You mean you truly do not see how dangerous this trend is? It has not yet been demonstrated to your satisfaction that made-up “news” has poisoned the mass media and society?
It’s more important to Blame the Russians?
Maybe a lot of the self-styled Trump opponents are flattering themselves, and have more in common with Trump than they realize.
Im not sure what you mean. Could you explain further?
As Greenwald writes himself, there is no evidence to support the assertions of the anti-Russian crusaders.
Yeah, there is. That is what makes his claims even more disturbing. The Reality Winner leaked NSA report.
Which was sent to THE INTERCEPT, which they published directly and caused her to be busted.
I have a feeling there is some sort of pressure on Greenwald to downplay things yet pretend to be objective. Either that, or something worse is going on.
Reality Winner’s “leak” had NO proof of Russian meddling.
It was a rehash of the same bogus “High Confidence” which
has been promoted as if it is facts. There has never been any
real evidence provided. When “high confidence” was last promoted
as if it was evidence, it was used to create the horror of the
war of aggression in Iraq. A clue to the truth about what the
Russia-phobia is more likely about can be found in the fact that
Russian actions have frustrated the desired slaughtering against
Syria and Iran (of which Hillary Clinton is a major promoter).
Pressure? Don’t be naïf. You can bet Greenwald’s got his own dacha and a bevy of Russian cuties to keep it warm.
Where’s the proof; where’s the charges? The libs don’t have anything.
What the Trump admin DOES HAVE is proof of the perfidious, venal unmasking/surveillance of American citizens by multiple intelligence agencies/White House advisers under the Obama administration and the illegal internal sharing of the info amongst themselves.
And I agree with Greenwald wholeheartedly.
We are all sinking into fake news. We pick the story we believe based on whether it is stylistically palatable, enhances our self-image and “brand,” and so forth.
When someone says something true (like the part of the article just quoted), you see people at a loss for what to do. Why, it’s utterly disconcerting.
I suppose most people could not tell I was endorsing Greenwald. To be fair, an earlier post of mine that was clearer did not appear, and in the current climate, and using this medium to communucate, I should be much more careful. I mean that straight, not ironically.
I’m sure that all those Trump administration members, then, who admitted to having numerous contacts with Russians that they originally denied, will eventually get around to retracting their admissions.
is that all? i would like to read 300 more pages of this.
Another factor needs to be considered, which has been touched on by other comments.
There is (unfortunately) a logic behind the result of the election.
Clinton won the popular vote by several million votes, in the areas where she was expected to poll extremely well.
The electoral vote loss was specific to a few places, and the margin was not very large. Is there evidence of sufficient hacking in those areas, which we do know have Trump voters, to have produced this result?
Someone really does have to address this before we believe them that The Russians Did It.
No one here is fooled. We are not opposed to investigating this issue. The integrity of American elections has been in serious question since 2000. I welcome scrutiny, of course. I also welcome investigations of gerrymandering, in advance of the 2018 election for Congress, among other things.
The question is whether we should believe that the claim The Russians Did It has already been established.
Greenwald is correct. We shouldn’t.
I also think it’s a red herring. Local irregularities that largely stem from Republican dominance over local politics and the federal court system are a much bigger problem, harder to detect and defeat, and certainly play a role in who becomes President.
2 major points.
# 1. There has never been any “integrity” to elections for national offices
in the faking U$A. Manipulative deceits, willful ignorance, and desperation
are not sources of integrity, but these are the chief characteristics of
federal elections.
# 2. The fact that the overwhelming numbers of voters would endorse
either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump and their shared,
avaricious corporate disdain for life
renders the whole issue of outside “manipulation” absurd.
The insider manipulations and fraudulence is so blatantly
offensive that it makes this whole manufactured obsession with
Russia just one more example of the extent of craven hypocrisy,
predatory sadism, and indifference to the suffering of “others”
which is now the hallmark of the faking U$A.
How did we come to have a voting system without any means of independent verification. As you imply there is more to fear from republican election commissions than Russians. Look at Palast in 2000 in 2004 there was a video produced called Scene of a crime or something similar which shows how vulnerable the system is to those charged with protecting it. Any Russian interference would be swamped in the morass of corruption already built into the system. Whats wrong with just writing down a name and dropping it in a box?
Clinton rigged her votes everywhere you believe she won and yes of course I am talking national primary election-
The activity the DNC is proven to have taken is criminal and will be dealt with accordingly via party expulsion andor party elimination
You are wrong about the future of the DNC.
The democrats are republicans who lie about what they support.
The DNC sucked the life out of the Bernie Sanders campaign and
Sanders was one of the democrat operatives who made sure that
his campaign was a dead end democrat pretense.
The reason why the democrats created the story of Russian meddling
was to distract from their own corruption and Sanders is still
insisting that the Russians are the problem when it is blatantly
obvious that the DNC and its “Super-delegates” had rigged the
outcome of their convention in favor of the obfuscating, warmongering,
corporate predator Clinton.
Clinton and Trump are two versions of the same corruption. They
both depend on lies and fakery in order to keep the established
corruption in control and they know the vast majority of voters
cannot imagine not supporting the corruption.
Unfortunately Hillary backed herself into a corner making it impossible to ask for a recount through her polarizing FUD baiting Trump, “will you accept the results of the election?” She had to accept them without question.
However her people managed to organize a back-door challenge through Jill Stein anyway, and good on ’em for doing that. At least they are competent, if condescending sophists.
https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8074-recount_2016_an_uninvited_security_audit_of_the_u_s_presidential_election
The conclusion was:
– the election was probably not hacked this time.
– in spite of computer security professionals’ successfully advocating “voter verifiable paper trails” everywhere except Pennsylvania, the election is still more hackable than it needs to be.
– the legal frameworks for doing recounts and audits of elections is broken and mostly ineffective. The new demand should be, “automatic statistical audit.”
– In addition, incentives of partisan or CYA election officials need to be realigned, and in Detroit there are significant old-school problems with ballot box tampering that aren’t investigated or punished.
They did investigate, and more importantly they discussed their results more openly than this current news cycle, which looks more like “deep state” propaganda, just PR statements, nothing that can be followed up, nothing by independent security researchers just feds.
As a security researcher, honestly, scans and attacks are blowing in constantly from zombies all over the world including Russia and China, and attribution is difficult. They are talking about “Russian IPs,” but Russians would not attack us from Russian IPs unless they wanted Russian attribution. They would use infected zombie machines, or just use Tor. When real security researchers attribute things to Russia, it’s based on message board posts in Russian discussing the software used, similarity of the software used to other attacks that clearly targeted victims only Russia would care about, or Russian grammar errors or variable names in the code. And some of this is only attributable to Russian people, not necessarily the Russian state. Russia is full of meddlesome hackers just like the US, quite a lot of them and very skilled. It’s easy to say the election system is terribly undefended based on this news cycle, but using it further, to establish Russian intent to hack the election for Donald Trump, seems ridiculous to me based on the level of allegation, “attempts from Russian IPs.” And unfortunately, if such serious political hackery did occur, you can’t count on proving it by investigating harder. You may never know. That was the conclusion of the original, deeper, investigation in the video I posted: “probably not hacked.”
I would view this current stuff as a threat from the FBI to the President, “fuck with us too much, and we can undermine your election result.” Liberals with no respect for process are happy to support anything that helps their “side.”
“The question is whether we should believe that the claim The Russians Did It has already been established.”
Actually, it has. The revelation of Trump jr emails and meeting with a Putin/Russian representative a while back is a complete vindication of the claim that the Russian TRIED to meddle, and possibly that Trump tried or intended to collude with them.
Also, the question of their rate of success should be distinct from the question whether they did interfere. The latter was answered in the positive by the event I mentioned above, while the former would probably never be answered at all. Part of the problem with Greenwald’s writing on the topic is that he either overtly conflate them, or simply pretends they are the same.
Let’s not forget also that this was about the third or fourth stab at it — “explaining” how it is that Trump beat Hillary.
Comey was to blame first. Sanders and the Bernie Bros, of course. The media, for focusing on her email server (and Greenwald was among the very first to say that what was uncovered was NOT sufficient to indict Clinton, for anything, and he simply pointed out that others who should have benefited from the very same treatment as Clinton received were instead treated with undue harshness).
But in the end, she settled on “the Russians.” Smart choice, this one may have legs. The public is already conditioned to believe it. And no one but no one seems to have any notion of burden of proof as soon as something emotional is served up.
The vagueness of the accusation is also appealing; how often do you hear exactly who these “Russians” are? Private actors? In league with Putin himself? Who? Oh, that’s right, they can’t tell us. Top secret.
In any event, if the public was gullible enough to vote for Trump, the slightly more sophisticated among them should be pleased with this version.
Sadly, Ta-Nehisi Coates has still produced the best analysis. I wish it were not so.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-first-white-president-ta-nehisi-coates/537909/
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/11/maps-presidential-election-race-gender-age/
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trumps-victory-divisions-by-race-gender-education/
Glen’s writing has improved of late. He has managed to tear his attention from the Russia election interference story from time to time and this piece was relatively restrained. But your comments bring up one of the most incredible elements of GG’s original framing of this issue, that this whole story was invented and promoted by “the Democrats” as a way of explaining Hillary Clinton’s loss. Who “the Democrats” are is unclear. It depends on which sentence of his you are reading. Sometimes they are the fabled West Coast Elites. Sometime they are the party leaders, sometimes they are people who voted Democrat. Regardless, Glen has been making the fantastic claim that a party that suffered a historic defeat, a staggering loss at every level of government, is still managing to run the country, to the point of pulling the strings to overturn the results of the 2016 elections. That would require a massive conspiracy, involving intense planning and coordination and hundreds if not thousands of participants.
And you are making the same argument. “But in the end, she settled on ‘The Russians.'” So how did she pull this hoax off? How did she get journalists in Europe to concoct their own stories of Russian interference? How did she get the news outlets in America to plant fake stories? How did she get the intelligence and law enforcement agencies of the US government to falsify evidence to back up her claims? Where is your proof?
A clear flag of erroneous conspiracy thinking is the attribution of nearly supernatural powers to the architects of the conspiracy. How could she have possibly pulled this off?
excellent post. I would love to see one of the promoters of this conspiracy theory attempt to answer your questions.
which states had vote counts that were engineered by Russia?
if there is evidence of manipulated vote totals, how is it known that the totals were manipulated against clinton, since she won the popular vote?
should she have won by even more votes in urban areas? or should she have won by more votes in the rural areas where people hate her?
A very informative and insightful article about the DNC email hack by a former Marine Corps intel officer:
https://medium.com/homefront-rising/dumbstruck-how-crowdstrike-conned-america-on-the-hack-of-the-dnc-ecfa522ff44f
having grown up in the 80s (at the height of Reaganism) in Arkansas (when Bill was governor) I’m trying to imagine someone in 1985 saying they were from the future and that in 31 years DEMOCRATS/”liberals” would be the ones trying to start a war with Russia – over Hillary Clinton’s bruised ego! people would quite literally think you were an escapee from a psychiatric hospital! if someone had pitched it as a movie plot they’d have been laughed out of the room yet this is somehow reality in 2017?!?… there’s got to be a way to pierce the delusion bubble in which ~1/2 the country (& who knows how much worldwide?) is living…
Well said!
The whole phenomenon shows how powerful the influence of Racial Maddow et. al is.
“Bruised ego?” You sure are dumb. 9 million children lost insurance today.
Soon after Clinton’s defeat, top strategists decided where to place the blame. “Within 24 hours of her concession speech,” the authors report, campaign manager Robby Mook and campaign chair John Podesta “assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn headquarters to engineer the case that the election wasn’t entirely on the up-and-up. For a couple of hours, with Shake Shack containers littering the room, they went over the script they would pitch to the press and the public. Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument.”
http://disinfo.com/2017/05/how-the-russia-spin-got-so-much-torque/
Yep. Bruised ego.
Obviously, this is orchestrated dis-information peddled by folks within the deep state and by folks within neocon scum groups who not only detest Russia but they detest Trump. The only problem is the corporate/state media like CNN and MSNBC etc are in my opinion in bed with these creeps; therefore, the reason they flagrantly disseminate this garbage without fact checking.
“Obviously, this is orchestrated dis-information peddled by folks within the deep state and by folks within neocon scum groups who not only detest Russia but they detest Trump.”
I’m not sure they detest Trump they just detested him when they thought he would follow though with his talk about a less interventionist foreign policy.
Now that they’ve bent him to their will on foreign policy they won’t mind him doing whatever he wants domestically.
It’s not about detesting Trump. Bankers, defense contractors, every lowlife scumbag neocon, and other nefarious characters. Had billions invested in Hillary and the Clinton Foundation. Invested for promised favors. When Trump won that meant all that bribe money was for nought. Plan B had to be implemented manipulate a stupid Trump into doing their agenda, with threat of prosecution over made up accusations. And prolly a little bribe money for him also.
It isn’t just a matter of persistently asserting lies, but of the broad spectrum of influence of propagating them. In ‘post truth’ consciousness (sic), attribution and association is all that determines meaning. If all these ‘official’ institutions say so then the inference is there must be fire beneath the smoke. That there isn’t – as there wasn’t re Iraq WMDs – is never fully recognized because the next ‘story’ operates its payload.
The nature of power without authority is laid bare. But is there anyone here to notice? Consciousness has been effectively captured and substituted for. Yet is this anything new? Is deceit not the art by which a true authority is ruled out and usurped by false narrative of fig-leaved identity?
Yet Wisconsin reports on Sept. 29 that there were indeed hacking attempts. Who to believe, DHS + Wiscosin, or Greenwald?
“Wisconsin elections leaders say a variety of intelligence gathered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security led to the conclusion that the state’s elections system had been targeted last year by Russia.”
http://fox6now.com/2017/09/29/variety-of-intelligence-points-to-wisconsin-elections-threat/
“DHS spokesman Scott McConnell declined to discuss specific states. But he said in a statement to The Associated Press that hackers looked for vulnerabilities to exploit in other government computer systems in an unspecified number of states as a way to get into the election systems. The other networks were usually connected to the election systems or shared similarities, he said.”
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/APFN_US_RUSSIAN_HACKING_STATES
Fox news and the AP are both agents of the state’s propaganda arm and are not at all trustworthy. If there is evidence, let them show it; there’s no justifiable claim of a “need for secrecy” about it. They can’t and won’t show any evidence because there isn’t any.
“Who to believe, DHS + Wiscosin, or Greenwald?”
The unimpeachable sources in your link – “Elections officials,” “Wisconsin elections leaders,” “Homeland Security,” and “Wisconsin officials” – along with the irrefutable evidence they offer – “a variety of sources, including intelligence information that cannot be publicly disclosed” – makes the choice an easy one.
Very poorly argued by Greenwald. Disregards DHS latest statement: “… that hackers looked for vulnerabilities to exploit in other government computer systems in an unspecified number of states as a way to get into the election systems. The other networks were usually connected to the election systems or shared similarities…”
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/APFN_US_RUSSIAN_HACKING_STATES
The MSM’s Anti-Russia Bias
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/27/the-msms-anti-russia-bias/
The Slimy Business of Russia-gate
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/28/the-slimy-business-of-russia-gate/
Russia-gate’s Shaky Foundation
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/29/russia-gates-shaky-foundation/
“You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways till Sunday of getting back atcha… from what I am told they are very upset with how he has treated them and talked about them.”
– Zionist and Wall St shill Chuck Schumer to imperial lapdog Rachel Maddow
clip here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCtIdpBocNA
“It’s because the Russia story of 2017 – not unlike the Iraq discourse of 2002 – is now driven by religious-like faith rather than rational faculties.”
that is an interesting comparison if for no other reason than its frightening accuracy. what could be dumber than invading Iraq over weapons they didn’t have (not to mention an attack in which they had no part)? provoking a war w/Russia over HRC’s (/her followers’) bruised egos! folks, Russia has nukes – a LOT of them! & unlike NK or Iran they have accurate/reliable delivery platforms! that’s not to say we can’t (/shouldn’t) be afraid to confront them but (IMO) it DOES mean that calls to do so require actual EVIDENCE! having grown up in the 80s it is beyond bizarre to me to recall how badly the left hyperventilated about REAGAN’s “reckless provocation” of Moscow given their behavior nowadays.
strangebedfellows
The election hacking story was fishy from the beginning, once you got past the headline. “Outward facing” systems scanned from Russian IP addresses. That description could probably apply to half the businesses in the US. If they looked closely, most of them were probably scanned from Chinese IP addresses, also. Automated scanning systems looking for vulnerabilities is tool 101 in the hackers playbook. Doesn’t matter whether it’s a “state actor”, a hacker for-profit, or some teenager.
see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCAIGJNYwCg
The CIA is anti-democratic and anti-working class, I don’t trust CIA analysts, and well, fuck LaRouchePAC, but this was interesting:
interview of (ex?)CIA analyst Ray McGovern
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCAIGJNYwCg
you fight a cold war with the toolbox you have—not the toolbox you might want or wish to have at a later time
with cyberattacks and social engineering from russia on all fronts, this literally begs the question as to whether or not our toolbox allows us to use all the options on the table
and indeed calls into question whether all the options are even on the table in the first place
IC should not and cannot allow deficiencies in this area while our future is at stake
Actually, a “cold war” is fought with nuclear weapons – if only with the fear of their being used.
Please look up the meaning of “beg the question.”
the russians are using every tool in the toolbox
the NFL protests are just the latest example … and this literally begs the question: is the russian toolbox bigger than ours?
now more than ever, we need to seriously assess toolbox disparities with other countries and especially russia
the russian TGAP (Tool Gap Assessment Program) has been underway for many years and american IC should follow suit with our own gap assessment protocols
Yeah, OK, Rachael.
see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCAIGJNYwCg
Ray McGovern says “CIA has worked with NSA for 15 years on this kind of program. How many lines of code are there? 700 million. How much does each line of code cost? 25 dollars. Do the math. So, only CIA as a beneficiary of NSA technology can do this. Why does CIA do it and not NSA, because the CIA takes riskier actions.”
‘FBI never had access to DNC computers, used secondary forensics’ – Ray McGovern, fmr CIA officer
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/382987-cia-nsa-fbi-marble/
700 billion a year gets us a tool box with missing tools? No reliable evidence. Here is a crazy idea. Go back to paper ballots, cut the military budget in half use a half of that for diplomacy and repairing the physical and emotional damage we have created all over the globe. Give peace a chance for once. Make really good friends with nuclear nation states that could target us successfully.
“…of a group filled with the most craven neocons and national security state liars”
whenever i read lines like that i imagine what the faces of “respectable” journalists at the NYT or similar papers would look like if they read it xD
they would be scandalized and shocked xD “how dare you besmirch these honorable gentlemens reputation!?” <3 TheIntercept <3
As I pointed out deep in these threads, in the short time since Mr. Greenwald published this article, another Russia rumor has been born (circulated by a Senator) and then debunked. Demanding evidence before believing something is too extreme a stance for most people. Mr. Greenwald may be an exception, since as a former lawyer, he probably dealt with people who were not entirely honest (although some judges are honest). But everyone else can’t be expected to be such hardened cynics.
So my recommendation is that people wait for 24 hours before believing something without evidence. If by then the majority believes it and it hasn’t been proven false, it is safe to assume it is true. It may still be proven false in the long run, but there is safety in numbers and if the majority is all fooled together, you won’t suffer any negative consequences. If is better to be fooled with the majority than right alone.
The Russians were behind #TakeAKnee.
And then they weren’t.
Chelsea stubber her toe
Ivanka tore her dress
The NCAA has been corrupted
Chelsae stibber her toe…
Invanka tore her dress…
NCAA basketball has been corrupted…
Those Russians -they’re everywhere, all at once!
I
No doubt Russia neither hacked the U.S. election nor the German election.
However, according to “The Nation” the U.S.A. hacked 80 elections world wide, ending in some cases in assassinations of democratically elected politicians. The Chilean President Salvador Allende may serve as a case in point.
Take it from there, would you please.
September 11 ….1973
I read one of Glenn’s articles in the spring of 2015 for a political science class and was wondering if someone could help locate it? It was written about the US, but used satirical language to mimic some of the condescending word choice/verbiage that US publications often use when speaking of other countries. Sorry not very specific, but if anyone could help it would be greatly appreciated.
One of these?
https://theintercept.com/2014/08/11/quiz-said-hillary-clinton-benjaim-netanyahu/
https://theintercept.com/2015/01/23/compare-contrast-obamas-reaction-king-abdullah-hugo-chavez/
https://theintercept.com/2015/04/11/iranians-talked-much-sunday-morning-tv-never-heard/
Ah, the government trolls and the clueless are predictably out in force given the topic. Although it is sometimes entertaining to try to guess which is which, in the end it is pretty much pointless, as their posts are almost indistinguishable – all – “Russia, Russia, Russia, Putin, Putin!!!” – and so divorced from actual events in the real world that they constitute a new form of white noise. By the way: – breaking news from the NYT’s – “Homeland Security says Putin helped the Whitewalkers breach the wall! – evidence forthcoming, err, uh, someday.” Will our suffering never end!?
Yet another comment by an absolutely clueless individual on a topic they will never ever understand. I suppose you do not believe evolution is an actual scientifically proven fact either.
So the same imbecile non-sequitors that flowed from your mouth at Salon have arrived here. The same troll that heaved two cents a comment on the payroll of David Brock, in service of Hillary Clinton, is now off the unemployment line and earning a quick cup of coffee every despicable hour. Remember me from Salon? I’m pleased to see that you’ll be entertaining us all with your views of how the universe came into being, yet again. Trying to turn propaganda into a scientific fact like evolution is your mainstay. Hope you brought a rescue ring. You’re going to need it. These people do not suffer fools gladly, but badly.
Salon surely is an incubator for this sort of thing, isn’t it?
Don Hazen over at Alternet has wondered why his traffic has preciptously dropped off.
He blames Google and Facebook (which may have some effect) – yet ignores feedback from Alternet’s tradional readership, which hasn’t been keen on the influx of Salon screechers and Raw Story tabloid writers.
Salon really is, as you put it, an incubator. I began reading Salon and commenting there in 2006, when Greenwald still wrote for them. After the troll insanity of the 2016 election, Salon joined up with Facebook and literally cleaned house of all the old progressive voices in the comments section. I won’t use Facebook, so I could no longer use Salon. They do have 8000 or so of my comments from those ten years, so I guess those were sold to the NSA. Nowadays, the comments at Salon are minimal in number and mainly moronic, except for the few old posters who stayed. I know Salon is in financial trouble, so I’m guessing Zuckerberg’s massive greenback teats were necessary.
RE: NorEastern and his ilk – Me thinks this troll doth protest too much! The merely “clueless” have nowhere near the staying power of the actual trolls. Being on someone’s payroll they are typically quite tenacious in spouting their fact-free nonsense ad-nauseaum. The fascinating thing about this topic is that we are not only faced with the usual array of government sponsored trolls, odious as they are, (see Snowden revelations), but also must contend with trolls related to the Democratic Party structure, the Neocon think tanks and media operations, corporate entities tied to the military industrial money train which included the whole MSM institutional structure (including the faux “progressive” sites. The number of players and forces now wedded to the “Russia, Russia, Russia, Putin, Putin” narrative is now quite simply indistinguishable from the Empire itself. The beauty of this is that we now know what the term “progressive” actually means to many who so self-identify.
Good points all. I was reading a New Yorker story from a month or so back about the Robert Mercer/Trump connection. The writer of the article actually calls David Brock, the Hillary Clinton troll operator and former Republican, a “liberal activist.” It’s always thirteen o’clock in America these days.
Ok – so what is your theory GG? It’s all happenstance? The Dark State is trying to undermine our confidence in the crack staff of jackholes in the administration? What is the theory? We should ignore a ramped up cyber threat the Russians themselves have crowed about?
It’s journalistic terrorism. You have to be right once they have to be right all the time. Let moral equivalence and what aboutism do the rest.
My theory is Putin does have a clumsy new toy for wreaking havoc and it’s working. But I think it’s the reader’s responsibility to exercise critical thinking. The media reports, draws sometimes erroneous conclusions and we need to determine which sets of facts lines up with the stories of which sets of liars.
But what I’d really like is a prescription – I know I’m not supposed to trust the Deep State or the Media or the administration. But who’s version of the truth shall I trust. Is the intercept the sole arbiter? Or GG?
The author has absolutely no understanding of the topic he is writing about. His interpretation of the evidence is much like a fundamentalist Christian laying out a rebuttal of the theory of evolution. Fact free and completely misinformed.
NorEastern, are you paid per mindless accusatory post, hourly or do they have you salaried? Tell the author where he is wrong…what facts are being misinterperated?
Signed,
Corporate Media.
No, no, no – I didn’t think this was the Media Matters website. I actually want to know what you, GG, the Intercept want to do about cyber security – interference in elections – both ours and others.
Glenn’s point that we should question the thesis that the Russians did everything bad in the world is a fine one. Sure.
But the overwhelming critique of the MSM and the Dark State conveniently paves the way for autocrats and their propaganda outlets to say there’s nothing to believe but what they say – don’t believe anything you read! – except what I tell you.
In this case what is being espoused? Go read Truthout, or Antiwar or Zerohedge to get the real real truth? Rise up against the Dark State?
Is your answer we all should tune in to your comments? Or only read the Intercept?
797 comments by people who will never grasp the reason why US experts can state without reservation that Russia actually hacked the 2016 election and an author who does not understand the difference between a bit and a qubit. In this age of ignorance and the denial of basic scientific facts this is not in the least bit unexpected.
Come on, you can do better than this. David Brock didn’t send you to the Intercept for the same level of moronic levity as you displayed at Salon.
Science used to be based on evidence. Sad!
coo-coo.
Did Amanda send you?
NorEastern . . . as in blowhard???
“797 comments by people who will never grasp the reason why US experts can state without reservation that Russia actually hacked the 2016 election.”
My failing memory is partly to blame; it’s part of the reason I will “never grasp” the truth the way you can.
I am burdened by the recall of similar certitude and lack of evidence in Hussein’s WMD’s and links to Al Qaeda. My memory has failed to erase those and so many other moments in history that portended catastrophe. Failure to erase memory makes it especially hard to “grasp” the truth when it is once again provided without evidence. So please, have a little understanding and sympathy for us “never graspers.”
“similar certitude” lol lol lol
CIA, 2002
“”the information we have on Iraqi nuclear personnel does not appear consistent with a coherent effort to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program.”
“The presence of al-Qa’ida militants in Iraq poses many questions. We do not know to what extent Baghdad may be actively complicit in this use of its territory for safehaven and transit.”
CIA, 2017
CIA Chief: “I am confident that the Russians meddled in this election, as is the entire intelligence community,”
German government 2003,
German foreign minister’s opinion about Iraq WMD to the US: “My generation learned you must make a case, and excuse me, I am not convinced. I cannot go to the public and say, ‘these are the reasons’, because I don’t believe in them.”
German government 2017,
Hans-Georg Massen Bfv Chief “We recognise this as a campaign being directed from Russia. Our counterpart is trying to generate information that can be used for disinformation or for influencing operations,”
1) Your homework: compare the French government’s position about WMD in 2002-03 with its position about Russian interference in 2016-17.
Of course as an anti American, you will still state the certitude is similar. Anti Americans and those who have to benefit from Russian interference will always make that claim.
2) What “catastrophe” are you trying to avoid? An invasion of the Russian federation?
(You could save tremendous time by just stating that as an anti American you believe the US is always wrong)
You poor thing. Talk to your doctor; maybe he got your dosage wrong.
DocHollywood:
Certitude of Iraq having WMD in 2002-03 is similar to the certitude of Russia’s interference in US elections.
Swisscheese:
DocHollywood is wrong because in 2002 the CIA told the White House it was not certain that Iraq has WMD. In 2002-03, US allies French and Germany told the public (and US officials to their face) they were not certain that Iraq had WMD. In 2016-17, the CIA told the White House and the public it is confident Russia has interfered in US and European elections. US allies French and Germany told the public Russia has interfered in their elections.
DocHollywood:
Swisscheese needs medications
Conclusion: DocHollywood has no arguments (as usual) so he attacked the commenter, not the argument. Checkmate for Swisscheese!!!
(You have not told us the “catastrophe” you expect even if the current president of the US becomes as certain as Bush that Russia interfered with the US elections. Again, an invasion of the Russian Federation? lol )
wrong, it was “attempted to influence” .. not “interfered in”
the CIA was very careful to note that they didn’t evaluate any actual effect the Russians had on the election
conclusion: swisscheese is wrong as usual
Swisscheese:
“the CIA told the White House and the public it is confident Russia has interfered in US and European elections.”
CIA Director July 27, 2017: Aspen Security Forum: “I am confident that the Russians meddled in this election, as is the entire intelligence community,”
To meddle: “interfere in something that is not one’s concern.” Oxford Dictionary
To meddle: “interfere without right or proprietary ” Merriam Webster Dictionary
John Anderson’s conclusion: Swisscheese is wrong. That is not what the CIA stated.
Rational conclusion: John Anderson lives in another universe where everybody is allowed to create his or her own facts.
the more interesting issue is whether or not the CIA put its collective thumb on the scale for Trump, and if the ongoing attempt to finger russia is just a diversion
Swisscheese is certainly a dishonest hypocrite
“When we wrote pieces for the president, the analysts wrote with authority on the [weapons of mass destruction] issue. This is why I personally never found fault with George Tenet’s alleged “slam dunk” comment. The way the [intelligence] analysts talked and wrote about their judgments would have led anyone to think it was a slam dunk— that is, that Saddam definitely had active WMD programs. No one ever said to me, [agency analyst Jami] Miscik, [ex-director John] McLaughlin, Tenet, [Condoleezza] Rice, or the president, ‘You know, there is a chance he might not have them.’”
– former CIA deputy director Mike Morell, The Great War of Our Time
Swisscheese is proven wrong again. Former CIA director George Tenet said that Iraq’s WMD program was a “slam dunk.” More than a decade later, the former deputy director of the CIA can still unequivocally state,
The CIA now says it is “confident” Russia has interfered in US and European elections.
Swisscheess has no arguments or facts (as usual), so he attacked the commenter as “anti-US” for making a comparison and then attacked the commenter for attacking the commenter.
Swisscheese’s homework: try not to be a dishonest hypocrite.
Swisscheese:
“DocHollywood is wrong because in 2002 the CIA told the White House it was not certain that Iraq has WMD.”
CIA National Intelligence Estimate given to the White House in 2002:
Page 12: “We judge that Saddam never abandoned his nuclear weapons program. Although we assess that Saddam DOES NOT YET HAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS OR SUFFICIENT MATERIAL TO MAKE ANY, he remains intent on acquiring them”
That report was released to the public in response to a Freedom of Information Act. It is available on the Vice News Website and also here:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/259216899/Iraq-October-2002-NIE-on-WMDs-unedacted-version#fullscreen&from_embed
You claimed the level of certainty between the WMD and the Russian case is similar. I give you the report the CIA gave to the White House in 2002 in which it explicitly stated its uncertainty about Saddam even having enough materials to make nukes.
Your homework:
1) Compare the 2002 report with the 2016 DNI report given to the White House regarding the Russian case
2) Learn the definition of dishonest. It might have a complete different meaning in your universe.
An apology to Swisscheese
Maybe his claims are not all due to dishonesty after all, though at first glance, that would seem to be the obvious explanation:
The CIA told the White House it was certain of Iraq’s WMD.
It’s hard to believe anyone with near-normal cognitive function could argue against something so obvious, so crediting Swisscheese with middlin’ intelligence leaves his dishonesty as the best alternative explanation. That explanation has the additional benefit of fitting well with another of his established traits: his hypocrisy.
But new evidence has now cast doubt on this analysis, and it comes again from Swisscheese.
When Swisscheese is confronted with those in the CIA who utterly demolish his claim:
“When we wrote pieces for the president, the analysts wrote with authority on the [weapons of mass destruction] issue. This is why I personally never found fault with George Tenet’s alleged “slam dunk” comment. The way the [intelligence] analysts talked and wrote about their judgments would have led anyone to think it was a slam dunk— that is, that Saddam definitely had active WMD programs. No one ever said to me, [agency analyst Jami] Miscik, [ex-director John] McLaughlin, Tenet, [Condoleezza] Rice, or the president, ‘You know, there is a chance he might not have them.’”
. . .Swisscheese responds with a boner about only one aspect of Saddam’s alleged WMD. The mistake is glaring enough on its own, but then he goes one step further and actually highlights the erroneous shift from WMD to nuclear:
Hard as it may be to believe, Swisscheese is deliberately drawing attention to his error. That’s just stupid.
Of course, none of this disproves Swisscheese’s dishonesty; it just means that there’s more to his absurd claims than simple lying and straightforward hypocrisy.
And it means I may owe Swisscheese an apology:
Swisscheese, I’m sorry if I mistook your stupidity for your dishonesty. Please forgive me.
DocHollywood : yak yak yakidi yak yak
Swisscheese
Uncertain: not certain to occur ( Merriam Webster Dictionary)
CIA 2002: “we are unable to determine whether [biological weapons] agent research has resumed”
CIA 2002: “The presence of al-Qa’ida militants in Iraq poses many questions. We do not know to what extent Baghdad may be actively complicit in this use of its territory for safehaven and transit.”
CIA 2002: “We have no intelligence information linking Iraq to the fall 2001 attacks in the United States, but Iraq has the capability to produce spores of Bacillus anthracis — the causative agent of anthrax — similar to the dry spores used in the letters,”
In 2002, the CIA was uncertain about Iraq’s biological weapons, uncertain about Iraq’s links to Al Qaeda, uncertain about Iraq’s biological attack in 2001, uncertain about Iraq’s materials to make nuclear weapons. If you have a functioning brain you can see that uncertainty in 2002 is different from that high confidence in 2016-17.
As usual you start your soup salad whenever you got smacked down. You are simply wrong. The level of certainty between the Iraqi case and the Russian case is completely different and the consequences are massively different. Again what is the “catastrophe ” you are referring to? The invasion of the Russian Federation?
You could always save yourself time by just saying you are anti US and whatever the US says is wrong.
Checkmate for Swisscheese!!
(Now tell commenters Gladio and John Anderson how smart you are.)
debating the validity of CIA spin-doctoring is a fools errand … so you’re perfect for the job
I am saying what the CIA stated, I am not debating the validity of what the CIA stated. I suggest you figure out the point of a debate before you comment about it. (hint: the debate here is whether the CIA expressed a similar certitude in 2002-03 with regards to Iraq WMD)
Swisscheese is certainly stupid AND dishonest
. . .to cherry-pick from the NIE that contradicts him.
What Swisscheese claims:
What the 2002 NIE said:
“Confidence Levels for Selected Key Judgments in This Estimate
High Confidence:
• Iraq is continuing. and in some areas expanding, its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions. . .
•Iraq possesses proscribed chemical and biological weapons and missiles.”
Another soup salad after being smacked down badly.
“The document determines that Saddam Hussein had an active chemical weapons program — although CRUCIALLY THE CIA COULDN’T PROVE THAT HIS REGIME HAD ACTUALLY RESUMED PRODUCING crucially, chemical and biological agents and CAST DOUBT ON THE ACTUAL EXTENT of Saddam’s program. ” Armin Rosen
Your level of desperation is hilarious. You are doing exactly what Bush and Cheney did in 2002-03. You picked a part of the report that says “high confidence” and fits your view and dismissed the whole parts in which the CIA unequivocally stated it’s uncertainty about the WMD program. Like the Bush administration you are pretending you do not see the parts where the CIA states it is uncertain about the extent of the program, it is uncertain about nuclear materials, it is uncertain about Saddam’s link to Al Qaeda, it is uncertain about Iraq link to the anthrax attack.
I know the definition of stupid might be different in your universe, but intelligent people on earth (like the ones at the RAND, the media, former CIA agents even Congressmen) will not read this report and conclude it was enough to start a war based on it. That is why intelligent people on earth read whole reports and don’t pick just words in reports. So, your homework is to read the whole report the CIA gave the White House in 2002, and the whole report the CIA/DNI gave the White House in 2016-17. If you still believe the level of certainty is the same, then you need to go to a well respected academic institution on earth and improve your reading comprehension.
Your ego is so high that now you are repeating Bush and Cheney. Dude, you are already very smart in your universe. Ask Gladio and Anderson. Don’t worry about the definition of smart on planet earth.
About the “catastrophe “? What is it?
The expressions of certitude were actually identical: both were assessed with “high confidence”
Swisscheese is just flailing as he tries to find some way to show “high confidence” is not the same as “high confidence.”
Nothing else is left of his argument.
But Swisscheese has still managed to find one more way to make a fool of himself. He says:
. . .as he mindlessly accepts the most recent “high confidence” claims from the same government that pushed them in 2002.
Too bad he can’t appreciate the irony; it’s a real hoot for those of us who can.
Dude, tell Gladio and John Anderson how smart you are. They will accommodate your desperation.
That one was a severe smack down!!!!
Poor Swisscheese can’t escape his own words. He said:
It did. Both the 2002-03 and the 2016-17 assessments were presented with “high confidence.” That was the outcome of “the debate here” The expressions of certitude were similar. They were in fact identical. There was nothing left to debate.
But that still wasn’t enough to stop Swisscheese from making a fool of himself. As it slowly dawned upon him that the “high confidence” expressed in both judgements demolished his claim that they weren’t, Swisscheese switched to self-contradiction. Shortly after posting:
. . .he went on to argue about the validity of what the CIA stated:
Perhaps Swisscheese believes no one can recall what he just posted. Or maybe he’s forgotten there was a war. Or perhaps he’s hoping his falsehoods and contradictions won’t be noticed. No matter; as he said, the debate here is whether the CIA expressed a similar certitude when it used the term “high confidence” and then the term “high confidence.”
Shockingly, he picked the wrong answer.
DocHollywood:
“Yak yak yakidi yak”
Wait for Gladio and Anderson to praise your intellect.
I spent HOURS fact-checking you. You did NOT fare well. I took the time to review Liles’, Manfra’s, and Priestap’s testimony, as well as other articles, because I had enough respect for you to imagine that there might be something, somewhere, that could justify your endorsement of Thomsen’s, and Bauer’s, straw-man stumble-fuckery.
There ISN’T.
Furthermore, an overtly racist ‘war’ on ‘terror’ has left me with very little faith in the accuracy of the DHS, but the fact that Alex Padilla says they’re wrong, without saying HOW they’re wrong, does NOT convince me that they’re wrong.
What a terrible waste of time it turned out to be, to read this piece.
P.S. You also uncritically supported the notion that Russia’s attempt to hack Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development, has nothing to do with influencing the election. Do you honestly think seeking information on job prospects, in Midwestern states, has nothing to do with targeting a self-pitying white middle class workforce? You can’t possibly think that Jared Kushner was the beginning and end of Russia’s efforts to target the audiences that would be most vulnerable to its disinformation.
Welcome to The Intercept, Joan Walsh.
Three mewling bimbos, leapt to the defense of Greenwald’s two-straw-men-and-a-denial, with two ad hominems and a denial. I’m trying my best to be surprised.
Well said Lisa.
So called ‘lisa’ -like you, are -shall we say, representative examples of the Clinton/Breitbart camp.
The two have become so alike- in both tenor and character (or rather, the lack thereof) that reasonable objective people can no longer tell the difference.
With all due respect you did not spend “HOURS fact checking”. Far be it for me to call you a liar but there is absolutely zero truth in that statement.
Ok, I’ll bite. Lisa, where’s the beef? Could you please provide your evidence with sources and citation. Only statements from real people that are verifiable will do, unnamed or unattributable sources are not acceptable. I’ll follow the chain. Should your source simply cite an unattributable sources, that’s not acceptable either.
I look forward to your proof that Glenn is wrong. You wrote your response two and a half days after Glenn posted his article, so if you fail to provide your proof within a few days, I’ll assume you really have no evidence whatsoever.
You failed to understand what I did – AND DID NOT – say in the comment you’re responding to. You will likely fail to understand what I say (and don’t say) in this comment.
Your response to my assertion that Glenn hasn’t proved that the NSA is wrong, was to assert that I haven’t proved that Glenn is wrong, so you’ll have to excuse me for suspecting that your stupidity is deliberate.
Deliberate or not, you’re not entitled to the time it would take to make someone like you, understand the difference between, “Glenn is wrong,” and, Glenn made an inadequate argument, supported by nothing more than two straw men and a denial.
Learn to read, slow kid. You’re a bother.
The reason no explanation for the charges that Russia has been forthcoming is that there are far fewer than 1000 people in the US who could begin to understand the forensics behind an analysis of such an attack. I fully understand the investigative analysis behind such accusations, as does every SME on this topic. There was a reason why I argued for a year that Hillary’s email server was never hacked. That fact was just intuitively obvious to me but many hundreds of people could not understand my reasoning. Far fewer than 1000 people in the US could understand the trail of evidence in the Russian intrusions.
Then it is obviously your job to prove why the 1000 people who disagree with you based on empirical evidence are wrong and you are right. Arguing that you have some special knowledge that no one else can understand is not an argument, Einstein.
It is all called by one word #hysteria else #witchhunt.
Don’t look now, but the Post is now promoting a ‘story’ that the Russians are behind the NFL kneeling movement!
Dutifully, other media outlets have followed….
You just can’t make this sh!t up.
Good article but it can be summed up in just a few words. Putin’s Russia has dealt more than a few serious blows to US global hegemony, Ukraine, Crimea, Syria and Russian/Chinese oil trade in Yuans and Rubbles. The last one is big. For that the neo-conservatives and their lackeys in the government and media want Russia destroyed. So here we are now.
I have no doubt anymore that you are a Russian agent. You, Assange and the traitor that got asylum in Russia are enemies of democracy. I am ashamed that at one point I believed your assertions. You are probably paid just to throw mud on anything Putin hates.
I have become extremely skeptical….of your reporting on this issue.
Hi…good job, in America, most go from skepticism to gulliability in a moments notice.
One thing we can assume, without much skepticism, is that comments like yours come from an inane, tribalistic camp not in any way associated with critical thought -much less values like honesty or integrity.
“Skepticism seems to be prevailing now in many quarters, but gullibility is right behind…same may reverse itself without notice.” James Mansfield
Nevertheless, DHS is still standing by its view that Russian hackers did attempt to penetrate the elections systems of 21 states: “McConnell said the department [DHS] stands by its initial assessment that 21 states were targeted by “Russian government cyber actors” looking for vulnerabilities in and access to election infrastructure. He noted that some of the intelligence used to make that determination cannot be shared publicly.”
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/APFN_US_RUSSIAN_HACKING_STATES
Hmm… I would think that since people were complaining in real time to the FBI and they were saying they were tracing them and had them in their sights that those guys at the NSA must have a pretty good idea about who was messing with computers and sharing data and dossiers for targeting of US voters. I know at first I was bitching about the boys and girls of the deep state but at some point they were showing it was not only them but others who did seem to have a geography and perspective – and it was not that of being American voters. It seems as if team Trump were sharing information and targeting coordinates of US citizens and voters with agents working in foreign countries. So as a US voter in California I would think this is a violation. They used tactics that they had to know were going to capture them on the platforms harassing and feeding people weaponized propaganda. When pushed the trolls would say America did it in Ukraine and and Israel and Russia so it was all fair. Besides did I not know Killery was up to like 70 bodies…. MAGA
So when the Trump kid announces the Russians have dirt on Hillary they want to share with the Trump campaign that’s still in the “wait and see bin”?
When Podesta’s emails show up hacked and published by Wikileaks (and Assange later extols the vibrancy of Russian journalism) he’s not aligned with the Russians. Forget his appearances on RT. That’s an independent journalistic organization. But when Ben Jacobs points out an obvious Assange/Wikileaks bias against Hillary Clinton, that’s “journalistic fraud”?
When reports from the spring and summer of 2016 appear (in the spring and summer of 2016), they’re necessarily planted by the Deep State, (an apparent pawn/ally of HRC) while reports of Russian hacking in Europe during the same time frame are also utterly false?
These are some of the facts that must be ignored in order to absolve (er … dismiss as unproved) Russian interference in the US 2016 election.
So here’s the real question.
How long ago did the Deep State plan to fix the election for Trump while working in cahoots with Hillary Clinton? Obviously the Deep State planned to lose the election for HRC or else they wouldn’t go to effort of planting stories about Russian hacking long before the “unexpected” outcome to “ignorantly” prepare for it.
See the problem?
Either the Deep State is really, really, good at manipulating events in the most counterintuitive ways or else they (it?) have a time machine. (And, apparently they share it with the Europeans.)
Maybe you could have Alex Jones do a story or two about how the Deep State engineered the shooting of children at Sandy Hook.
I’d like to meet some of these geniuses — or at least read about them in the lame-stream press.
You’re a fool
“When Podesta’s emails show up hacked…”
Evidence, please. That’s bad grammar btw Milton. Unless you mean they were butchered.
Evidence of what?
Wikileaks published Podesta’s emails. Apparently verbatim.
What more evidence do you need that someone hacked Podesta’s emails?
Geesh.
His name was Seth Rich.
Well, since you raise the point … apparently Seth Rich was a (the?) senior IT guy in the DNC and presumably had legitimate support access to Podesta’s personal machine. This may or may not be true, of course, but it would be the normal and necessary privilege of an IT support person, and particularly a supervisor.
Assange stopped only just short of outright naming Rich as the source. Assange further commented that the self-attributed motive of the insider was revulsion owing to corruption of the DNC operation. And, of course, Rich was a Bernie supporter.
So if Rich was the source of the DNC leaks (which would not be “hacks” if he had legitimate access), he could have as well been the source of the Podesta leaks.
Would Rich have had the means, (alleged) motive, and opportunity to walk a thumb drive out the door filled with political dynamite to sink Hillary?
Yes, he would. Did he? I have no earthly idea. Neither do you. It’s all conjecture.
The publication of that content on Wikileaks is therefore not conclusive evidence of “hacking” (by an outsider). It may as well be evidence of “leaking” (by an insider).
And NSA would have seen the file transfer across the external network if it actually happened that way. They would know where the files were delivered.
NSA is the dog that didn’t bark.
So…given the hypothetical scenario arising from a discovered massive “leak” of mortally embarrassing evidence of systematic connivance and cheating:
Would DNC pooh-bahs have been more likely to pretend they were “hacked” by outsiders while denying access to the server by the FBI to “assess” the evidence of such a “hack”?
Translation: “we were obviously victims, even though corrupt”.
Or would they have more likely told investigators: “yes, one of our own trusted people had access to all those emails and apparently delivered them to WL for publication”?
Translation: “we were obviously not only corrupt but treasonously pwned”.
Seth Rich could have answered in a single word whether he was the source: “yes” or “no”. If he weren’t inconveniently dead of gunshot wounds in the back.
And as DWS was chair, a reasonable question now arises about whether her recently indicted Paki “IT professionals” also had access to the DNC network.
More unanswered questions. But still no barking dog.
“NSA is the dog that didn’t bark.”
Indeed. Of all the hysterical claims about Russia, this one seems the most pernicious to me, because it just won’t die, despite the lack of evidence.
So we have an article devoted entirely to debunking the “barking dogs” and you conclude, “still no barking dogs.”
Of the many problems with your point of view, this is one of the most egregious. Yes, not knowing is not knowing. But here’s reasonable response. The “barking dogs” (unsourced leaks, agencies’ statements, and prominent leaders like Obama and European allies) may have been barking about something.
But the lack of evidence — rather, the lack of shared evidence — allows you to conjecture that a DNC staffer betrayed his employers and his party to help elect Donald Trump — despite his parents repudiating this conjecture and despite any other
barking dogssupporting evidence.What you have is like what Mr. Greenwald has.
A ridiculous speculation about a fairly obvious set of public facts.
Here’s the paranoid version: An omnipotent and sinister cabal of State insiders intend to install Hillary Clinton as president. Unfortunately for them and their candidate, they’re frustrated by the independent actions of a crusader (who happens to share your politics) who secretly betrays his political values, his friends, and his employers. An act, (convenient for your narrative), for which Rich is quietly murdered one dark night in Washington by a DNC hitman (according to the standard Seth Rich was murdered by the DNC conspiracy theory..
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic hiding in the Ecuador embassy, the doughty Australian former hacker turned political gadfly orders his international organization to publish the stolen documents Rich sent him (it’s still a theft, even if committed by an employee.) This was back in June, apparently. Rich was murdered a month later.
Somehow, despite the best efforts of the Deep State, the embarrassing information is published. But not only is this omnipotent organization unable to protect their candidate Hillary Clinton, they’re also unable to keep the knowledge from the Trump campaign — which announces the impending release after meeting with Russian representatives who promisedthe Trump team dirt on Hillary Clinton.
This isn’t secret. This is in the public domain.
But since I’m boring myself trying to debunk your fanciful conjectures about no barking dogs in a dog kennel, I’ll end with the smug question, “How many members of the Trump team lied about meeting with Russians?”
Shall I list them for you?
Nah. You already know what’s true. You just don’t like it.
Like the rest of the barking dogs here.
trump strategists did the math on an electoral college win against a candidate with high rural negatives … no russian influence required
and the so-called russian cyber war against clinton had no effect on the high-information voters who gave her a popular majority
https://nef4rhc.wordpress.com
At least debunk this report that says it was most likely a DNC leak.
This just underscores the growing pathologies in our politics. The legitimate way in a free democracy to oppose politics one does not favor is by winning elections. Is it Putin’s fault we seem to have forgotten that?
There is an additional fall-out of all the current Russia hysteria: The debunking of false Russia stories psychologically leads to discounting ANY negative story about Putin’s Russia. I for one do not have any doubts that the Russian government is actively supporting anti-libertarian forces both within and outside its borders. The treatment of the LGBTQ community, the Pussycats, or any liberal opposition media is too revolting. Hosting meetings of far-right nationalist groups bode ill, and the affection of such borderline fascists as Hungarian PM Orbán Viktor for Putin isn’t encouraging, either.
It is therefore extremely short-sighted to try to bolster one’s anti-Putin position by fake or thinly corroborated news stories. Exactly because one opposes Putin, one has to apply the highest standard possible before publishing negative stories about him.
You don’t have to be Russian to hate all that LGBTQ bullshit. I am from Belgium (Western Europe) and detest those awfull things too.
If the Democratic Party wishes to win any office higher than dog-catcher in the future, they’d be wise to take your last paragraph to heart.
So far, I’ve seen little indication that the party will.
Well done, Mr. Greenwald. This is an outstanding article. I say this as one who is not on your side of the political spectrum.
The truth is much more important than anyone’s political allegiance. Both sides forget that Government does and will lie to us to suit their own end. As you have shown, when they are desperate, as they are now over losing their powers, they will cheerfully join hands to deceive us.
Thank God for you and Julianne Assange. There is so much we would not know without you.
Just curious if DHS has responded to the secretary of state for Georgia’s demand letter asking why said DHS tried to hack into their voting system? Inquiring minds wanna know.
Marvelous journalism here! Thank you for exposing this sinister scam designed to overturn an election. Greenwald is one of the greatest journalists of the last 50 years.
I’m certain it is all Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka’s fault.
How did they get into this?
The fact is, and I said this months ago. Putin is sitting in the Kremlin every night watching CNN and MSNBC laughing his ass off at how successful his game of causing hate, division and mistrust in the American body politic. He’s laughing because his greatest allies in this project are liberal media like CNN and MSNBC, the entire Democrat party that can’t understand and will never take responsibility for the utter ass kicking it received and an establishment and neocon Republican party that fears Trump because unlike all of them and however uncouthly he speaks means what he says unlike all of them. They cooked up this Trump/Russia collusion fantasy which is rapidly falling apart. Oh Mueller will in fact indict someone or a few people for something, most likely money issues because their are so dam many laws and regulations that no one on the planet could possible conform to all of them and Mueller must justify the 100’s of millions he’s going to piss away making 12-20 lawyers he’s hired richer then the dreams of Avarice off the taxpayer dime by hanging someone for something. In the end, the only winner here will be Putin and totally by default, Trump because all of this gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over the Russia collusion BS is going to be found to be exactly that. BS.
The laundry called, your brown shirts are ready.
Accualy Putin even told this publically once: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBsYVFedau8.
“Is there anything more exciting that [sic] the possibility of Trump’s election being invalidated & Hillary rightfully installed as our President?” – ‘Meathead’ Reiner
Just what mechanism is there for Congress to invalidate Trump’s election and install Empress Hillary the First?
Is there anything more exciting then the possibility of “civil strife or civil war”? 62 million+ American citizens voted for the GOP candidate.
Glenn,
Spot on reporting. My worst fear is that all this unfiltered and un-vetted news is a big PSYOP effort focused on keeping the US population off balance. It reminds me of the CIA’s efforts in the 1960’s to hide their efforts to assassinate Castro and to publicly indict Russia for the assassination of JFK.
But what is their end-game now?
If the Left says it it isn’t true. If the lie doesn’t fly they instantly forget they ever told it and move on to the next lie. It’s like Glow-Bull Warming…last year’s predictions that didn’t come true are forgotten; data that doesn’t fit the story-line is ‘readjusted’ and any conclusions remain in the far distant future. Only the Agenda stays the same. Now we are confronted with those Rooskie Facebook Ads which supposedly had such a powerful grip on the electorate. Snowflake hot air. All of it. Every word.
“the left” does not include the neo-liberals. Clintonistas and Obamabots are nothing but reborn compassionate conservatives. You won’t find that out from the ditzy corporate media.
Um, Thank you!
you’re full of crap about global warming, and it isn’t the left that is pushing this anti russian propaganda, it’s the neocons and clinton democrats.
Earlier this week the CBC (Canadian news) reported, totally po-faced, that there was “emerging evidence” (what the evidence was or who gathered it was not described) that the whole NFL kneeling kerfuffle was a creation of Russian twitter accounts “on both sides”. That is to say, the perfidious Rooskies were fomenting divisiveness in America for its own sake on any possible front.
I was standing there in my kitchen thinking, wow, this really is show trial territory. Presumably CBC reporters have been to journalism school but they now just read whatever piece of ludicrous tripe is handed to them. As a listener, you just have to try and guess why.
My theory is the NFL thing was in fact intended as part of the anti-Trump “resistance” but, upon gaining zero popular traction, is now being furiously disavowed and blamed (like anything else embarrassing or inconvenient) on Russia.
Canada’s new government has far too much love for the Democratic Party…who havs merged with neocons.
The CBC has been polluted in the last decade or two with twits from our equivalent tothe Beltway…the Rosedale/Westmount idiocy. We were run by Steven Harper’s Conservatives up to 2 years ago, and they are more loyal to the USA, Britain, and Israel than to Canada.
Matt Taibbi explained how that nonsense came into view and was then mindlessly repeated by multiple MSM venues:
You’ll need to read the article in order to put the pieces together.
…
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/taibbi-latest-fake-news-panic-appears-to-be-fake-news-w506396
Thanks for the link; from Taibbi:
“Does Senator Lankford think the KGB is run by the Jerky Boys? ”
lol.
Just checking in. Yep you are still feeding the breibart crowd.
What a disappoint you are glenn.
The republicans are setting up a corporate fascist government and and you have not written one word about it. Story after story about the Russians /bad democrats and missing how the voters are getting conned while the republicans set up corporate fascism. Look in the mirror glen the narrow road you have chosen is no different than the Dems.
To the owners of this site glenn keeps me from coming here more often because of his shallow manipulating articles that panders to the fascist right and his silence on the terrible con game the republicans are doing.
The other writers are doing a great but glenn keeps me from coming here daily.
Boilingriver? More like “stagnant cesspool”!
You’re dishonest and apparently lack familiarity with Greenwald’s work
The corporate fascist government that you cry about has been a bipartisan undertaking, constructed over the past century:
https://theintercept.com/2017/07/17/with-new-d-c-policy-group-dems-continue-to-rehabilitate-and-unify-with-bush-era-neocons/
I have read glenn since Salon so that is how i know how far he has fallen.
Save your manipulating BS that the parties are the same. repugs policies lets people die in the street (healthcare) , starve by taking away safety nets and removing clean water protections for huge corporate tax cuts.
The dems are greedy bastards but they are not psychopaths. They put in policy that helps us. They do not destroy safety nets and clean water. They did give us a shitty health care but it includes affordable preexisting conditions and they used the corporate money to do so.
Fascist governments want people to feel like there is no real choice, so there propaganda works better on people. So quit helping them because you have no critical thinking skills.
Prove you are not a republican troll and admit that what you wrote is not true. Repugs cannot admit they are wrong.
PS foreign policy is bipartisan, it does not change the facts on domestic policy. The repugs like all out war.(Syria red line BS)
Waste of time that this site is when it will not save the post when there is an error.
Stagnant Cesspool, you’re a liar.
You write, “I have read glenn since Salon so that is how i know how far he has fallen….The dems are greedy bastards but they are not psychopaths. They put in policy that helps us. They do not destroy safety nets and clean water”
here’s a piece by Glenzilla from 2011:
Reports: Obama pushing for cuts to Social Security, Medicare
https://www.salon.com/2011/07/07/social_security_19/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/28/pers-s28.html
Never mind you’re a right wing hack. You would have to be stupid to believe that manipulating/lying post you wrote. Yes it is all the dems fault. No wonder you like glenn “NOW”
FFS what BS
which the Democrats worked to suppress and channel behind their war-mongering anti-Russia crusade
The Obama administration and both major parties and media supported Washington’s open support of fascists in Ukraine
http://johnpilger.com/articles/why-the-rise-of-fascism-is-again-the-issue
Anyone who talks about ‘corporate fascist government’ in the US is either a very young unexperienced kid of 18 who still believes there are fairies at the bottom of the garden, or a Noam Chomsky type who lives in an ivory castle far removed from the real world. Or alternatively just a f****** idiot.
You and Joy Ann Reid have to get together and decide whether Trump is a commie or a corporate fascist. https://www.mediaite.com/online/joy-reid-roundly-derided-for-tweeting-that-russia-is-still-a-communist-state/
You, her, Clinton, and the CIA couldn’t beat Donald effin’ Trump…who did more to get Clinton elected than the Democratic Party!
I’d say that CNN, MSNBC and Fox has more to do with Trumps election than Russia.
They tamper with every election.
Compared with those three, Putin and Russia are pikers.
The free press is a myth.
They are really just a corporate propaganda machine with an agenda.
They divide the country purposefully for profit.
All “news” is suspect and to be taken for what it is.
CRAP.
Fully agree.
It is sad that valid criticism of the failed Fifth Estate turns into the typical Left vs Right battle.
Until the (global) citizenry recognizes that ‘the losing team’ simply didn’t out-manipulate the media as well as ‘the winning team’ we can expect the situation to either, at best, stay the same or, at worst, get very, very bad.
I am very concerned for the world my 5 month old Grandson faces …
/S.
The TrumpHaters won’t ever stop. There are eight year’s worth of “Russian” stories waiting in the wings. And no matter how many crash and burn, anyone who is skeptical will be labeled a Denier! That’s how Progressives stay in business.
from “US imperialism and the threat of nuclear war against North Korea”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/11/pers-a11.html
Yes Vivek, with respect to your Nuremberg reference, it was the launching and conduct of the war of aggression that contained within it the potential for all the other war crimes being prosecuted.
So given the fact that all the late night comedians, cable networks, and major papers have been promoting the “Russia did it” Big Lie, what does this reveal about who are the forces behind this anti-Russian propaganda?
And given the fact that these very same people have lied to us about foreign policy for years, what should we think about North Korea, Russia, China, and Iran?
And what do we do with the fact that Trump is continuing the US government’s threats against North Korea, Russia, China, and Iran?
What does it take to understand that the POTUS is not a public servant but instead is the highest-profile servant of the capitalist class, a guardian of the capitalist system, who is tasked by the ruling class to advance the ruling class agenda?
Who Rules America? The Power Elite in the Time of Trump
http://petras.lahaine.org/b2-img/PetrasWhoRulesAmerica.pdf
Good article. Keep up the good writing.
Thanks once again for a breath of fresh air on a fetid subject.
That fake-left scumbag Bernie Sanders has revealed himself as a lying, imperialist sheepdog.
At “People’s Summit,” Sanders backs Democrats’ anti-Russian warmongering
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/06/12/sand-j12.html
Sept 30 update: Now it is Google, according to an article in the NYTimes. Pathetic as it is, I’m glad in a way that the shoe is on the other foot, that the right is getting a taste of its own medicine. The affair also demonstrates that it is not only so-called right wingnuts who are vulnerable to wacky conspiracy theories.
These fake & phony “Russia did it” stories do harm the USA, because they show the Russians – and others- just how dumb & clueless Americans really are
Putin interview shows bogus character of the US media’s anti-Russia campaign
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/06/06/nbcp-j06.html
Hillary Clinton’s What Happened: A conspiracy theory of the 2016 election
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/20/clin-s20.html
Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin: When the White House fixed a Russian election
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/06/14/yelt-j14.html
– Putin to NBC’s Megyn Kelly on June 5th
en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/54688
It is not clear that there is something wrong with the way major media outlets choose which stories to report?
Is it not clear that beliefs now overcome good, old-fashioned reporting?
I find it interesting that after a year of accusations about Russia hacking our elections, there have been no serious efforts to secure future elections. Pretty lax behavior for a nation with its critical systems allegedly under attack by a major foreign power
Because at this point you may as well make sure Slenderman and the boogeyman can’t tamper with elections for all the evidence we’ve seen.
I would not take anything from this administration as fact. From reading what Homeland Security said, they did not know. And besides, I am sure the head of Homeland Security is a Trump supporter. From my reading, I believe the election was rigged. Trump did not win the election. I believe what the Intelligent Agencies have found. Russia interfered in our election and some colluded with Russia. Yes, I believe Trump colluded with Russia.
Elsie Hughes
A lot of Russian trolls, masquerading as Trump supporters, have taken over the comment section. This shouldn’t surprise anybody. It has been clear for some time that the articles were ghost written in Moscow, the actual writers having been sequestered in some remote Gulag. Mr. Greenwald, I believe, was banished to an outpost in Brazil – a country that fell to the Russians several years ago. So it was only a matter of time before they made a play for the comment section. While I’m not surprised that it fell, I am surprised it fell so quickly. The explanation must be that it already contained a number of sleeper agents, who assisted the invading Russian forces.
My comment will be dismissed as a paranoid fantasy, written by someone who has lost their grip on reality. That’s only to be expected; the Russians always depict anyone who opposes their agenda as mentally ill. However, that won’t kill off the spirit of opposition. This time, the Russians have bitten off more than they can chew. Someday the Resistance will rise up and restore Hillary Clinton to her rightful place on the throne.
:) :) :) !!!
The more insidious infiltrations were those not supporting either candidate; obvious Russians.
;)
It was the sexists in this country and the Russians in that other country that failed to place Clinton into the pantsuit of power. A House Divided (into male and female citizens) cannot stand.
Well, your last sentence shows how very little you understand the U.S. constitution and system of government. Indeed, anyone as ignorant of the civics of American politics should not be permitted a vote.
This is the United States f America. There is no “throne.” Take you shopworn “queen-wannabe” and put her, in 4 or 8 years, with the current President, in a cupboard, and lock the door. She got to run against the one person she was unafraid of facing, and lost. The media colluded to give us a Clinton-Trump contest, in which every one of us must lose.
I voted for neither, since I love this country. If you want to garland and sanctify a lying felon, who cannot be trusted with classified information and produces ream upon ream of disinformation at the drop of a scandal, go for it. Just don’t wish it on the rest of us.
I knew that America wasn’t a monarchy, it just slipped my mind. Of course I meant that Mrs. Clinton will assume her rightful role as Supreme Chairman.
You say she got to run against the one person she wasn’t afraid of facing. But she had no way of knowing that Mr. Trump would stoop so low as to campaign in Wisconsin. As a political science professor explained at the time:
If even political science professors, who make a living studying this kind of thing, were totally baffled, then the strategy could only have been concocted by a political genius. This is proof that Putin was masterminding the Trump campaign.
LOL!
Someone help me out. After reading this article, it looks to me like no one is disputing that Russian hackers were exploring the voting systems in 19 states. Is that correct?
no.
If the election is invalidated and before Hillary Clinton is “installed” as president, I for one will be calling for an invalidation of the Democratic primary process which crowned the pre-selected candidate, Clinton, and has already been shown to have been at least as crooked as the election may prove to be.
No responsible spokesperson including Hillary Clinton or Rachel Maddow has ever called for invalidating the 2016 election. If anyone including the author can provide an example please submit it now. This investigation and others like it are intended to provide a path to make sure this intereference for ANY foreign entity does not occur again. Now if only the Trump could get on board with this instead of putting his own fragile ego ahead of the interests of the nation, we would all be better off.
Interesting article. Thanks Genn, I always enjoy your work.
I find it interesting in all this discussion of evil Russia manipulating social media etc … that no one seems to talk about the fact that the USA has also been doing this for years …
Exactly, and Russians decided to return the favor.
How long did Watergate take and how many knew before hand?
Yeah, what I thought.
@Glenn
Just took part in a very interesting political survey, from what I believe was a Trump pollster.
They queried me on all on immigration, the wall, deportations and how I viewed Trump.
However, there was one issue asked about that has not yet been in the news to my knowledge.
They asked if I favor or disfavor legislation that would allow a small business owner to discriminate selling goods and services to anyone who was gay or lesbian based on the business owner’s religious beliefs.
This legislation may be coming down the Trump pipeline.
Heads Up!
Individual states have been trying to do this for quite some time. Indiana, Mississippi, North Carolina an Arkansas – basically most Republican-controlled states – have been making serious efforts at impementing these kinds of discriminatory laws ever since the Supreme Court legalized same sex marriage.
The biggest pushback thus far has come from corporations boycotting by choosing to move headquarters and/or events to states without such laws.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/us/gay-rights-mississippi-north-carolina.html
It will be interesting to see who wins this battle, the moneychangers or the hatemongers. :-s
Thanks Pedinska!
I live in Northern California. Not exactly a hotbed of discriminatory ideology. Not sure this was state-focused, but could be. ;)
The pollster was definitely trying to gauge how xenophobic and racist I was. Questions about illegals and whether I favored pathway to citizenship, DACA questions, questions about Islam, etc.
It really felt like a federal pollster from Trump, although I can’t be sure as I didn’t ask outright. Felt the need to shower afterwards though. ;)
Cheers, and thanks for the link.
On money changers vs hate mongers, I’d say it’s 6:5 & pick em.
Cheers.
Glenn, I’d be interested in your thoughts on this article from The Intercept:
https://theintercept.com/2017/06/05/top-secret-nsa-report-details-russian-hacking-effort-days-before-2016-election/
Excellent work, thank you.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of what the Left “believes” at this point is nothing more than dogma, and the evidentiary standards to which Leftists adhere are nothing more than “celebrities, professors, and the news media told me so”. In other words, adherence to the logical fallacies of Appeals to Authority/Appeal to the Masses constitute the depth and breadth of Leftist Epistemology at this point.
The Right is faaaaaar from perfect, and partisanship (as opposed to strict adherence to Reason) is a lazy way to escape the burden of thought. But the Left is in a bad place. This article states the problem pretty eloquently.
You know nothing about “the left”. The Democratic Party neo-liberals have lost the left for a generation.
Trash heap is a perfect description of the corporate, mainstream “media. Or garbage fire as Jimmy Dore calls it.
Mr. Greenwald, Since your name was first in my awareness from your activity with some entity which was either non, un, or anti- American in their actions, I have a reflexive distrust of you. Despite that, I appreciate you writing this. Such sanity needs to be displayed.
Credibility once lost, is almost impossible to restore.
Americans recognized the corruption that infiltrated the highest levels of U.S. government over the last 30-40 years. We don’t believe anything from government agencies that use disinformation, smear tactics & lies in their everyday business practices.
The cat is out of the bag and will never be placed back inside.
https://youtu.be/lw2BVI9OhC4
“LAST FRIDAY, most major media outlets touted a major story about Russian attempts to hack into U.S. voting systems, based exclusively on claims made by the Department of Homeland Security. “Russians attempted to hack elections systems in 21 states in the run-up to last year’s presidential election, officials said Friday,” began the USA Today story, similar to how most other outlets presented this extraordinary claim.”
Actually, if Truth be Told?
The only HACKING, in the last election, came from Jeh Johnson’s Homeland Security Agency.
HSA was caught, RED HANDED, hacking into the Voting Machines in Indiana and Georgia.
LOOK IT UP!
could you please rewrite this article in english?
“No questioning of official claims is allowed. The evidentiary threshold which an assertion must overcome before being accepted is so low as to be non-existent.”
So says Glenn Greenwald, avatar of Truth-telling journalism.
But wait, Greenwald’s complaint sounds all too-familiar a refrain from none other than Donald Trump who calls anything he disagrees with “fake news.” Plagiarism? Hmm, I wonder.
So, Wikileaks has no pipeline to the Kremlin? Why and how did so many of the Trump campaign propaganda Hillary Clinton “revelations” and DNC “scandals” make it into the Kellyanne Conway-Steve Bannon narratives shortly after their release by Julian Assange’s Wikileaks?
Way to go Glenn, way to go, no better friend does Trump have than one who bought into the consipiracy that all news is tainted, therefore it should be rejected. Except Greenwald’s impeccable sources of course.
Your comment is such typical binary knee jerk stupidity.
There is NO proof of Russian malfeasance, but fools like you
NEED to believe the manufactured story
AND
you also NEED to accuse people who demand proof before judgement
of being Trump supporters because
YOU and your ilk can’t/will not see that by
swallowing the officially sanctioned democrat bogus story
that you are SO MUCH just like the Trump supporters
in your stupidly arrogant desperation
that you attack anyone who might point out that your
lovers of empire are wearing no clothes.
Sophomoric tripe. Flunked bonehead English eh?
John: That’s “Flunked bonehead English, eh?”
But the news is tainted, and has been since about 1983 or so. How else do you think Iran/Contra amounted to nothing? How else do you believe that the first Gulf War was a “good” war, when Iraq offered to withdraw from Kuwait and George Bush Sr. said, “not happening,” and also accused Hussein of having nuclear weapons even then? Or the lies leading up to the 2nd Gulf War, when a draft-dodging US president lied to us about yellow-cake and the death of Pat Tillman? The chaos you think is a means to power is just that, chaos, and it only shines a light on your own nihilistic intentions. You don’t really say what you think is true, you only complain about what you think remains questionable. That’s nihilism.
“So, Wikileaks has no pipeline to the Kremlin? Why and how did so many of the Trump campaign propaganda Hillary Clinton “revelations” and DNC “scandals” make it into the Kellyanne Conway-Steve Bannon narratives shortly after their release by Julian Assange’s Wikileaks?”
i believe this is the evidentiary standard (or lack of) referred to in the article.
what a dumbass.
https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/russia/
“Why and how did so many of the Trump campaign propaganda Hillary Clinton “revelations” and DNC “scandals” make it into the Kellyanne Conway-Steve Bannon narratives shortly after their release by Julian Assange’s Wikileaks?”
Perhaps they, like all the rest of us, read the Wikileaks revelations just like the rest of us did? Duh!
Your article is forced and lame. Why don’t you focus your efforts on something that has merit rather than this shtick you’ve been trying where you’re trying to out left the left and carve out some niche nobody cares about. It’s boring.
Glenn Greenwald is perhaps the last intellectually-honest liberal in this country. Refreshing to see someone on the left call out their own. Louise ‘Mensch’ and some neocons seem determined to start WWIII to feed the maw of the military-industrial BEAST, without bothering to see whether their hate is even JUSTIFIED before trying to invoke 7,000 MEGADEATHS. LORD God help us all; we are beholden to madmen and sociopaths!
The real issue with the story, that 21 states were TARGETED.
That means that 21 states have router, security log files that show their network was scanned by IP addresses from Russia or areas near Russia. In laymans terms that means someone may have attempted to access the network.
BUT
There is a huge difference between having a log file with an IP address and accessing the network. (I am an IT person)
This makes the story a none story up front. But most people will not know the difference, so the media can report and attempt to pull the rug over peoples eyes.
ps….. any network admin, whom checks their log files, will likely find at least one scan from China or some former Soviet country. Most likely many scans a day creating a log each time the router was scanned.
Glenn, great article. An honest journalist is so rare these days.
But please tell us more about Michael Chertoff and his partner, ex CIA chief Michael Hayden, of the “Chertoff Group” and the other honorable, dedicated “private intelligence contractors” and what role they obviously play in making sure Americans are not being deceived or getting screwed.
Thanks in advance as I know you will get right on this one.
Excellent piece Glenn, almost restores my faith in reporting.
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/georgia/georgia-secretary-of-state-says-cyberattacks-linked-back-to-dhs/475707667
Georgia, Kentucky, Indiana, etc. 2016 was a busy year for hackers working for the Department of Homeland Security.
I’ll be laughing my fat butt off if this is a Trump stratgery. Keep the retards on the left pissed off and completely unhinged and turn off normals by the boatload.
Trump and his base don’t have the brain power for such a strategy. Inam sad to say your butt will remain firmly where it is.
How could Trump actually come up with a strategy that fools “retards?” Even without the stupidity of the media, Trump has proven himself in his presidency more “retarded” than anyone even expected.
Ofcourse it fell apart. Because it was not true. She lost, plain and simple. Can’t handle that. Then she and her minions made up the Russian claim to plant land mines in Trumps Presidency. It was a lie from the start and its a lie now. Get over it.
To answer the question in your article title: yes it’s permissible, free country, you and all the Trump voters are free to think what you like, but you are being ignorant, literally and figuratively.
Well, somebody is being ignorant, both literally and figuratively.
It’s just that *we* (where “we” is anyone who thinks for themselves) think it’s *you*.
Moron. Sure, in a free country the NYT, WaPo, et al, are free to make idiots of themselves with flimsy, non-factual reporting of the Russia boogeyman. Just the same, you are free to accept their premises without any critical thinking whatsoever. And apparently, you have.
No, the establishment will not let up until they have another story they can drip out for one to two years…
The way was paved for this by decades of hyperventilating news on both sides. The “9/11 Truthers” were not much worse than the government of the time and its invented conspiracies between Iraq and AQ, its mythical Iraqi nukes and other WMDs. I just read a story about Twin Falls, Idaho, and the completely straight-faced, serious concerns that Sharia Law was being implemented there.
How nutty are the Russia stories compared to that?
What’s nutty, of course, are the respectable outlets giving Russia stories play, just as they were credulous about Bush administration stories about Iraq. But I can’t help but think that the “Overman Window” was widened in this direction by decades of conspiracy theories in the non-MS media getting more and more attention.
After Breitbart showed itself as an anti-truth organization with the ACORN videos, I thought that no “real” media organization would ever again quote from their work, nor any official pay attention to their stories. But then the Obama administration fired Shirley Sherrod within an hour or so of a Breitbart smear being copied by “mainstream” news media.
For me, Sherrod proved that Breitbart had been “normalized”, handed the same power that any media organization has to ruin a career. After that, “normalizing” Trump was not a big step.
Sherrod was only a smear because you saw what you wanted. There was no dispute over her statement.
This is how DHS is trying to cover their own hacking of several voting systems in 2016:
http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/21/exclusive-obamas-feds-tried-to-hack-indianas-election-system-while-pence-was-governor/
Yep, you guessed it: Russia.
This was a nothing-burger from the beginning.
I think you are well balanced reporter. Here I think is one case of over dramatizing a point, ” is now driven by religious-like faith rather than rational faculties.” True religious faith is based on ones rational faculties and recognizing your own limitations.
Recognizing one’s own limitations would lead to a rational assessment of one’s own options, and has nothing to do with “true religious faith.”
DHS covering their own attempts to hack the voting systems during 2016 election.
The “Russian hacking excuse” used by everyone within US who tried to steal the election.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/21/exclusive-obamas-feds-tried-to-hack-indianas-election-system-while-pence-was-governor/
Glenn Greenwald is back! Excellent article. My hunch (not proven) is all this fake Russia nonsense is the DC establishment (Democrats, Republicans, neocons, neolibs, other vested federal govt interests, etc.) attacking Trump. They are colluding to take him down one way or another. If Trump is successful, or even partly successful, he blows their fraudulent business model to smithereens. Praying for Trump’s success– MAGA!
There is an interesting precedent here. The evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK has always been overwhelming, if one is not afraid to face the facts. Nonetheless, that thought was simply too painful for many on the left to bear.
Oswald the communist killed a liberal icon. That is an unacceptable thought.
This Russia story is the same. It MUST be true, because the alternative is that Trump is legitimately elected, and thus current attempts by the left to remove him would be nothing more than a coup d’etat.
But it is more than that. This “front” is multifaceted. I agree they are not only “colluding to take him down one way or another”, but are using this (Russian) reason as a cover to divert attention away from how the DNC was manipulated by insiders to oust Bernie Sanders and cover up what else Seth Rich had discovered and was about to make known, not to mention Hillary’s emails.. It’s a “one size fits all” excuse purposely put out there with the added value to make it shameful and unpatriotic for anyone to question it.
The New York Times has lost all credibility, failing time after time after to question anonymous reports that flew in the face of reason. One has only to go back to the run-up to the Iraq war to find hundreds of dangerous false reports. Judy Miller was one of the most egregious but certainly not the only “Times” reporter to deliberately lie, but the opinion writers and editorials were equally guilty. There was a deliberate, constant drumbeat for war in the pages of the New York Times. It is continuing to run misleading, inaccurate, or blatantly wrong articles about Syria and Iran.
Everyone knows, but no one can say it, that Jewish interests in the U.S. led ignorant George Bush by the nose to attack Iraq, and Jewish interests pushed Obama to send more troops to Afghanistan, and Jewish interests are the major supporters of breaking the treaty with Iran and eventually starting a war with Iran.
The sad thing about this is that such comments as mine will be automatically labeled “anti-Semitic,” but this is a canard. A lie. Telling the truth about these matters has nothing to do with race hatred. A lie is a lie, and a spade is a spade is a spade regardless of the opinion pieces in the New York Times.
Unfortunately, it is damned difficult to combat these war hawks when the vast majority of the major new media in the U.S. are owned or controlled by American Jews who see Israel as their first responsibility, not the U.S.
You do realize Glenn Greenwald’s parents are Jewish…dont you?
And I think you are incorrect on American Jews seeing Israel as their first responsibility. I’m not even sure how most American Jews call themselves Jews with the exception of the bloodline. They seem to me to be more like Leftists…of the Marxist persuasion. But I could be wrong…however they do seem to side with the political ilk that historically shunned and killed them, which makes them an enigma in my mind.
War with Iran would be better for business all around. I don’t actually believe that, but I believe there are those in the present administration that do.
Please comment:
http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/89/2017/09/Polarizing-Content-and-Swing-States.pdf
Glen, you are the man. I mean really, you are the epitome of the last of the Liberals. You are a Liberal, right? A real Liberal, as opposed to a Leftist which is what the Democrat Party has become.
I have great respect for someone who speaks the truth, regardless of what power that truth is spoken to.
The Russia narrative is just like the anthropological climate change situation. Information that led to conclusion is not allowed to be examined, and if you dare wonder or speak out loud that there may be something fishy with it…you are derided and attacked as a dangerous heretic like the witch hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries.
The MSM just makes things up. There are no consequences for the MSM for telling bald-faced lies. However there are consequences for the victims of these lies.
“Anti-racists” say there’s a RACE problem. They say it’ll be solved when non-Whites pour into ALL & ONLY White nations and “assimilate” to get a brown mixture.
They say only White nations have this RACE problem; they say non-White nations are fine.
If I object to my own genocide these “anti-racists” say I am a naziwhowantstokillsixmillionjews.
They say they’re anti-racist. What they are is anti-White.
Anti-racist is a codeword for anti-White.
Just like all the rich white hating NFL millionairs kneeling. What the racists say about whites is true if they still purchase NFL tickets.
The Alliance for Securing Democracy is giving you the hairy eyeball, Glenn. I guess this article has pushed you over the top. The Intercept is now one of a few key cogs in Russian influence operations.
https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/913518006357172226
When you manage to make the likes of Mike “Skeletor” Chertoff, Bill Krystol, Mike McFaul and Mike Rogers shit their nappies, you’re doing the right thing.
At the end of the day, the best journalists can do is strive to get readers as close as possible to the truth. Sometimes, as is the case in the Russia ordeal, that is not easy. Journalists get things wrong, are too reliant on government officials, don’t ask enough questions, do shitty due diligence, etc. But despite Glenn’s effort to selectively highlight the examples of failure, there are good journalists out there on the Russia beat. And unlike Glenn, they are at least trying. Over the last year, Glenn Greenwald has provided little of value on the Russia hacking ordeal. Here’s my list of his contributions:
1. Constantly reminding us to not blindly trust reports attributed to U.S. officials, the dangers of exaggerating the news, and distrusting the mainstream media.
2. Aggregating and constantly highlighting all journalistic mishaps related to the Russia Interference beat.
3. Filling his articles with various Twitter “hot-takes” by media personalities, usually ones that aren’t exactly known for high journalistic standards.
All noteworthy, at least to a degree. It’s important to see the journalistic failures. However, its loses its effectiveness when Glenn repeats these same points over and over again. Glenn portrays himself as a skeptic on the Russia matter, but that’s highly suspect. True, Glenn questions the predominant narrative, but he has absolutely no interest in seeking additional information that moves the ball forward with respect to obtaining the truth. Aside from the Reality Winner documents, TI has done nothing but summarize and repackage others’ work or sow doubt. They haven’t used their resources to identify any alternative.
It starts with Glenn’s hesitance to take a concrete position on the Russia interference and collusion matters. Glenn does not explicitly say whether he believes the Russian government orchestrated the hacking of the DNC and John Podesta, or whether he believes Trump campaign officials coordinated with the Russians. Nor does he get behind alternative views (e.g. Assange’s theory) such as there being a leak instead of a hack. Glenn’s muted position helps insulate him from the type of criticisms he loves to dish out at journalists who have staked their claim. After all, if you put nothing on the line, you won’t have to eat crow. But to close observers, it is pretty obvious where Glenn stands. He doesn’t believe any of it, nor is he willing to entertain the possibility that it’s true. He proclaims that he is not satisfied with the level of evidence/proof of Russia’s involvement. A good stance to take, but Glenn simply does not apply his skepticism consistently. His supposedly high standard of evidence hasn’t stopped him from subscribing to the notion of the “Deep State” influence, sans evidence. Nor did it stop him two months ago from suggesting that the formation of a new think tank – the Alliance for Securing Democracy – was a bipartisan cabal of Democrats and neocons now aligned on “broad-based policy.” This conclusion was accompanied by zero evidence. He hides behind the fact that the intelligence community has not offered sufficient proof, despite knowing that protection of sources/methods is a legitimate justification by the government.
Glenn once had an exchange with the NYT’s Bill Keller in which Keller made the following point:
I believe this prescient point is playing out in front of our eyes. Ask yourself, what effort is Glenn making to get us closer to the truth on whether the Russians interfered in the election and whether the Trump Administration coordinated with the Russian government? There is no such effort. He only focuses on the articles that sow doubt. This is because Glenn established his assumptions back in the summer of 2016 and now feels compelled to defend them. Look at what he said back then:
August 31, 2016: Glenn, when discussing the congressional letter to the FBI asking the agency to investigate whether the Trump campaign and the Russian government have entered into a joint plot to interfere with the U.S. presidential election, said:
In other words, it was merely a political ploy. Dead wrong. Little did Glenn know that despite his dismissal of the Democrats’ concerns and motives, the FBI had indeed started such an investigation the prior month.
September 9, 2016: Glenn says that “literally every week ushers in a new round of witch hunts in search of domestic Kremlin agents and new evidence of excessive Putin sympathies.” Glenn fails to even entertain the notion of Russian involvement saying that:
Dead wrong again. We now know that Obama was incredibly torn on the matter of whether to go public, because of a fear that he’d be perceived as intervening to help Hillary Clinton. Glenn did not consider this possibility. He goes through different thought exercises, but fixates on the ones that validate his pre-existing beliefs. Importantly, Glenn was now suggesting that this was all a witch hunt. Referring back to that Bill Keller interview, Glenn would now begin to defend his claims, to “omit or minimize facts” or “frame the argument” in ways that support his newly declared viewpoint. From then on, Glenn would downplay or omit pertinent pieces of news that challenged his narrative: The Donald Jr. meeting with Natlalia Veselnitskaya (Glenn: “I don’t think that’s particularly surprising”), the FBI investigation and raid on Paul Manafort (Glenn: radio silence), FISA Warrants on Carter Page (Glenn’s painful concession: “It’s certainly possible to envision an indictment of a low-level operative like Carter Page … but the silver bullet that Democrats have been led to expect … appears further away than ever.”) Michael Flynn’s forced resignation (Glenn: reframes the issue to focus on the leakers), etc.
On a parting note, here is Jonathan Chait’s view, which truly resonates:
Thanks,
I was beginning to think the deep state ran out of stooge mouthpieces.
Nate, the indulgent length of your post betrays the lack of substance.
He said, without supplying any evidence for his argument.
Well, Nate set the bar pretty low, but I did cite the length of the post. To take it apart piece by piece would be to confer legitimacy where it’s not established. So,-there!
As the Russia story continues to underwhelm – oh sure that smoking gun that brings down the admin and demonstrates that Hillary “really won” is just around the bend true believers — and the hyperbolic melted cheese of February chills to an unpalatable glob of artificially colored cholesterol resembling a sickly fallen leaf at the end of September, Nate posts from the Hitler’s Bunker of his own imagination, acting like national joke Jonathan Chait is still regarded as a person who provides useful analysis.
Nate! hello!! You can come out, and maybe you could help with something real out there politically, fighting actual policies being perpetrated by our actual government. There’s no Russians gonna getcha, there’s just Americans doing their usual fucked up shit. You probably support some good things, maybe sort of in a kind of dopey centrist way that ultimately fails because of it is compromised from the gitgo, but whatevs: right now that’s better than the folks who run the country.
Verbosity in service of nonsense is not your friend. Making statements without offering supporting evidence,
there are good journalists out there on the Russia beat.
Contradicting yourself,
Greenwald has provided little of value on the Russia hacking ordeal. Here’s my list of his contributions: […] All noteworthy, […] It’s important to see the journalistic failures.
Glenn portrays himself as a skeptic on the Russia matter, but that’s highly suspect. True, Glenn questions the predominant narrative,
He proclaims that he is not satisfied with the level of evidence/proof of Russia’s involvement. A good stance to take,
Lying about what Greenwald has written,
suggesting that the formation of a new think tank – the Alliance for Securing Democracy – was a bipartisan cabal of Democrats and neocons now aligned on “broad-based policy.” This conclusion was accompanied by zero evidence.
The article you referenced named the democrat and republican who formed the group,
and the group itself proclaims is bipartisan nature. Go look it up, ffs.
Ask yourself, what effort is Glenn making to get us closer to the truth on whether the Russians interfered in the election and whether the Trump Administration coordinated with the Russian government? There is no such effort.
So, showing that the media is promulgating abject lies doesn’t help us get at the truth in your opinion? That’s, um, interesting. :-s
In other words, it was merely a political ploy. Dead wrong.
Maybe you should read the book Shattered,
As for whether or not Glenn has supported investigations on this, his position has been quite clear from the very beginning. From an interview he did with Democracy Now,
It is absolutely no surprise that Jonathan Chait resonates with you. Both of you would have been flunked by my senior year AP English teacher. She was merciless toward fact-free bloviators whose fingertips overflowed with their own cognitive dissonance. :-s
This is a little harsh Pedinska. The world has become more accepting of fact free bloviators and it is no longer acceptable to condemn them for their lifestyle choices. True, at one time, education attempted to instill critical thinking skills – but it is now understood that singling out a subset of thinking skills, or any thinking skills at all, for special favoritism is exclusionary and elitist. When someone tries to blame Russia for predicaments of America’s own creation, we should be supportive and express our sympathy and understanding – not mock them and devalue them for their lack of self reflection and critical thought.
While you may be tempted to dispute that racism in America is entirely Russia’s fault, please try to remain open minded and consider this possibility. The US struggled during the civil rights era, and finally defeated racism once and for all. That racism should reappear at precisely the moment that Mr. Putin is plotting against America may be a pure coincidence – but is that likely? Wherever there is an effect, there must be a cause, and why shouldn’t Russia be that cause? The least we can do is set up panels of independent scientists who can test this using their computer models.
“This is a little harsh Pedinska.”
Harsh on whom? On herself? She is struggling to hurt other commenters’ feelings so in the process she denies the evidence and the facts to herself.
Pedinska does not suffer fools gladly. That’s why I usually avoid engaging with her, and I would recommend you do the same.
Stick to sacarsm, sycophancy is not your fort.
I’m practicing my sycophancy. I’m worried about the future and sycophancy is a good survival skill.
Nazi jails did not kill Max Naumann. If only German Jews had followed his sycophancy!
There is a right way and a wrong way to do sycophancy.
“After all, if you put nothing on the line, you won’t have to eat crow.”
If you have no foregone preference about the eventual outcome, you have nothing to put “on the line”. QED
If you do have a foregone preference, you are (guaranteed) not thinking clearly.
I love you Glenn. Thank the gods for the little corner of sanity you provide…. the quality of the thought and writing, too.
Another example of the extreme ignorance of the American public. The blame lies squarely on the public schools in America. They no longer teach civics or American history. Anyone with a basic knowledge of their state’s election system would know there is no internet connection. How can the voting machines be hacked? Again, there is no internet connection, no internet connection means there is no way for anyone, anywhere, to change the vote or the election outcome. The tallying of the votes is monitored by both Democrats and Republicans. It would be extremely difficult for those counting the votes to commit any type of fraud. As for internet access, again, there is no internet connection therefore there is no internet access to voting machines, period.
You are fundamentally misunderstanding the claim of hacking into voting systems. No one is claiming that voting machines were hacked or that vote tallies were hacked. They are claiming that voter registration databases may have been. Again, this has nothing to do with the actual vote count. Though tampering with voter registration could lead to legitimate voters not being able to vote, etc.
Though tampering with voter registration could lead to legitimate voters not being able to vote, etc.
Yes, it does. That is exactly the purpose of Kris Kobach’s Interstate Crosscheck program which, like similar programs all across the nation, has been extremely successful in wiping legitimate voters off the roles in far too many states.
Some people claim they were abducted by aliens and from some of the comments I’ve seen I could believe them except that I still rely on facts that provide the proof and not conjecture, supposition and innuendo. There is no crime and that is what is so disturbing. There is only the hope that evidence of wrongdoing can be discovered or, more likely, created.
port scanning happening billions times a day randomly targeting everything from servers to IOT devices just to check if it is vulnerable. I believe there is not a single device connected to internet that has not have its ports scanned.
DHS really does not think much about its target audience, and they are probably right.
Only a true moron or a Liberal believed any of that Russia nonsense.
And to think all the democrat pussies were getting wet over this.
Yes, every time Trump and Russia are used in the same sentence the left have multiple Orgasms !!!!
Don’t see my post. My question is, whatever happened to the investigation of the NSA TRYING to hack Republican state elections centers? It was approved by Obama!!!
Remember that Bill Kristol and Mike Cherthoff are CFR(DEEP STATE) operatives, Mike Morell, I don’t know but probably is also a CFR operative.
“not unlike the Iraq discourse of 2002″
i’d take it a step further and propose that russiaphobia is to the “liberal”/democrat/hillary fetishists what islamophobia is to the “right”/republican/israel fetishists. take any accusation and substitute “rapefugees” in place of “putinistas”. both are moronic and – as you mentioned – a sad attempt to give a veneer of order to a random and complex system.
it’s also a glaring sign of intellectual weakness seen in pretty much any public debate among establishment types; when your spectrum is so narrow and your “education” so rigid the only way to save face in the presence of people with actually cogent arguments is simple name-calling. can’t come up with facts to refute the naqba or any other israeli war crimes? scream “antisemite!” and watch the other person’s career go down in flames. don’t know shit about technology and assume “russian IP address” means anything at all? yell “putinbots!” from the mountaintop and watch hillary’s army of “Stans” swarn like locusts that shop at banana republic. it’s the rhetorical equivalent of “smoke bomb!”
I’d say that’s a completely credible equivalency. Now that all eyes are opened onto the corruption of both parties, we must begin to answer to the nihilism of both parties. How will we get through the next 50 years with complete nihilists in charge of our government? What arc can humanism follow that leads to actual justice within our lifetimes, and isn’t just a prop for the elite to use like a fictional scam from “The Music Man?” What price must we pay for the inevitable “transvaluation of all values?” You don’t have to be committed Nietzschean to see that religion can’t haul us up out of this one. How do we make our elected officials into officials of our elected policies, and not cheats, liars and overseers of our cultural and material poverty?
What became if the investigation of the NSA trying to hack 7 Republucan Election Centers? This was approved by Obama…but went hush…hush!
Why would anyone ever vote RINO-cRAT? Tax cutting should involve heavy cuts to the U.S. Government Bureaucracy–i.e. D.C. Welfare. We work for these bums while they steal from us. All of them need to be investigated for Obamagate, unmasking, Clinton pay for play, Clinton email destruction, McCain fake dossiers and disloyalty to the President. Arrest them!!!
It’s not just Kristol/Morell/Chertoff that claim Russian bots were active on Twitter. Twitter itself has released statements confirming it. What incentive would they have to confirm it were it not true?
Very good story.
More Fake News. Does anyone with a brain take the Lib Media seriously anymore?
Somebody better. They are a main player in the psyop being run against the American people.
Bill Kristol, Mike Morell, and Bush Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff, should all be held accountable. No doubt in my mind they have done more or worse!
Someone needs to sue their socks off!
They could cause great harm with their lies!
Perhaps the Russians really did want to see Trump in the white house, if soley to know that a sane leader was in control, and not someone blaming Russia for every problem they created themselves. And why is no one investigating the influence that China, and all the Arab nation states had by endorsing Hillary? We are NOT at war with Russia, but we ARE at war with RADICAL ISLAM, which has had a revolving door in Washington for the last 15 years. But we focus on Russia overturning the US election with 140 characters… Welcome to the Insane States of America.. And you wonder why Russia prefers Trump. Any SANE leader would.
I’m reminded of the movie comedy The Russians are Coming. All this BS about ‘Hillary lost because of Russian interference…’ is as comical as the movie.
“hacking of the DNC and John Podesta’s email inboxes …” Is it really hacking, when they GIVE you the password? Will the Special counsel follow the Russian probe into the Democrats camp? or solely focus on Trump?
Ask “Carlos Danger?” lol
Do you have his prison address? Carlos may need pen pals soon.
The narrative is too entrenched now, with the likely truth – that HRC simply lost to Trump – being too much for people’s minds to handle. They are never going to let it go. They even think they know what Mueller knows and wait expectantly for Trump’s impeachment and arrest for treason. They will teach their kids – many already have – that the election was stolen from them by the Russians. It embarrasses me as much as Trump’s election, maybe even more.
“They are never going to let it go.” We were all exposed to some very powerful persuasion by the Hillary campaign to paint Trump as Hitler/monster/worst-ever, etc. It would have worn off by now (over 10 months later) without constant injections of hysteria ginned up by the DC establishment colluding with the fake news media as Glenn partly describes in his article. It goes well beyond the Russia stole the election narrative but that is indeed a main component of it. The deep-state swamp has been running a psyop against America as of the day after the Nov. 2016 election.
Foreign Policy reported that most of the roughly 3000 adds for $100’000 total on Facebook paid during the elections by the Russians were messages for or against BLM (Black lives matter) and none were about the candidates. Zuckerberg gave some reassuring syrup as to how they will be more forceful in preventing foreign adds on Facebook during an election!
You see right away what the clamor is about: justifying censure of the message that the public is allowed to know. No proof is given that the alleged adds were in fact taken out by the Russians. What would they gain from adds for and against BLM? The neocons didn’t understand either and claimed the adds served to sow divisions in the US.
My question is: if Americans can no longer be exposed to opposing messages because that confuses them, how can they decide which candidate to vote for? And if no opposing messages and opinions can be voiced anymore because that is now “Fake News”, then how can there be a public discussion?
Assuming for the sake of this argument that the adds were placed by the Russians – nobody forced anybody to believe them! Nobody forced anybody to accept them unquestioningly as news or real life information. After all, they were adds!
If Americans now have to be protected from any message not given by government officials, then how can the public know when the government official lie?
Simply put: people. wake up. Somebody wants to tell you that you are too ignorant or stupid to make your own decisions based on what you see, hear and find convincing or not convincing. Good bye, independence and individual in your own right.
The Russians did’t interfere in the US elections. The government wants to convince the US public that it should want a large and long war against Russia and China combined – after all the generals said the US can win a nuclear war against them! – and when the nuclear bombs hit the US homeland to accept the sacrifice and nuclear winter all for nuclear winter.
Underlying the war drum is the precarious situation of the US dollar, and specifically the petrodollar that underpins the US debt. The dollar is threatened with devaluation as China introduced the gold backed Yuan and will henceforward pay for energy imported with Yuan. The US economic house of cards is about to crumble.
So how could it not be Russia’s fault?
You want to see interference with someone else’s erections?
Remember Ukraine with Obama’s harpies of chaos and destruction deciding on the next PM – and Yatzi it was – while McCain was agitating in the country’s capital for a coup d’etat. Was that before or after he kissed ISIS ass in Syria?
So Dems, you lost! Get the f over it! Bring the hag back and she’ll lose again.
Accused NSA leaker called America ‘the worst thing to happen on the planet’
Reality Winner, 25, told FBI agents she was disappointed in her job as a government contractor, court records show.
In their latest filing Wednesday, prosecutors also included a partial transcript of a Facebook chat between Winner and her sister in February.
“Look, I only say I hate America like 3 times a day,” Winner wrote. “I’m no radical. It’s mostly just about Americans obsession with air conditioning.”
Her sister asked: “But you don’t actually hate America, right?”
Winner replied: “I mean yeah I do it’s literally the worst thing to happen on the planet. We invented capitalism the downfall of the environment.”
Authorities haven’t described the report or named the news outlet. But the Justice Department announced Winner’s arrest as The Intercept reported it had obtained a classified NSA report suggesting Russian hackers attacked a U.S. voting software supplier before last year’s presidential election. The NSA report was dated May 5, the same as the document Winner is charged with leaking.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/09/28/accused-nsa-leaker-confession/715062001/
Artlcle too long for my needs to share.
I was looking for the Latest detail that the scan was actually done by some US AGENCY, either openly or cloaked.
Skim reading that last half of this piece didn’t turn it up. Besides, if that info was available at press time, I would expect it to have appeared early on.
Glad to see the Intercept coming around to reporting the truth about the US government lies. Still waiting on Glenn to report on the US support for terrorists in Syria and the White Helmets propaganda hoax.
?????? ???????? ??????. ?????? ???????? ? ????????. ???? ?????? ?? ????????, ?? ??? ???????? ? ???, ??? ??? ?? ????????.
Google translate
Russia is guilty always. Russia is guilty in principle. If Russia is innocent, then it is guilty that she is innocent.
Since none of the states use the internet for voting results this claim is worthless.
And this will be on NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, CNN and the front page of the NYT’s, LAT’s, Chitrib… when?
And when will there be a discussion regarding Assange saying he has solid evidence that Russia did NOT hack the DNC/Podesta and he will give that evidence in exchange for a pardon by Trump?
Rep. Dana Rohrbacher met with Chief of Staff Kelly and Kelly told him to take the issue to the Intelligence Committees. There is a possibility that Trump is unaware of any of this.
If I lived in the D.C. area I would be out in front of The White House demonstrating (hopefully with hundreds of others) with signs asking Trump if he is even AWARE of this offer by Assange to debunk the biggest hoax (other than 9/11) ever hoisted onto the American public by the MSM.
https://pjmedia.com/video/julian-assange-says-will-provide-evidence-russia-narrative-false-exchange-pardon/
Maybe Assange has the evidence he claims, or, maybe he does not, but we cannot bribe people to turn over evidence because it taints the whole process. The President cannot sell pardons. I think that you can be confident that Trump knows of Assange’s offer. Forget the picketing!
Yeah, presidents cannot sell pardons:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-clinton-pardons-analysis-story.html
I had one of these progressive nut cases call me a Putin lover when I asked for evidence to backup the wild claims this nut was making about Russian involvement in the election, and collusion between Trump and the Russians.
After being insulted, I replied in kind and told this person they were an eff’ing moron. I proceeded to explain that Putin was laughing his butt off at how America is being torn apart by all of the hysterics and false claims about collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign. How Putin has the Democrats doing his work for him, with civil strife, unhinged attacks (both verbal and physical) and a loss of confidence in American government.
I then asked how stupid this person was, to actually do Putin’s work for him? The blank stare I received in answer was priceless.
To add perspective, why would theybclaim some 3000 fake Russian ads on Facebook influenced the election, but will not release them as evidence to the public who were supposedly victims influenced by them? Inflatable conspiracy narratives keep on giving!
To add perspective, why would theybclaim some 3000 fake Russian ads on Facebook influenced the election, but will not release them as evidence to the public who were supposedly victims influenced by them? Inflatable conspiracy narratives keep on giving!
Thank you, Mr. Greenwald. This needed to be said – again. The bizarre (and essentially corrupt) credulity of the mainstream media outlets is shocking, and a very good reason to support the alternatives with integrity, which I need not name.
The fake panic over “the Russians are coming!!!” is especially alarming to anyone old enough to have grown up at the height of the Cold War. I was luckier, but my wife remembers being made to hide under her desk at school during air raid practices, as if that would help her during a nuclear attack. We all lived in corrosive fear for much of our young lives; the end of that fear when the Cold War died was an unparalleled relief. Considering all that, and the very real danger of provoking a fellow nuclear power, stoking the panic for political advantage verges on a crime against humanity. Certain parties, at this point mostly Democrats, are risking nuclear holocaust to pump up the war industry, just as Hillary did when Sec. of State.
That said, and despite my gratitude, I take issue with a word choice: “conspiracist” in “an army of crazed conspiracists such as Louise Mensch and Claude “TrueFactsStated” Taylor?” While it’s arguably justified in that particular case, the “conspiracy theory” meme is essentially intellectually dishonest. For starters, conspiracies are not rare or implausible, as any lawyer knows, so using the word as a basis to dismiss claims is fallacious. It’s actually used, in most cases, to evade an obvious requirement for evidence. I think you used it in this case for brevity.
The term goes back to the Kennedy assassination, and in practice means “at odds with the official story,” as it did then. But lefties and alternative journalists are not in the business of backing up the official story; they’re in the business of debunking it, because powerful officials so often have a lot to hide – as indeed you’re doing in this article. It would be better if you didn’t use a term that undercuts your project.
Reality never bothers the LEFT.
All I know is that I will never vote for another F’in democrat for as long as I live.
funny how the left is not interested in digging into how the dems influenced their own party nomination. corruption on their own doorstep by their own party members and yet complete silence.
Enough of this!
The Russian stuff was an excuse for the UNHAPPY in the face of a valid and Constitutional FREE election, where the candidate for THE MEDIA and THE HOLLYWOOD ELITE lost to a candidate who campaigned better.
Enough of this!
The Russian stuff was just an excuse for the UNHAPPY with a free and constitutional election, where THE MEDIA and HOLLYWOOD did not see their candidate win.
The problem is that none of the left wing-nuts that ran with the story will retract the story in any meaningful way and the left wing-nuts that read the story will continue to run with the story as true. These left wing-nuts are still holding up their hands and sayin don’t shoot.
It is rather nice of them to give up future elections so easily. At this rate, the only people still taking them seriously in 2020 will be sharing their padded cells.
Good point.
… Because everyone knows that right-wing nuts are quick to admit they’re wrong when their conspiracy theories get debunked. #sarcasm
And they will continue to proclaim themselves “neutral” and “unbiased”.
I love you Glenn!
What is still true is that Hillary, under the mantle of Obama’s regime, tried to influence the Israeli elections, Russian elections and plotted to undermine the Palestinian elections.
Skepticism?
Who believes that?
I believe … “this is like sheering pigs; there’s a whole lot of squealing but not a lot of fleece.” Vlad Putin
Hey, some Russian guy just took my wallet!
As soon as I read Clapper and Reiner as credible sources showing Russia influenced our elections I came to the conclusion, “pigs can indeed fly”…
More fake news from the chronic malcontents who still can’t get over that Hiliary lost.
hey now…………… each Russkie story keeps the democrooks’ hopes going
Drain the Swamp! Drain the Swamp! Drain the Swamp!
Lock them up! Lock them up! Lock them up!
MAGA!!
More fake news from the fake media.
“declare the election invalid and install Hillary in the office” sounds like a bloodless coup, not a democratic process. As seriously, do we even have a democracy if a large share of the media and entertainment industry (who have an outsized voice) insist on only card carrying members of The Party will be allowed to hold elected office. Democrats are more Russian than Russians in today’s America.
***“declare the election invalid and install Hillary in the office” sounds like a bloodless coup***
A coup, yes, by all means. But I doubt it would be bloodless.
Best. Article. Ever. Finally, somebody with the cojones to put it all together in one summary. Has anyone made the headstone for the DNC yet? I can picture it now. “We tried, we lied, we died”.
Mueller has one goal, stay alive. Hillary has probably sent premature condolences on Mueller’s demise from Clintoncide.
Huh? It’s Trump that fears Mueller; Hillary is cheering him on! You need to get your conspiracy theories straight.
Your assumption is that Trump did something wrong.
Perhaps you can enlighten us and point to a *single* law Trump has broken.
Well, there’s the violation of the Emoluents clause, the defrauding of Trump University enrollees (for which he was forced to pay a big settlement), the constant pay-to-play of steering special interests toward his hotels and resorts in exchange for access… It all makes Richard Nixon’s burglarizing a room seem like nothing…
Ther reason for this crazy reporting is both the neo-cons and the left agree on these nutty allegations. One wants to destroy Trump and his election victory and the other wants to sow hatred and fear of Russia to usher in a new “Red Scare” and all that that implies. The MSM thinks it is helping the anti-Trump forces when in fact it is advancing the worst elements of the neo-con war mongers.
Mr. Greenwald,
Thank you for delivering a very clear, logical and level-headed analysis of a very disturbing societal trend. But even more so, thank you for having the courage and honesty to stand forth from amongst the legions of liars seeking to destroy our society, to loudly proclaim the Truth.
May you have an enlightened Yom Kippur; and may we all merit witnessing the rectification of all the world’s wrongs, the eradication of falsehood, and the reign of Truth worldwide.
Best regards,
Joseph Berkowitz
Brilliant.
Poor LOSER Democrats are stuck on stupid because “attempting to hack” doesn’t equal “successfully hacked.”
It’s worse than you think. ..the initial DHS finding was that Putin/Russia *scanned* 21 states election data and attempted to *influence* the election.
It is clear the FCC needs to be refocused on reigning in these irresponsible media outlets. There needs to be consequences for what in effect is screaming fire in a crowded theater. In an actual free market, these outlets would lose viewership and stature as a result of their utter lack of integrity and honesty, and alternative outlets would take their place by doing their jobs with integrity and in good faith…HOWEVER these outlets are entrenched into nationwide broadcasts by the localized monopolies that force americans to pay for these TV channels just to get ANY TV service. That needs to be put to an end. The movie studio system was broken up because it was a vertical monopoly, I fail to see how this is any different with Time Warner cable also owning CNN and its related outlets, likewise Comcast owning NBC, there are other examples.
The FCC needs to prohibit cable/satellite providers from selling these channels via bundling. Since we have decided it is ok for the IRS to mandate that you purchase Health Insurance, this is no overreach anymore.
In addition, the FCC should prohibit TV/radio broadcast networks (and print) from being owned by parent companies. Comcast, Viacom, Fox, Time-Warner should be forced to divest themselves from these networks and the networks should be require by the FCC to be entirely independent entities.
These corrupt dishonest outlets should have to stand on the merits of what they provide to the consumer, which as of today is pure garbage and is not only intentionally inciting discord but also has directly incited violence on multiple occasions, with increasing frequency. By prohibiting them from being part of larger corporate entities, their losses cannot be absorbed by more profitable sectors of the parent company who is willing to absorb the losses in order to push their preferred propaganda.
All the while the FSB and Putin are laughing their heads off and thinking how best to exploit the pathetic lefty media.
Please enough with lies about the election…Hillary lost because of hillary and obama….nobody wanted 4 more years of deceit and unnecessary spending…
This is all about marxist obstruction. The media/Deep State doth protest Trump too much for this whole thing not to be a ruse: as commie VAN JONES of CNN was caught saying undercover: “IT’S A BIG NOTHING BURGER.”
The Redcoats are coming the Redcoats are coming !!
Kill an overpaid cop — Join the Tea Party.
They dont call them PIGS for nothing;
first to the trough.
After the Revolution read your Whiskey Rebellion history,
where GW & Alexander(central bank)Hamilton
slammed a federal excise tax on the poor corn farmers
& backed it up personally with the military force !They are not patriots they are revolutionaries.
As was the case the first time , this time also the Tea Party will lead to the destruction of the nation.
Though both the latter & the present were not against their mother country they naively thought
that they could have a revolution without separation, killing bloodshed, violence, war.
If you do not know history it will repeat itself.
NO THE TEA PARTY DOES NOT LIKE AMERIKA It is a sick bird; AN ILL EAGLE !!!
The other thing that happens is public alarm caused by journalists writing about things they don’t really understand. Note how sloppily the AP types interchange use of “Russians tried to hack,” “Russians targeted,” “Russians hacked,” and “Russians scanned,” as they move from one iteration to the next. What is the average person to think happened? Did the Russians actually “hack” into the voting machines or the vote-counting machines, or did they not? If they tried — by ‘scanning’ or ‘targeting’ — but failed, that’s actually good news. It means the state-level IT guys have their acts together. “Scanning” an IP address looking for vulnerabilities is something any 16-year-old would know how to do. But most people don’t know that, and the AP and their friends write it up as if it’s an act of war. There’s entirely too much hysteria on this subject.
Is the government purposely spreading these lies so to get us used to hearing them as lies so when they tell us the truth about something we won’t believe them? I can’t imagine why, but then it’s the government and they don’t have to be logical.
this is the very same news outlet that got an American thrown in jail bc y’all failed to protect her identity after leaking an NSA document backing up the reporting that our election infrastructure was hacked ……. but now it’s all a hoax ???? sorry for the skepticism of yalls skepticism but y’all should pick a lane and stick to it. denying that Russia actively attempted to engage in our election isn’t responsible journalism , and the fact that this post has more comments than anything i’ve ever seen posted on here is very telling to who y’all seem to be appealing to with s*it like this
The election was indeed hacked. It was hacked by Democrats gained votes from illegal immigrants and dead people. And still they lost!
Ah, yes. Yet another “The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!” story. Except they aren’t, sort of.
This is a common theme among these writers, like Glenn Greenwald. As most Americans know by now, all this Russian nonsense is all just Neo-McCarthyism. Even the deniers are not really denying anything. Take this quote.
“None of this,” [the author states] “means that every Russia claim is false, nor does it disprove the accusation that Putin ordered the hacking of the DNC and John Podesta’s email inboxes (a claim for which, just by the way, still no evidence has been presented by the U.S. government).”
Essentially, what the author is doing is saying “We know the Russians are guilty of every charge ever made against them . . .” by MSM, but (whispered quietly and out of the other side of their mouths) “. . . we just can’t prove it — yet.”
Pathetic. No wonder MSM is dying.
Your post is funny because you VERY obviously didn’t even bother to read the article! You attack Greenwald but at the same time you agree with him.
The attack and agreement are both legitimate.
We attack because it’s ridiculous that these claims are made without any evidence. It’s ridiculous that people like Greenwald (who’s one of few in the MSM who will call falsehoods out when there is proof of their falsehood) continue to give credence and legitimacy to blatantly unsubstantiated claims simply BECAUSE they haven’t been disproven.
Donald Trump wears pink underwear! It’s true until someone can prove otherwise!!!
“None of this,” [the author states] “means that every Russia claim is false, nor does it disprove the accusation that Putin ordered the hacking of the DNC and John Podesta’s email inboxes (a claim for which, just by the way, still no evidence has been presented by the U.S. government).”
Essentially, what the author is doing is saying “We know the Russians are guilty of every charge ever made against them . . .” by MSM,
It is clear that you are not familiar with Greenwald’s body of writing on this topic. :-s
Wow, so much fail at reading comprehension.
Your comprehension skills are terrible. How you took that from this article is amazing.
You all realize this is an indictment of your ilk; don’t you?
Greenwald still thinks he knows more than the IC. Take off your fucking tin foil hat already. You’re a nobody.
“Essentially, what the author is doing is saying “We know the Russians are guilty of every charge ever made against them . . .” ”
This is actually the complete opposite of what Glenn Greenwald is saying.
Doubly wrong.
Mr. Greenwald heartily endorses the Neo-McCarthyite accusation.
See, for instance, Washington Post Disgracefully Promotes a McCarthyite Blacklist From a New, Hidden, and Very Shady Group
Link: https://theintercept.com/2016/11/26/washington-post-disgracefully-promotes-a-mccarthyite-blacklist-from-a-new-hidden-and-very-shady-group/
He picked up this theme immediately after Katrina vanden Heuvel dropped it into the national conversation many months ago.
Further, for anyone with even the slightest historical knowledge, McCarthyism is an umbrella term which refers to an ongoing anti-communist witch hunt propagated by J Edgar Hoover and much of the American right wing — especially groups like the John Birch Society. It originated almost a century ago after the Bolsheviks took power in Russia.
The current investigation into the Trump campaign’s purported collusion with the Putin regime is as much about McCarthyism as the Johathan Pollard scandal was about antisemitism.
In other words, not a whit.
You and Mr. Greenwald should do a little research before spouting your nonsense.
It must be hard to get around with your head twisted backwards like that.
Dave..
https://youtu.be/m30mG3JKzA8
dong’r
That is all well and good, but the KGB files opened after the disintegration of the USSR showed McCarthy was absolutely correct in his assertions. Almost all of those McCarthy accused of being communists, and in league with the USSR, were. Which means, it was not a witch hunt after all. Now that becomes confusing.
Google translate
Let’s say it’s true. Freedom of opinion on the Communists does not apply?
Was Charlie Chaplin a communist? And he left the US because of McCarthyism
Further, for anyone with even the slightest historical knowledge, McCarthyism is an umbrella term which refers to an ongoing anti-communist witch hunt propagated by J Edgar Hoover and much of the American right wing —
And here’s a current definition of the term:
The article you reference addresses the second of these definitions. The current article gives examples of how the first definition works and why it is important to closely examine sources and factual accuracy of information before spreading it far and wide. Unless, of course, you have an agenda for spreading those lies.
The current investigation into the Trump campaign’s purported collusion with the Putin regime is as much about McCarthyism as the Johathan Pollard scandal was about antisemitism.
Neither article is about the current investigation into the Trump campaign’s purported collusion with Russia. If the Trump campaign was hubristically stupid enough to hide meetings and/or lie about them on clearance or other documents, then that should be revealed and they should be prosecuted for that to the extent that the law applies to those transgressions.
These articles discuss groups of powerful people – most of them rampant neocons – that have been formed to denigrate media that is debunking factually false information being spread about Russia and access to our voting systems (for the most part).
Was the Secretary of State of California wrong when he said that their election systems had not been compromised? If so, then why is DHS backing away from its initial claims?
I can’t stand Scaramucci, but were three CNN journalists forced to resign illegitimately, or did they promote a story that lied about him and a Russian investment fund?
Did the Washington Post have to retract stories about Russia hacking an electrical grid? Were the people in charge of that electrical grid lying when they claimed the story was bullshit? Who twisted WaPoo’s arms to get it retracted if what they posted was accurate?
What about the rest of the listed retractions/corrections/debunkings? Are you really ok with lies remaining unaddressed as long as they lend credence to a general narrative that you support?
Lastly, what does it feel like to be on the same side as people like Chertoff, Krystol, McFaul and Rogers, liars all, who’ve lead this country into a horrible place using the same kind of dangerous tactics that this article was written to counteract?
I look forward to hearing what Meuller may find in his investigations. Given Trump’s myriad business tentacles I suspect there is plenty there to look at. But I think you’ve got to have some kind of really bent morals and/or principles to attack people who are trying to make sure that we are accurately informed about all of this. All of this has extreme implications for the foreign policy directions of our country, so it just boggles the mind that there are people out there – on both sides of the political spectrum – who would rather embrace any shred of garbage that comes along, no matter how egregiously false, as long as it has some kind of chance, however tenuous, of moving the political needle in the direction they slavishly kowtow.
I wouldn’t know since — as you know — I have absolutely nothing in common with them politically.
But I see you’re quite comfortable with the McCarthyite attack technique “guilt by association.” How does it feel to share a similar disdain for common decency?
I’ve explained why I think the term “McCarthyite” is inappropriate. If you think offering a dictionary definition somehow renders the history and context of “McCarthyism” irrelevant or inapplicable, fine. Again you’re way too knowledgeable to believe that. I wonder why you make the effort. I have no interest in repeating myself.
Here’s your problem, in my opinion. You’ve outsourced your brain to Mr. Greenwald. You just cannot accept the idea that he could be wrong, misguided or intellectually committed to a set of falsehoods he cannot escape.
We know it’s all a witch hunt… and so do the corrupt, deranged leftist Dims.
It’s been a LONG time since Democrats were “leftists.”
Yes it has been a long time since the Democrat Party were just leftists. Now the party is filled with marxists and anti-freedom types.
Hear, hear!!!
Excellent reporting on the facts. Sadly, this information will likely be ignored by the MSM, thus leaving the low information collective thinking left ignorant of reality.
Great essay! If I can add one more thing to the list of garbage and fake news you point out, it is the intentional misuse of words by the media. For example, the word “hacked” which, means a “successful” unauthorized penetration into a network, is continuously used erroneously. Scanning a network is not hacking a network. Scanning is typically done by applications running automatically that seek to find vulnerabilities within a network that can be exploited to accomplish a successful hack. At any given time, networks are constantly being scanned by would-be hackers – both foreign and domestic. And in 99.99% of the time, the bot doing the scanning is choosing IP addresses randomly! Literally, if the standard DHS uses to define hacking is simply being scanned by a bot looking for a vulnerability in a network, then just about every major network in America that has been live for five-plus years has been “hacked”.
Once again the Liberal Media has been proved to be FAKE NEWS and LIARS.
The real story of the 2016 election should be how the fake news outlets (NY Times, AP, Reuters, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, USA Today, Washington Post , PBS, …) tried to influence the Presidential election in favor of Crooked Hillary , the Federal Election Commission should determine if reporters colluding with the Clinton campaign amounted to an unfair advantage and put a dollar amount on that and call it campaign contributions from the fake news outlets, then the FEC should fine them all .
Thanks for the in-depth work. What is increasingly clear is that there is an entrenched group of subversives in our Government (Obama/Hillary supporters, no doubt) who anonymously “leak” bogus derogatory garbage about Trump, and a legion of willing sycophants in the media who lap it up and publish it with no regard to basic journalistic integrity. They are the true threat to our election process and government.
First off, All this seems to be around systems being “Targeted” not Hacked by Russia (Is that the whole country, some teen in their Mom’s basement, Russian Mob, or a government agency)
If I “Ping” a system in Russia (based on IP address allocated to Russian Federation and easy to Google), does the Russian media say that the American Government is targeting Russian Systems?
American journalism at it’s finest
who cares? They’re now tying Trump to Puerto Rico disaster, so pay attention to what really matters.
I do believe liberals are trying to make things worse for the Democrats than this:
“The whole Democratic Party is now a smoking pile of rubble: In state government things are worse, if anything. The GOP now controls historical record number of governors’ mansions, including a majority of New England governorships. Tuesday’s election swapped around a few state legislative houses but left Democrats controlling a distinct minority. The same story applies further down ballot, where most elected attorneys general, insurance commissioners, secretaries of state, and so forth are Republicans.” http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/10/13576488/democratic-party-smoking-pile-rubble
_Liberals_ are trying to make things worse for the Democrats?!
The Democratic Party has been trashing itself since at least Bill Clinton became president, if not longer, and it’s finally caught up with them. That trashing has been in the form of no longer giving anything but lip service to the working people of this country. Sure, they’ve been _marginally_ better than Republicans on issues like women’s rights and gay rights, but never a whole step ahead of the country itself. Instead, they are for the ultra-rich just like the Republicans are. Hillary was just too much of a bitter pill to swallow. As Hillary said, “where are they [progressives] gonna go?!” She found out and the answer was; not voting for her.
“better than Republicans on issues like women’s rights and gay rights”
disingenuous posturing. the clintons relentlessly solicited multimillion donations to their slush fund from saudi arabia.
It’s been almost a year since the election. The left hasn’t been able to capitalize on any of the internal chaos within the Trump administration or on the GOP’s repeated failure to get key legislation passed. All they’ve been doing is lashing out in hatred and flailing around. They are doubling and tripling down on the exact sort of behavior that propelled Trump to the White House. The party ceded so much power and control to the militant identity politics crowd and extreme left during the Obama years that they couldn’t take it back and have sane people running the show even if they wanted to. A lot of the reason we are seeing so much protesting, civil disorder, etc. is because these people, despite being a fringe minority, basically ran the Executive branch for eight years and now realize they are on the outs.
Good point.
A lot of the reason we are seeing so much protesting, civil disorder, etc. is because these people, despite being a fringe minority, basically ran the Executive branch for eight years ..
Are you trying to say Obama is/was a leftist? Surely you jest. The following tweet of a picture of our Dear Leaders is the epitome of what Obama, and both major parties represent in America. The left has never been in power.
https://twitter.com/Pedinska/status/913771274060648449
#Bipartisanship
that’s it……………… stay stoooopid…………the bern needs you for ’20
Why,do they have too lie to us ,so much? Is it the whole MSM,and The Democrats, that actually want war with Russia? Don’t they realize how insane that sounds?
We have no real news outlets in the country anymore, Trump is correct calling them faker news , ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN AP, Reuters, Washington Post, LA Times, NY Times, Bloomberg, USA Today are pretty much just democrat run left wing extremist hate groups pretending to be news outlets.
The left lies again . . . . yawn. Does anyone actually know an honest liberal?
It’s ironic that the left is now the party searching for Reds everywhere. Useful idiots is a term that pops to mind.
I think you may have meant “Rob Reiner” not Carl Reiner………and, for what it’s worth, Obama and his hoard tried to actively subvert the Israeli presidential elections using tax payer dollars………..this is a proven fact not conjecture. So, where’s the outrage from the left and MSM? Operatives of Obama’s election squad were sent to Israel to collude with the lefty Israeli campaigns………..what? No interest in this by the media?
I thought I read reports about the past administrations homeland security Jehhhhhhhhh “duhhhh” Johnson being caught trying to hack local elections… oh what a tangled web we weave all pointing back to the past administrations abuse of power on going
Fake news, fake media, fake president, fake state, what next?
Good work as always, Glenn. Keep it up.
It does seem odd that the MSM and myriad federal resources are stubbornly committed to investigating Trump’s (alleged) connections to Russia, and producing no evidence, while absolutely ignoring significant evidence of cooperation and collusion between the Russians and Hillary’s crew…?
Great writing. An actual journalist here.
A couple of states think they weren’t hacked. The author uses this, plus his apparent hatred for anyone talking about Russia, to claim that the entire thing is a hoax. ok.
Occam’s razor: What’s more likely?
1. The vast majority of the media industry conspired with various REPUBLICAN-LEAD government agencies to fabricate a conspiracy implicating Trump and Russia in campaign fraud
or
2. Partisan activists, having an ax to grind with democrats, are extremely eager to dismiss Russia-gate, because it annoys them.
More koolaid? You must be thirsty.
There is no evidence that Russia “influenced” anything through their cyber meddling.
They, just like the US, China, and many other countries, routinely snoop. Claiming that snooping was somehow able to sway the outcomes of people’s votes is where you go off the rails.
People have known about Russian activity for *years*. And no one ever said boo about it until Clinton lost the election and needed an excuse.
https://www.f-secure.com/documents/996508/1030745/dukes_whitepaper.pdf
I guess it doesn’t bother you that a large portion of the people you see posting divisive crap on twitter and facebook are potentially Russians posing as Americans?
If Trump doesn’t succeed in lifting those sanctions before 2020, The troll farms could easily turn on him. How dismissive of Russian meddling would deplorables be if that happens?
Evidence? For any of it?
YUP EVERY REDNECK AT DJT RALLY WAS A RUSSIAN OPERATIVE .. PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE BSC BAT …. CRAZY
Your entire first paragraph; it needs sourcing. A “large number” according to who? Everyone on the internets is now a Russian spy? How many of them are wearing tinfoil hats? I imagine a large number.
Those agencies are headed by President Trump’s appointees, but they are full of obumbles burrowed in traitors.
#1 is correct, even though you’ve left a very important and telling detail out of your description….when this story of Russian hacking initiated, it was an aggressive and very, very Democrat administration in control. You know, the one that used the IRS as a political weapon against it’s “enemies” (straight from Obama’s mouth).
Plus the other obvious fact which is that the majority of mainstream media outlets lean left, sometimes very, very aggressively.
The most likely thing is that the deep state somehow failed to cheat on enough voting machines to install Hillary as they’d planned and now the so-bad-he-can’t-possibly-win candidate they didn’t want is now in office so they’re doing their best to stir shit and at the very least damage Trump’s ability to govern (not that he actually needs any help with that).
The Main Stream Media has been a propaganda outlet since forever but it’s gotten much worse since Reagan’s time. What’s most likely is that they are continuing to be the shills that they always have been. Try reading “Manufacturing Consent”, it gives a clear, concise description of the functioning of the trifecta of government, media, and major business interests, with plenty of real-world examples, well documented, to prove its points.
Deprogramming you would take a lifetime. I wouldn’t even know where to start. Maybe you should cancel your cable/internet service.
That’s would be paradoxical as the corrupt mainstream media provides ‘programming’ through the major cable and internet service companies. Maybe citizens are just tired of being programmed by these corrupt entities that work for the elitists that rule over us.
You mean the same majority of media who rigged the Democrat vote for Clinton against Sanders, or the vast majority of media who have been completly biased against Trump during the US election?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-trump-media-coverage-harvard-kass-0521-20170519-column.html
ps : Before you start your ad hominen, i’m French, not Russian, that’s why my english sound weird.
Thank you. This exactly what I was thinking. Almost all the comments here are from people who read this article with their own inherent bias and completely missed the fact that 2 out of 21 states doesn’t mean the entire analysis regarding the 19 remaining states is necessarily bunk. This is very poor logic.
I think this points to #1 being more of a reality than you are willing to admit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdP8TiKY8dE&t=18s
Networks by doing poor journalism are destroying their credibility.
They are becoming propaganda mills, trash publishing.
The #FakeNews left-wing trash-publishing propaganda mills have been exposed (again) for their biased and crooked reporting.
It’s like liberals in this country are actively trying to start a civil war.
Why is it that conservatives are always the one’s who want to talk about civil war?
We don’t ‘want’ to talk about civil war. Maybe if civilized means of discussing our differences weren’t shut down at every turn by liberals using shaming tactics and identity politics, that ‘civil war’ rhetoric would not be even talked about.
The left is the one talking about civil war, have you missed that?
Because we have the guns and you have the purses
Because many Nationalists (not worthless conservatives who can’t even conserve women’s bathrooms) are familiar with 4G warfare and believe they can end it in their favor.
In what may or may not be an amazing coincidence, many “Nationalists” are also utterly delusional.
Any conservative is worthless if they try to create the impression they don’t want a civil war, when THEY’re the one who keeps raising the issue.
Great work, Mr Greenwald!
This is the type of article rarely seen in the American MSM any more. And certainly not on the Conservative op-ed sites that pawn themselves off as ‘news’ networks.
For decades we have seen stories of our CIA accused of regime change attempts in various countries. I think the outrage expressed by some that Russia tried to affect the outcome of our elections is rich in light of this backdrop. I also think that the most powerful inputs on Trump’s election were Trump himself, the opposition Democrats and Republicans, the news media, academia and Hollywood. If Russia was there, I missed them.
Great article! You on the left and the RINOS ALL are threatening the sovernty and safety of this great nation. Shame shall befall you each either on this land or the after life. And if you are atheist then you too shall find something unexpected in the end. How dare we, I mean the left (leaders, people, and RINOS) believe such nonsense when not one fact has prevailed? Are we all so stupid to believe what our government tells us???? Really?? I get they all want Trump out. But here’s what is going to happen… Assange will make a pardon deal with the WH and debunk the whole vomit of lies therefore ending this creepy Mullers time in any profession. If it wasn’t so serious and scary these accusations, it would be hell of funny. I propose one of you liberal, Trump hating racist socialist fascists tell me one and only one piece of evidence you know and really know to fact to back your claims??? I dare you
Hilarious to see that you think we haven’t presented any evidence, while posting to an article full of exactly that evidence.
This is confusing to many I’m sure because the Left is divided on the issue of Russian interference in US Gov’t. I’m with Glenn.
great article glenn
The Rabbis asked “Did G-d, who knows everything, know that Mankind would be wicked and destructive of heaven and earth? If so, did He make a mistake in creating Man?”
The answer, not surprisingly came back that Yes, G-d had indeed made a mistake but that we are here now and we should strive to make our world better and ameliorate the divine mistake.
]Maybe the American people (vox populi, vox Dei)made a mistake in electing Donald Trump, but we are here now and we’d best settle down to ameliorate and redeem that mistake…and that won’t happen when Hate is all we practice…
God made no mistake. He gave each of us free will. We do with it what we wish.
Trump getting elected was not a mistake, just the second worst option (which were the only two options we were offered)
A few points:
1. Anyone who’s used twitter for more than 5 seconds, and has a brain, has enough evidence to believe there are boatloads of Russian troll/bot accounts operating. But if personal experience isn’t enough to crack deplorable’s willful ignorance, how about this: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/david-jones-pro-brexit-ukip-twitter-account-russia-fake-bot-troll-trump-disinformation-followers-a7920181.html There are proven Russian troll accounts impersonating just about every single divisive issue in the western world. Russian Trolls supporting Clinton however, are suspiciously nonexistent.
2. Hundreds of right wing morons are going to read this article and come away feeling completely justified in perpetuating their “fake news” dismissals of everything they see on WAPO, NYT, CNN, MSNBC, etc.. Those same people are willfully ignorant of conservative media’s love affair with fake news and conspiracy theories. Birtherism, pizza-gate, and Obama founding ISIS come to mind.
3. Of course it’s good to maintain a certain degree of healthy skepticism with developing investigations such as this. I would not defend any liberal who wants to jump to early conclusions and hang Trump. But on the flip side… completely dismissing the entire issue because of a few retractions, and because all of the confidential evidence hasn’t been laid out in front of you, is ludicrous.
Do you remember “the Russian hacked the energy grid” story?
Sure. One or two stories being false doesn’t mean everything is false.
Do you remember Pizza Gate? That story being false doesn’t mean the email server didn’t exist.
There is tens of false story listed in the article above, have you read it ?
If only there were one or two stories being true, your argument would be valid.
… says the Russian troll. lol
There are also leftist troll accounts as well as right. They’ve been in use since the beginning of Twitter. Our government has tried to meddle in other countries elections repeatedly. Obama tried to influence the Israeli elections. All the outrage is being produced by the left over something that is common practice. After over a year of investigation you’d think there would be at least a hint of wrongdoing. So far all that’s been proven is that the left hate Trump to the point of self destruction.
and the morons on the left believe everything WAPO, NYT, CNN, MSNBC, etc. tell them – basically everything they report and have had to walk back several times comes to mind.
by your posts we are all hoping you are not the smart one in your family.
Anybody who casts a vote, or makes any decision, based on a Tweet, is a twit.
Thank you for your article. I appreciate the fairness (common sense) and clarity given to this issue.
I voted for Trump and obviously have my opinions regarding these Russian allegations. BUT… (as with all my conservative friends) if there was wrong-doing by the Trump administration, they should be taken to account. On the other hand, if these are all false news reports, those involved should be tarred and feathered (at least discredited and run out of town).
This was not a mistake. It wasn’t overzealous reporting of uncorroborated facts. It wasn’t even an isolated incident of a media with an agenda. This was just another piece in the systematic undoing of an American election. The useful idiots lament the notion that Russia would subvert the will of the American people, but the real subversion is happening NOW in the form of these incessant false articles intended to incite calls to toss the election results. Regardless of subsequent retractions, the message will get out there and those with the retention abilities of a lab rat will regurgitate the lies over and over and over again. If conspiracy is what the left wants to unmask, look to their government not the Russian’s.
The voting systems are not in any way connected to the internet; how would Russians gain access, except directly through clandestine means or with an inside accomplice?
I think Our Friends On The Left should switch to prophecying the end of the world; no one cares when Armageddonists re-tote their figures and issue revised calls to repent.
Well now, you’ve right off the bat revealed a fundamental flaw in your thinking, as this has NOTHING to do with anyone on the ‘Left.’
This is all about the democratic party, and if you believe that constitutes the Left in U.S. politics, then you have no clue what you are talking about.
That was a point DHS itself made when it originally offered the idea that Russia was hacking state and local election systems in Oct. 2016: “States ensure that voting machines are not connected to the Internet, and there are numerous checks and balances as well as extensive oversight at multiple levels built into our election process.” https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-department-homeland-security-and-office-director-national
In other words, nobody ever thought ballots had been tampered with or could have been in the first place. Leading to the obvious question: If there was no danger to the integrity of the elections, why were assessments being issued in the first place?
In Wisconsin, the targeted “election system” turned out to the Dept. of Workforce Development that doles out unemployment benefits. And in California, it was an unrelated IT office that has nothing to do with election systems.
Yet DHS has since issued a statement that it “stands by its assessment that Internet-connected networks in 21 states were the target of Russian government cyber actors seeking vulnerabilities and access to U.S. election infrastructure.”
Shouldn’t it be 19 states now with these discrepancies? And note the malleable words, “Internet-connected networks in 21 states,” which sounds a lot less certain than was originally billed.
The Director of National Intelligence assessment was more specific in January, “Russian intelligence accessed elements of multiple state or local electoral boards.” https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf
Prior to the election in October, DHS had issued a joint assessment stating, “Some states have also recently seen scanning and probing of their election-related systems, which in most cases originated from servers operated by a Russian company. However, we are not now in a position to attribute this activity to the Russian Government.” https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-department-homeland-security-and-office-director-national
So, there are several problems. First, as I see it, is what emergency was there really that DHS and the intelligence services felt like they needed to go out in Oct. 2016 to preempt some threat to the election by Russia when their own assessment falsified the idea there was any actual threat to ballots, vote tallying and reporting systems?
This makes the supposed threat to state election systems appear to be just filler to support a wider contention of election interference. If a state’s unemployment office was infected with malware or receiving phishy messages, what could that have possibly had to do with the elections? Why include that in the assessment?
Perhaps the intent was not to secure the ballots, since there was no danger, as it were, but to neutralize the impact of Wikileaks disclosure of DNC and Podesta emails as a tool of Russian propaganda. The DHS statement more prominently stated “The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process.” In this context, it could have been more of a political statement for public consumption more intent on discrediting the damaging email disclosures than it was alerting to some actual threat to state election systems.
By issuing that statement, how was any actual threat by Russia exposed or preempted? What evidence was presented alongside the claim? At the time, both Wikileaks and Russia were denying any connection to one another. Yet the U.S. government felt okay going out there with this press statement on the eve of the election without seeing any need to prove its principal contentions to a skeptical public.
Maybe that was because it wasn’t supposed to have any long-term policy consequences. It wasn’t put out there to support a policy, it was put out there to support a political narrative. Trump wasn’t supposed to win. If it wasn’t put out there to secure the elections against tampering — it took DHS a year to even alert the states — then it seems more likely this was put out there to help neutralize a problem for Clinton. Which, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that well beyond the purview of our nation’s intelligence services?
Bill Kristol is a long time neocon and knee-jerk warhawk. I saw him whining on Morning Joe a while back for being caught out by Scarborough and others for his less than admirable, mendacious talking points. Carl Reiner is another eejit who believes his shaky brief as a “Hollywood savant” (aka middlebrow jerk) entitles him to spout the most ludicrous nonsense. To believe anything either of these bloviators (and their fellow travelers) is to say goodbye to any pretension to rational thought.
To think, like the hamster-brained Reiner, that Hillary could be enthroned on the basis on lame rumors and innuendo is clearly a sign of senility, stupidity, or both. Talk about impeachable offenses, Hillary wouldn’t last a month before the Repubs had her in their sights for a mile-long list of felonies. In fact, were she not so oblivious and arrogant, she would recognize that she got the pass of passes from Comey, and should best lay low.
The longer this crap goes on, the more the Democrats get closer to circling the big drain of political irrelevance. As a former Demo, who gave the party the bye-bye finger once I learned Clinton would the chosen one, I ( and many others) hope that a new, truly liberal (in the John Stuart Mill sense) party can get online. The present Democratic Party is not really democratic, liberal, or progressive in any meaningful way.
I too am a former Democrat. The party has been driven so far to the loony left
that it is about to exit the political stage. Most classical liberals have been driven out. Look at the present leadership, geriatric at best. Sanders, for example is a 1953 Communist. Maxine Waters could well be the next Party nominee.
The claim you make–being a former democrat–isn’t at all believable, as the democratic party is farther to the RIGHT than it ever has been. the DNC, 3rd-way democrats are still in charge, and even supposed and self-labeled ‘socialist’ Bernie Sanders is no more than a FDR democrat.
So I call BS, because the Limo Liberals are still driving the Democratic party clown car, and if you were what you claim, you’d still be onboard, attempting to make sure that your claims of Leftist takeover did not come to fruition.
All these stories are being pushed to the delight of Vladimir Putin, he is the ultimate victor of our media’s addiction.
Every story claiming Russia affected our election becomes propaganda for Putin to use in justifying his reign and power. I mean, if he is so powerful he can single handidly decide the US election, he clearly deserves to be the indefinite supreme leader of the motherland, right?
Our media is building Putin up to be the ultimate “????-???”, one that deserves more military funding for Chertoff and Kristol’s “battle buddies” in the defense industry.
Crap like this Russia story is a big part of why I left the left. SO dishonest. Who knows……….if there were more leftists like Glenn around (you know; with actual character) I might still be a leftist activist. As it is, there are precious few.
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act” (Orwell………….he was a bit too lefty for my likings, but hey, this is a great quote anyway).
Pretending to be a former left activist doesn’t get you anywhere as your comment reeks of the dishonesty you decry. The whole “the Russians did it” idea is just so laughable and that’s why nobody’s taking it seriously. Hillary and her deep-state buddies went off the deep end this time, and Greenwald is one of the few telling the truth in this time of universal deceit, yet you are laughably trying to tell us his reporting is “crap.”
And almost every time I say that I was a leftist activist, some leftist says, “NO you weren’t!”
lol………..it’s like bad kabuki theater.
Not that I have to do this but: campaigned for Bernie when he first ran for the HOUSE (and I don’t even live in Vermont); campaigned for Jesse Jackson and Jerry Brown; did Green Party grassroots stuff for a while; was a union rep; sent money to all the “right causes” and read The Nation religiously………..etc. etc. etc.
Good enough for ya?? lol
I re-read your post; you think I was calling Glenn’s article “crap”. I was not.
I am saying the whole Russia-stole-the-election silliness is crap. Glenn’s writing has been very good on this issue. (Please re-read MY original post).
Remember that the news agencies that give credibility to these stories (and hype them to the max, while burying the collapse of the claims) all insisted that Hillary was going to win. What better way to cover up that embarrassment than making it appear that it was not due to a disconnect with their audience, but rather due to some nefarious plot.
It’s easier for the Democratic establishment and media allies to blame an omnipotent sinister foreigner for their hand-picked candidate’s loss than to admit that they blew an election they would have easily won with Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, or anyone else without the Clintons’ sliminess.
“…featuring a different former CIA chief (James Clapper)”.
James Clapper was never Director of CIA….he was Director of DIA and DNI (Defense Intel).
the media certainly is overzealous in reporting everything russia, but at the same time there are parts of it that have not fallen apart and are still worth investigating especially Trump’s business ties and why so many people in his admin kept omitting russia related contacts from their security clearance form….and then there is the whole Don Jr. meeting to get dirt on hillary.
I believe Greenwald and his boyfriend both belong in jail for enticing Snowden into stealing classified information and then accepting the stolen goods. He is an enemy of the US who writes well.
This type of reporting by the MSM leaves it in a very bad position. The People will think they have sunk to a new low and not to be trusted. We all know what happens next to the Org.
The really fascinating thing is that before Trump, Democrats couldn’t get enough of the Russians (especially the Communist kind).
Could it be that the Russians of today aren’t Communist ENOUGH for American socialists and communists?
The Soviet Union demonstrated the failure of communism for all the world to see. And the progressives of America will never forgive them for it.
uhh… obviously? they aren’t communists anymore, so why would communists emulate modern day Russia?
It was accurately reported eight months ago by members of the FBI and DHS that the DNC servers logs showed the data transfer rate (of what is purported to be ‘Russian Hacking’) to be between 3.5 and 5.6 Gbps. And that since the DNC only had a single Rate Limited 100Mbps Internet circuit – it means there was no way the Russians (or anyone else) hacked the DNC servers as it was claimed to have happened.
The data breach from the DNC servers was done by someone that had physical access to data center where the servers where housed in. The files were copied onto a high speed USB Hard Drive from someone with ‘Administrator’ level access that was standing right in front of the server. The ‘hacker’ walked out thru the front door when he was done copying the files. This means it was an inside job.
Can you link or point us to “accurately reported”? I don’t recall seeing anything about this before now.
Crying wolf consistently leads to only one thing… The wolf ultimately wins at the end because over time people have stopped believing he exists.
The Russia story has always been lies…and everyone knew it! That is why dems never cared about Russia until HRC lost!
Greenwald is being payed by the Russians
I have a small party entertainment business with a website. We have been the target of hackers with Russian ip addresses. They weren’t trying to elect Trunp or Hillary they were trying to obtain financial data from my clients. It’s kinda what Russian hackers do…
Just one question…..how can the media be at fault for reporting on something that came from a government agency? And a Cabinet-level agency at that? This was not a made-up story r fake news. This was not from some back-alley source of dubious credibility. THIS story came from DHS, the same guys that are supposed to be keeping us safe from terrorism and threats of this very nature. I would think sitting on a story like that would be more injurious than reporting on it. Can’t you just hear the howls against the media if it WERE true and they did nothing because it was “just another Russia story”? You’ve got the wrong villain here. DHS should have been more diligent in releasing their info to the media. But then I actually THINK when I read or watch the news. Silly me…
All this means is thumb sucking bed wetting liberals are bitter that their crone lost and the other takeaway is that the scum sucking elected class failed at security. No matter how you look at it, they were incompetent but were so smug in their belief that Killary would win that they let it all slide forward. Boo Hoo, America won, libtards lost. What a great day.
America didn’t win. America couldn’t win with either. Hardly a great day.
AMERICA WON – MAGA!!!
Oh my…you little Trumpkins are so cute when you’re being moronic.
Stop sniffing Hillary’s used Depends.
Silly Rabbit, the entire country LOST, simply because there was no decent candidate to vote for. And here you are, a smug hyper-partisan, too clueless to do anything but gloat.
Talk about smug and partisan. America and Americans got the republican nominee they wanted DESPITE the establishments best efforts to cram who THEY wanted down our throats. Trump was but one of SEVENTEEN choices or does your selective memory fail you? Talk about clueless…your rant doesn’t hold water…
You’re an impressive writer and analyst, Glenn. A journalist in the old sense of the word, when ethics mattered.
Keep up the good work.
At no time in our history have we as a people had so much information available to us. And it behooves us as individuals and citizens with the power to elect our representatives to be wary and extremely cautious as to the news and objective opinions we consume. Follow up search and research should be the new cornerstone when we consume information, not taking anything for granted and the complete truth. Skepticism should be the mantra in these times.
A well written, enjoyable, and much needed piece.
It has been incredibly dangerous and irresponsible for our media (and democrat politicians) to tout these outlandish stories. Incredibly dangerous. All it takes is one soldier on either side to believe it and start something that would be very hard to stop.
They are traitors, imo.
The sad part is there are millions of mindless dolts out there that believe every word they hear when it comes to the Russians hacking the election in favor of President Trump. Very good article and I’m glad people like Mr. Greenwald are out there debunking these false stories.
They couldn’t have hacked the “Pennsylvania” system by any means. There IS no state system, and NONE of the 67 counties uses the internet, web, or even VPN to report; they are all secure dial-up connections.
This will NOT be covered by ABCCBSNBCCNNMSNBC.
Anything DHS knew about Russian hacking must have been discovered in 2016 by the Obama DHS, reported to the Obama White House, and known by President Obama himself. A Rhodes Scholar like Maddow ought to be able to figure that out.
When was the last time the Democrats lost an election and didn’t claim some type of conspiracy?
I wonder if the spineless Republicans would have lead the same kind of phony charge of Russia, Russia, Russia against CuntLIARy if she won the election instead of Trump.
Ok –I’ll admit –hit with an EPIC case of Schadenfreude on Steroids.
I’ll be LOL–ing ALL day long. I have a list of people I’m sending this too that’ll wilt their weekend.
LOLOLOLOL Po Widdle Snowflakes….
Glenn Greenwald is proof that journalism still exists.
Libtard paranoia….all i hear is Russian tried…only time they are successful is when you dumb enough to get phished like Podesta the molesta……Now if this were on the other foot and had to do with Clinton collusion hmmm how much of a story would we have here……go home libards and do some more grieving..you lost fair and square
So Trump’s own people at homeland security are in on the plot to pretend Russia tried to interfere with our election? Major media outlets get things wrong, but at least you see a retraction. Trump lies every other word, and then will lead the country down a rabbit whole just to keep the lies up. Government money still being wasted to prove he didn’t loose by 3M votes. fools!
Keep it up Paul it just shows your intellectual capacity to understand the electoral system.
Somebody started this massive obstruction of justice … most like the boobs in the Clinton campaign.
We should “Lock Them Up”
Of course none of this information is of any consequence if the American people used common sense when they choose their leaders. This commenter can assure you I have never been hacked. But that does not count for much except every 2 years when it does.
I was going to vote for Hillary but the night before the election this super hot Russian operative coerced me into voting for Trump. Can’t wait for the next election!
I agree. Make them all drive forklifts!
We can tell from the leaks out of the Special Counsel’s office that Mueller is grasping at straws when he is actually focusing on stupidities like Trump trashing Comey to the Russians.
very interesting summary. this infatuation with Russia is fueling media lunacy and their desire to destroy or damage the president at all costs and the country suffers. stop the madness and accept Trump was elected by our system. let President Trump get to work for the US and stop character assassination.
Anyone else find it utterly amazing all the fake news is directed at just Republicans/Trump.
The story was never more than leftist agitprop supported by their lapdogs in the media.
L!BTards are becoming tedious to endure with their russian hoax.
We need to rebuild our asylums and lock these lunatics up.
Hmmm…now that seems very unlikely, since all sane human beings realize that modern conservatism is the leading cause of dementia and functional insanity in the U.S.
…And again, another liberal claim lacking any evidence whatsoever.
Now that’s a hoot. Have you taken a look lately at that nut job Waters? Or Pellossi?? Are you seriously trying to say these people (lib nuts) are spot on about anything?? Forget Russia, I mean anything at all? But speaking of Russia, this delusion and free willed assertions with no basis in fact aren’t just damaging, they are highly dangerous. I don’t care which isle you are on, to continue to push the Russian hoax is putting two nuclear powers at odds and possibly threat. This will be know as the Lie America was Sold. And I live, was born and raised in California, but not one of my friends etc can give me one single piece of fact based evidence for this supposed Russian collision or election hacking.. except to say that OBAMAS team of intel said is was so so it must be. And if I should disagree I’m called racist before the end of my sentence. And those are white folk telling me, a Hispanic that I’m racist. Racism is not and I repeat is not termed as disagreeing with someone. It is termed as judging a person by their color and nothing more. I see more racism toward white america today then in all my years in this beautiful land. Blacks, Hispanic, even whites are racist toward whites, blacks, and Hispanics. Not because of the color of their skin, but because they either support the President of the United States or are simply conservative. I dare you to define that word.. conservative. When you figure it out I pray you pass judgement on the criminals in our streets breaking windows and starting fires etc all in “protest”. The only outcome from all this absurdity is 8 full and beautiful years of Donand J. Trump.
Okay Trumpkin snowflake, school is in session:
1) learn to spell.
2) YOU are referring to Democrats/The Democratic party, which means two things:
You believe that the democratic party is to the left of center, which is absurd, and secondly, this strongly suggests that since you have no idea what constitutes the ‘LEFT’ in U.S. politics, you are a typical GOP partisan tool who is too dense to discuss politics in the first place.
So, get yourself an education, and try again.
….and the first inmate has spoken!
Well…since you didn’t make any statement about your own criteria for what constitutes insanity, I must assume you’re using mine–which would make your comment nonsensical.
And of course I can only assume–per your snide, content-free comment–that you’re at least somewhat conservative yourself, and so I can only take your comment as a childishly weak refutation.
I am a conservative leaning libertarian and anytime I engage with a leftist on just about any subject, the over/under on the number of posts or responses before a leftist brings up Russia is about 4.5. The do not call it Trump Derangement Syndrome for no reason.
The most telling attribute of clownish GOP partisans is their inability to grasp the FACT that democrats are NOT Leftists. Anyone so clueless that they cannot discern such a blatant distinction has no business labeling ANYONE else as deranged.
It is certainly entertaining to listen to the likes of you.
You’d make a good real estate agent….all froth and no substance.
I applaud Glen for the courage to write this article…Then again, it could have been the easiest article he ever wrote. He simply reported that CNN, The NY Times…and their globalist buddies are nothing more than Bullshit Artists. Rob Reiner??? LOL…James Clapper, this is the A-hole who lied straight face under Congressional Scrutiny and said there was “no widespread surveillance” of Americans. WE ALL KNOW WHAT AN INCREDIBLE LIE THAT WAS AND HOW OBAMA HAD TO SHEEPISHLY ADMIT IT. AND NO ONE, WENT TO JAIL OR WAS QUESTIONED ABOUT IT. Other than Snowden got in trouble for disclosing the truth.
Off subject? Maybe, but this faith based evidence sounds eerily similar to our current “climate change” discourse, whose models never correlate with reality and collapse under closer scrutiny.
When do the grownups come to the rescue?
The BIG story should be Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and the Awan Brothers Congressional IT breach. Some 50 democrat reps are tied to this, including Xavier Becerra, former House Democratic Caucus and now California’s Attorney General, who when asked to turn over his computer, gave a falsified copy. The Awan Brothers accesses the Congressional server over 5,400 times and were detected funneling “massive” amounts (in the terabyte range) of info, off-site. The dems and their aides claim they were helping Awan’s elementary school-aged children with their homework. Utterly ridiculous. There is also links with the muslim brotherhood…
“I see Russians here; I see Russians there; I see Russians everywhere.”
Nancy Pelosi
If Russians really hacked the election, Vladmir Putin would be President of the United States.
Most public-facing websites of any size (probably including “The Intercept”) are “scanned” and probed on a daily basis, from bad actors in South America, China, Eastern Europe, and yes Russia.
That some government sites have been probed should not even be news.
The liberal litany of SQUIRREL as to Russian Hackers, etc etc used to fool some of us some of the time, but not so much today. The MSM is almost 100% fake news. After a number of years of seeing their BS impeached, it no longer has any “stroke”. As the Chinese fortune cookie says “We live in interesting times” and the collapse of the party system with tired and worn out GOP & DNC have become the BAU (business as usual party) and the emerging constitutionalists (successor to Tea Party have no label yet, but I would say that they are Truehearted American Patriots.
yawn, so the MSM is wrong again (or still). Nothing new here, simply ignore anything put out by NYT, WAPO, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC or PBS. Relax if you are a “Deplorable” because there is nothing to anything being said.
Hey Glen – great story. The Iraq War 2002 is a good comparison. Many people refused to accept the Neocon assertions that led to the war and the media hyped any opposition to it. A few months into the war the entire democrat party was outwardly opposed to it and did everything they could to undermine it. This eventually turned the American people against Bush the neocons and the war. Soon enough, the war was indefensible.
This Russia narrative thing has dragged on for a year – can we expect the same thing to happen? A full reversal of attitudes about Russia and the media bending over backwards to support peace with Putin?
Is it time to stop the witch hunt and fire Mueller? I think so.
No need to fire Mueller. Whenever he produces whatever BS findings he produces, everyone outside of D.C.,NY and LA is going to just laugh at him.
But the trial will be in either the District of Corruption or the Big Craphole, and the results have already been determined.
Ah…NO. Delusional little Trumpkins may laugh, initially, but I suspect that if Mueller has significant findings, NO ONE who is under investigation will laugh, and certainly not congressional GOPers.
Speaking of ‘delusional.’ Here’s a little perspective. I am an Independent that wasn’t thrilled to have to vote for Donald Trump, but I did it. Any fair-minded person knows that anything that went past initial findings that there was no collusion or hacking, etc, is just simply a witch hunt and hit job to hobble his administration. And it’s being done by the Democrats, with the Republicans’ blessing because they both know that, if he is successful, that portends the end of the political class in this country. In the end, that’s why I voted for him…to neuter career politicians.
Oh.. you suspect. El Oh El. That’s not going to work out for you, buddy. Sorry but you are a grasper.
All trails of evidence lead back to the Obama administration. Eventually he’ll have to go there, and the Democrats will beg him to wrap it up. Get your popcorn.
Well Danno, since DC partisans are in full agreement that real people–you know, the powerful, wealthy sort–cannot be prosecuted for any truly serious crime, the whole matter, in the end is a non-starter.
So what I mean when I say that no one will be laughing in DC, is that while conman Trump will surely survive any attempts to impeach him, purely per the nature of Beltway politics the GOP will suffer the intense embarrassment of scandal. Of course Trumpkins are too dense to realize what that really means, and they are silly enough to imagine themselves as a national majority.
So again, NO, when Mueller is done and starts with his indictments, only those who don’t care and clueless Trumpkins will make light of it, and that’s not enough to save the already doomed trajectory of the Alt-Right madness.
This has gotten to the point of outrage. We have free speech in this country, but news organizations who peddle their product for pubic consumption should be held accountable for publishing hyperbole and lies. It should be a crime for any news organization to personally attack and defame a person, or publish lies, and when they are exposed, they should lose their right to operate as publishers of news and the should go to prison for at least a year.
These liars are playing with matches in a powder room regarding our national security, fanning the flames of continuous false and negative narratives about Russia.
These liars just want the President to fail, it is bald faced hatred, it is outrageous, and should be a felony. If I were able to do so, these people would be facing a firing squad at sunrise, I have no compassion at all for liars who whip up false stories to divide and tear down our society, and that is the sword in the hand of the left. Liars are not leaders.
It’s much larger than just trying to bring down Trump.
Correct. This is the Deep State versus the people.
Isn’t the phrase “MadcowBlog” the new term for “Bullschit”?
I hear LAUGHING….. I think it is the RUSSIANS !
This isn’t wishful thinking or conjecture on anyone’s behalf. This is the willing and intentional effort and desire to plant 100% fictitious stories in a treasonous attempt by the democrats/swamp and globalist rinos to overturn a constitutionally elected president simply because he opposes the corrupt socialist/globalist agenda that they have been pursuing for the last eight years and wants the presidency to actually represent the American people. This is sedition, plain and simple.
Oh please; anyone claiming that the democrats have been pursuing a ‘socialist agenda’ is as much a fraud as anyone producing bogus Russian hacking stories.
What? If the game wasn’t rigged, Bernie would have run against Trump and he is certainly a socialist.
Good god, the ignorance among rightwingers is at an all-time high!
It seems to me that, since you morons are so utterly terrified of ANYTHING that resides to the left of ultra-right idiocy, you’d actually take the time to understand what a Leftist is, and how to identify one.
Here’s a clue for you genius: there hasn’t been one running for POTUS, nor has one been a politician member of the democratic party, at least since Eugene Debs.
And if you have to ask who Eugene Debs is, or have to run out to Google his name in order to pretend that you already knew, then you’re really not smart enough to have a conversation about this issue.
RoloTomass–You are the fraud!!!
That why I love Bernie Sanders! It takes all “covers-off” from the likes of you socialism-lite lovers. As a former DEM myself: The DEM Party of today is a socialist-leaning organization. Period! The kick-off point was the emergence of Howard Dean in the 2004 primaries…
Yet another comment that shows you have no idea what you are talking about.
Fred and Role are 95% correct; not so much Demo=socialism; but the ancient selfish gods are in control; the political insiders whether D or R after their name are in it for themselves aka stay in political power and who cares about the common/forgotten person; well now an outsider enters the fray thanks to the lifelong political elite selfishness; ok so the outsider has some past locker room mannerisms but that is in the past; the insiders on the other hand still have corruption as their strategy; thus the R guys like McConnell n Ryan etc are not gonna help their outsider-tainted R president cuz them establishment “Republicans” and their fellow corruptors “Democrats” (Clintons n Pelosi n Schumer and yes even Obama) are all part of the swamp as well as 99% of the media – who is left out? The other people (includes retirees) who pay/paid taxes and work/worked for a “living” are the backbone of support unwittingly for the swamp inhabitants; unfortunately half the backboners seem to buy the BS of the R and D and media swamp rats for reasons unknown – please forgive them cuz they know not what they are doing!
Uh, Rolo, you may have missed something important. Check out the avowed socialist who finished second to HRC in the 2016 Democratic presidential race.
And apparently you missed the fact that Bernie isn’t a democrat even though he ran against Hillary for the nomination, and that compared to true Leftist policy goals, Bernie stacks up as an FDR democrat, at least policy-wise.
If you actually knew what a socialist was, you could identify and ask one if Bernie Sanders is a fellow political traveler.
Instead, you’re too smug in your ignorance to admit that you’re wrong.
Let’s assume it’s all true, that Russia invested itself in publishing advocacy of this or that issue, or sought to undermine confidence in the US elections of 2016. So people read those stories, or positions – and changed their voting based upon that? OK, let’s say that they did – did they all change their votes in the same direction, or were some influenced positively while others were influenced negatively, by the propaganda?
We see reports all the time, bemoaning how siloed we’ve become, and how we are all retreating into on-line echo chambers, and so forth. Was this Russian effort so successful as to jerk hundreds or thousands of people from their current siloed echo-chamber and plop them into an opposing one?
And all this for $200,000 to Facebook, and $274,000 to Twitter. Really?
How about a little fact-checking yourself, Glenn? Clapper was the Director of National Intelligence, not the head of the CIA.
How about a little fact-checking yourself, Glenn? Clapper was the Director of National Intelligence, not the head of the CIA.
It may read as misleading for Greenwald to refer to Clapper as a former CIA Chief but the fact of the matter is that the CIA is – at least on paper – a subordinate agency to the DNI, so it is not an incorrect reference in substance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency
Anyone with a 5th grade education in Internet hardware can make their IP address “look” like a Russian IP address.
Anyone in Homeland who “sold” this story seems complicit with some other level of deceit.
Imagine all the players
lying to the world
you can call me a deceiver
but we all know its really you
I hope one day you join us
and figure it out too
Wikileaks also dumped documents showing the CIA has the ability to forge fingerprints and make a hack look like it came from another nation. Russia hacked the DNC? Or was it the CIA?
At the very least Glenn’s article illustrates the unrelenting efforts by the “establi-state” to manufacture consent. The most conspicuous use of propaganda is that which the MSM leads with, repeats and EVERYTHING it ignores.
It’s the prioritizing and neglect of legitimate stories that is the real crime of bad journalism.
I recently retired from a position I held for years with a state agency (Network Security Administrator) and had held a similar position for Principal Financial Group, and a multi-national company founded by RUSSIANS, Compressor Controls Corporation. I have vast experience in this area dating back to the early 1990s.
One thing I can tell you is this – our firewalls and IPS (intrusion PREVENTION system, as opposed to what most use, a “detection” system) showed DAILY log entries with CHINESE, INDIAN and AFRICAN IP addresses. The vast majority were Chinese. These attempts? Old lame normally already patched holes, such as SQL injection, etc. Yes, some government agencies, federal, state and local still don’t properly patch or configure against these, so China especially, keeps trying, 24/7/365. So seeing such things is a DUH thing. And if you see any from Russia, it’s not common – but not uncommon either. Further, any teen worth their salt with networks can SPOOF IP addresses, mask them using TOR or free proxies and other methods.
And finally, having works for years with Russian electronic and computer engineers – trust me, they can make your computer sing and dance an Irish jig and not leave fingerprints. When our spooks say “IP addresses having been used by known Russian hackers” the hair on my neck stands up and I see red flags everywhere. IT MEANS NOTHING. People in the states who use TOR will have those same addresses on their computer logs, too.
What all of this tells us is that either our spooks are stupid, or they are waaay behind the times on technology. Ignore IP addresses as a tell unless you are dealing with amateurs, or someone is planting specific addresses to make it LOOK like Russia. Trust me, I was the best we had and my boss even told me the state’s central IT folks respected my abilities – he wasn’t happy to see me leave.
I concur. I worked for years as a systems administrator within the DOD. I moved over to DHS, and was stunned. DHS was at least 10 years behind the DOD in system architecture and security.
I also agree with 20 years of experience behind me. My intrusion detection systems detect vulnerability scanning from many many countries on a daily basis. We are talking about scans here not breaches. This would be so easy to defend in a court of law.
They are so desperate to get the failing NFL out of the news they will say anything.
It isn’t working and neither is the panicking NFL doing the “we will stand and link arms for social justice against Trump” thing.
You are toast NFL and we will see the team bankruptcies start by next season, you cooked your own goose idiots.
Wouldn’t it be apropos if the constant hysteria surrounding Trump/Russia eventually ended up exposing a prominent Democrat Party/Obama administration player?
I wouldn’t be surprised.
Global warming, hands up don’t shoot, Russian hacking, Muslim ban. The cornerstones of Liberal facts.
Nice Willy
And yet oddly enough, only the ‘Russian hacking’ in your list lacks any verifiable merit. Typical rightwing absurdity.
I suppose there are some “facts” so support the other agenda driven fabrications but, in the end, a lie is a lie.
You’re such a useful idiot, to the libs.
Ah NO, wee Trumpkin, I’m just functionally far more intelligent than you ‘little brains’…I mean, after all, you twits en mass voted for one of the most egregious CONMEN ever to operate in the U.S.
You can’t forget Israel.
Evidence? We don’t need no stinkin’ evidence. We don’t have to show you no stinkin’ evidence!
Let’s see USA Today, AP, and who else are now releasing slobber knocking news stories without second sourcing backups? Wow! So what is new?
When are the sheeple going to get it. Journalism is out, sensationalism is in.
Snopes is a fat lady with a cat. Greenwald is starting a new cottage industry, debunking sensationalism. Go Greenwald.
Remember that time DT asked Russia to hack HRC during the debate? TALK ABOUT FAKE NEW! I just can’t believe that MSM reported it. You could clearly see that MSM dubbed in DT’s voice, just watch the tapes Glenn. DT was actually talking about the humanitarian crisis in Africa. (We hired a lip reader to get the real words)
Oh and that stupid Trump Tower meeting when Don Jr (HE NEVER KILLED AN ELEPHANT, GLENN, MORE FAKE NEWS, HE LOVES DOGS LIKE YOU DO!!!!) wrote “Love it!” THAT WAS ABOUT ORPHANS GLENN. HRC HATES ORPHANS. You’re so on target all the time. We need people like you. You’re one of our finest, journalists. I’m going to talk to DT as soon as possible to see if he can retweet you.
Oh and Eric and Don Jr send their love to your dogs!
Our government is hopelessly corrupt!!! This is no longer a government by the people, for the people. It’s now government by elites for elites and f**k the people!
It’s good to see the Greenwald snit remains constant.
Yes, news media distort, get their facts wrong, show partisan interpretations, select newsreaders based on appearance and Q scores, compete for eyeballs and clicks, turn the mundane into sensation and bury the truly sensational, collect their billions in advertising revenue, and in general show little responsibility to getting it just right.
But then isn’t this true for all things in the American culture?
Your regular snit in which you highlight the flaws of Democrats while dismissing the perfidy of Republicans shows a willful selectivity — also demonstrated by the same media culture you renounce as biased with exactly the same effect . This sort of selectivity, for instance, helps elect Donald Trump and further entrenches the interests he represents.
Yes, “this climate” is not “healthy.”
This one thing everyone agrees upon. (Except the contrarians who populate this site like fleas on a depressed dog. But there’s a difference between skepticism and continual naysaying.)
We hope we’ll find more meaty evidence when Mueller presents his report or issues indictments.
Until then don’t you have better things to rant about — like how black athletes who disrespect the flag probably support Hillary Clinton and the Deep State?
Dead on. Mr. Greenwald’s deep hatred for HRC continues. He’s got himself in a terrible corner, his selectivity was among the worst and he’s got blood on his hands now as he’s helped put the most sordid racist into power who could end up decimating millions with nuclear war. But Glenn hangs, picking up his weekly check from his billionaire funder of the Intercept. Pathetic. A once admirable journalist is now on the same list who followed the Third Reich into Infamy. Nothing much he can do for his career now.
Please establish, with linked proof, how Glenn Greenwald swayed voters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Because of course if Glenn actually had that kind of sway over American voters it should be easy enough to establish with proof, right?
So Glenn became “admirable” as a “journalis” being critical of George Bush and his maladministration. But he points out that Hillary Clinton isn’t perfect and makes some isolated mild criticisms of her political records, and suddenly he is on part with Nazis?
Do you realize how hysterical, hyperbolic and irrational you sound?
All Hail Our Great Voting Overlord Glenn Greenwald Who With His Mighty Keyboard and a Few Choice Words Not In Praise of Hillary Clinton Swayed An American Election.
Silliest fucking assertion, ever.
So Glenn became “admirable” as a “journalis” being critical of George Bush and his maladministration. But he points out that Hillary Clinton isn’t perfect and makes some isolated mild criticisms of her political records, and suddenly he is on part with Nazis?
—
Is there really any difference? HRC is Dick Cheney with a vagina. Please spare me the accusation I was against HRC because she is a woman. Lizzie Warren would have gotten my enthusuatic vote until she refrained from endorsing Bernie and then even worse endorsed that vile dispicable pile of filth.
I despise warmongers in the Republican Party and warmongers in the Democratic Party even more. I despise warmongers if they are male or female. The nomination of HRC made this lifelong Democrat re-register as an independent.
The fact that Donald Trump is dispicable does not excuse the fact that if you open the dictionery and look up the word corruption, HRC’s picture is next to the definition. Of that the conservatives are absolutely correct.
If you want someone to blame for the presidency of Donald Trump, blame HRC, Debbiw Wasserman Schultz, Donna Brazille, the DNC, The DLC, the Superdelegates, and all the suckers who backed the wrong horse in the primaries.
In other words, hold up the mirror and look into it!!!
What in the fuck are you babbling about?
First, I was responding to what Alex wrote about Glenn having blood on his hands for his journalism regarding Hillary Clinton, which by and large was minimal by comparison to most journalists in America and not overly critical (when it could have been), and for Glenn being on par with Nazis as a result.
Idiotic.
And as far as me looking in the mirror, I didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton, knowing full well it wouldn’t matter in my state which went for her about 65-35.
I financially contributed, repeatedly, to Bernie Sanders primary challenge (despite his flaws which I was always willing to point out), and don’t disagree with your general critique of Hillary Clinton or the others you mention.
So, again, what the fuck are you babbling about?
You disgrace name of Eric Arthur Blair.
If you’d actually read 1984, you might find — as I do — that HRC plays the role of Emanuel Goldstein to Trump’s Big Brother.
When the Republican Convention started chanting in unison — at the behest of various speakers — “Lock her up!” “Lock her up!” Lock her up!”
I thought of the early scene from 1984 in which the frenzied audience shouted “Swine!” “Swine!” “Swine!” of Goldstein.