The Great Russian Election Robbery of 2016: Putin's American Minions Outed

As some of you are no doubt aware, the Russian intelligence agencies and military services, cyberwarfare division, have definitively been exposed by our government's intelligence services as the engine behind the greatest election theft in history, stealing the election from the rightful heiress to American people's choice for President, Hillary Clinton, and managing to install Donald Trump, Celebrity TV reality game show host and serial rapist, pedophile and bankruptcy practitioner extraordinaire in the Oval office. Or maybe they just installed his brand, TRUMP™.

What the Director of National Intelligence and the Intelligence Community Assessment, Russia’s Influence Campaign Targeting the 2016 US Presidential Election, issued by his office on January 6, 2017, could not tell us, in order not to expose "crucial technical data demonstrating Russian culpability," is truly disappointing.

Fortunately for you, I am in possession of undeniable evidence that the extent of Russia's influence on American elections and it's political process is wide and far-ranging. Russia's influence extends from the furthest reaches of the revolutionary left to the most radical conservative organizations, and from the wealthiest elites to the poorest people in our country. It has penetrated our society at all levels, from lobbyists to activists, and from from political party soirées to neighborhood backyard barbecue get-togethers. The Russian influence this year was simply astounding.

Using my special investigative tools, which go by the code name the "intertubes," I have investigated at length the most troubling breach of our national security since the early years of the Cold War, when Hollywood, the Army, politicians, government officials and bureaucrats, labor organizations and even ordinary Americans were indoctrinated as a secret Fifth column working for the Russians. Let's start with just a few of my most explosive revelations, shall we? Individuals and groups you would never expect to have a hand in advancing the Russian agenda to suborn our freedom and to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

The Koch Brothers

Yes, the two brothers, Charles and David Koch, arch-conservatives who secretly and not so secretly fund and seek to pass laws favorable to Big Business and anti-labor, operate one of the largest and most successful Russian front operations in America. You want proof? Just look at who was behind all those voter suppression efforts that funded the election of politicians who then passed model laws designed by Koch funded entities that were designed hurt the chances of Hillary Clinton and the Democrats by making it harder for minorities, poor people and young people to vote. Needless to say, these voter suppression efforts cost Hillary dearly in critical states she needed to win an electoral victory.

What makes this all the worse is that behind the veneer of anti-communist and anti-Russian rhetoric, the Koch family has been a sleeper cell for Russian interests for nearly a century!

What few realize is that the secretive oil billionaires of the Koch family, the main supporters of the right-wing groups that orchestrated the Tea Party movement, would not have the means to bankroll their favorite causes had it not been for the pile of money the family made working for the Bolsheviks in the late 1920s and early 1930s, building refineries, training Communist engineers and laying down the foundation of Soviet oil infrastructure. [...]

In 1929, after hosting a delegation of Soviet planners in Wichita, Kansas, Winkler and Koch signed a $5 million contract to build 15 refineries in the Soviet Union. According to Oil of Russia, a Russian oil industry trade magazine, the deal made Winkler–Koch into Comrade Stalin’s Number One refinery builder. It provided equipment and oversaw construction:

Not a shock oil prices are rising just after a Trump victory, thanks to Russia's decision to cut production, in an agreement with other oil producers including Iran and the Gulf states. Putin's gift to Trump (and the Kochs, too!).

Bernie Sanders and Occupy Wall Street

One name that the DNI was willing to throw out in it's report was Occupation Wall Street, the far left movement that contested our nation's most precious freedom - the right to legally ripoff our fellow Americans by paying them billions less in less wages than a few Wall Street brokers and Hedge Fund Managers earn, all while ripping them off as consumers of financial services, too. Imagine the nerve of those people, wanting workers to have rights, and for the government to better enforce the few rights they did have! Well, as the DNI intelligence assessment stated regarding the RT media outlet funded by Putin himself, its broadcasts actively promoted OWS as "freedom fighters" against an oppressive and corrupt corporate/political system known as the "oligarchy.":

RT aired a documentary about the Occupy Wall Street movement on 1, 2, and 4 November. RT framed the movement as a fight against "the ruling class" and described the current US political system as corrupt and dominated by corporations. RT advertising for the documentary featured Occupy movement calls to "take back" the government. The documentary claimed that the US system cannot be changed democratically, but only through "revolution." [...]

Simonyan [RT editor in chief] has characterized RT's coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement as "information warfare" that is aimed at promoting popular dissatisfaction with the US Government. RT created a Facebook app to connect Occupy Wall Street protesters via social media. In addition, RT featured its own hosts in Occupy rallies ("Minaev Live," 10 April;
RT, 2, 12 June).

After all that "help" provided to OWS, it should come as no surprise that the single greatest threat to Hillary Clinton's election, the Bernie Sanders movement, was staffed by thousands of former OWS activists, many of them prominent names in the OWS movement to radicalize American politics to make it and our economy subservient to Russian interests.

In Sanders and in his campaign, the more mainstream elements of Occupy Wall Street have found an ideological ally. The Vermont senator's laser focus on economic issues are a big draw, local organizers said, but they also delight in his affection for the shoe-leather activism of past generations.

A public show of electoral solidarity -- and a sign of things to come -- came last month, when prominent Occupy organizer Beka Economopoulos led a phone-banking effort for Sanders from Zuccotti Park. "It was another one of those moments that helped solidify the connection between the folks who had been part of Occupy and the Sanders campaign," Lenchner said.

In effect, OWS formed the heart of the sinister BernieBro movement, whose sole purpose was to demean and denigrate Hillary Clinton. People who would stop at nothing to defeat her pragmatic progressive agenda, even if that meant the election of TRUMP™ and the GOP.

And in light of events, who can say that they didn't do exactly what their Russian handler expected? They damaged Hillary in the primary with their constant rallies, which emboldened Sanders to attack Clinton for her many friendships and connections to the leaders of our free enterprise system. It's clear that Sanders' and his followers' anti-American attacks on Clinton dovetailed nicely with the Trump campaign's own treasonous messaging.

Robby Mook

I know some might find this odd, but all the circumstantial evidence supports my contention that Mook, Hillary's campaign manager was the secret Russian mole in the Clinton campaign. Consider that he operated a political campaign that outspent Trump's by a margin of 2:1. He made the unfathomable decision to "pivot" to Arizona and Texas, both long term GOP strongholds, as swing states Hillary could win, rather than dedicating resources to traditional blue states in the Rust Belt where the polls showed the race was tightening. He encouraged or enabled an air of entitled arrogance among the senior Clinton campaign staff, a top down know-it all approach that ignored veteran activists from the DNC and former Obama campaigns to veteran local pols on how to allocate resources and run a proper ground game.

“I’ve never seen a campaign like this,” said Virgie Rollins, a Democratic National Committee member and longtime political hand in Michigan who described months of failed attempts to get attention to the collapse she was watching unfold in slow-motion among women and African-American millennials. [...]

“There’s this illusion that the Clinton campaign had a ground game. The deal is that the Clinton campaign could have had a ground game,” said a former Obama operative in Michigan. “They had people in the states who were willing to do stuff. But they didn’t provide people anything to do until GOTV.”

Most importantly, multiple operatives said, the Clinton campaign dismissed what’s known as in-person “persuasion” — no one was knocking on doors trying to drum up support for the Democratic nominee, which also meant no one was hearing directly from voters aside from voters they’d already assumed were likely Clinton voters, no one tracking how feelings about the race and the candidates were evolving. This left no information to check the polling models against — which might have, for example, showed the campaign that some of the white male union members they had expected to be likely Clinton voters actually veering toward Trump — and no early warning system that the race was turning against them in ways that their daily tracking polls weren’t picking up. [...]

State officials were banned from speaking directly to anyone at the DNC in Washington. [...]

“Don’t touch them. Stay away,” one person on the other end of the call remembered Clinton campaign states director Marlon Marshall saying after hearing about a rogue conversation between a battleground operative and an official at the DNC. “You can’t be calling those people and making them think something is coming when nothing is.

Mook himself made a number of those calls.

Instead, Mook and company relied on a computer program to make all their important decisions regarding the allocation of campaign resources, and more importantly where not to allocate them. A computer program that could have been infested with Russian malware from the very first day Mook began to rely upon its "simulations."

Of course, this may have been due to sheer incompetence. However, I ask you, is that really possible with so many smart people, with such great "political instincts," including the candidate's own husband and hordes of homegrown advisors, working so hard to ensure Hillary would win?

And Mook may not have been the only mole (think Elan Kriegel, e.g., her "analytics advisor, or John Podesta and his brother Tony with their many ties to Russian business interests, not to mention Bill "Big Dog" Clinton himself), but ultimately Mook bears the responsibility and the blame, and is the most likely candidate who set out to sabotage his own boss for reasons we may never know.

* * *

There are so many parties that the Russians used that the list could be endless. However, let's cut to the chase, shall we? The one single largest group that committed treason on behalf of Russia was ...

Democratic Voters Who Didn't Vote for Hillary

This is the clearest sign that Russia has been preparing for decades to install a Russian puppet in the White House. The millions of reliable Democratic voters who failed to show up on election day to vote for Hillary, or worse, voted for TRUMP™. Indeed, in the Obama campaigns in 2008 and 2012, these very same people came out to vote for Obama, that Kenyan born, black Muslim usurper. So why didn't they come out to vote for a true red, white and blue candidate like Hillary in the same percentages they voted for the black guy?

One could argue a lot of things, but sometimes the simplest answer is the best. These voters were Russian assets just waiting to be activated when needed. So, Mr. Smarty Pants, why didn't Putin activate them in 2008, or at least by 2012? Well, in 2008, Obama expressed a preference for working with Putin, just as George Bush had done. And by 2012, even if the relationship had soured, Putin recognized the Obama was weak and unlikely to pose a threat to Russia's program for world domination. Clinton on the other hand ...

WALLACE: Secretary Clinton, you have talked about — and in the last debate and again today — that you would impose a no-fly zone to try to protect the people of Aleppo and to stop the killing there. President Obama has refused to do that because he fears it’s going to draw us closer or deeper into the conflict.

And General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says you impose a no-fly zone, chances are you’re going to get into a war — his words — with Syria and Russia. So the question I have is, if you impose a no-fly zone — first of all, how do you respond to their concerns? Secondly, if you impose a no-fly zone and a Russian plane violates that, does President Clinton shoot that plane down?

CLINTON: Well, Chris, first of all, I think a no-fly zone could save lives and could hasten the end of the conflict. I’m well aware of the really legitimate concerns that you have expressed from both the president and the general.

This would not be done just on the first day. This would take a lot of negotiation. And it would also take making it clear to the Russians and the Syrians that our purpose here was to provide safe zones on the ground.

But she previously admitted in private that a no fly zone would kill a lot of people, and would require an attack on Russian supplied and possibly manned manned anti-aircraft defenses in Syria:

An excerpt of a June 2013 paid speech Clinton delivered to Goldman Sachs, recently released by the WikiLeaks, shows that Clinton is well aware of how dangerous a no-fly zone could be.

“To have a no-fly zone you have to take out all of the air defense, many of which are located in populated areas,” the former secretary of state explained in the 2013 speech. “So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we’re not putting our pilots at risk — you’re going to kill a lot of Syrians.”

“So all of a sudden this intervention that people talk about so glibly becomes an American and NATO involvement where you take a lot of civilians,” she added.

In fact, in October, Russia made threats against US warplanes operating over Syria if attacks were made on Syrian air defenses. 

In Moscow’s starkest warning yet against Western intervention in the war, Russia’s chief military spokesman said that any airstrikes on government-held territory in Syria would be considered a “clear threat” to Russian servicemen. 

Yet, despite these clear signs Russia was willing to shoot down US plane over Syria, and indeed  deliberately tangled with US planes over Syrian airspace that same month, only Hillary stood up to the Big Bad Russian Bear, letting Putin know that he couldn’t have his way with the US if the country elected the first female President in its history.

So yeah, I think Putin cashed in his chips this year, and activated the millions of American sleeper cells that the FSB and its predecessor the KGB put in place over the last seven decades. Sleeper cells that the FBI failed to disclose except in limited cases. And what were they ordered to do? To vote for Trump in those key battle ground states, or stay home and not vote at all. After all, we do have proof they put someone deep into the Clinton circle in 2010:

One of the Russians, who identified herself as Cynthia Murphy of Montclair, N.J., provided financial planning for Alan Patricof, a New York venture capitalist and top Democratic donor who was finance chairman of Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign, according to news reports.

So now you know. It's much worse than Obama and the intelligence agencies who released their little 25 page "declassified report" let on. Russia owns us now, lock stock and barrel. He has the right, he has the left, and as was made clear in this last election the center could not hold. Alas, poor Hillary, we never had a chance to see your formidable war powers in action. Just remember this when we are all studying in re-education camps for our loyalty tests to Vladimir Putin and the Greater Russian Empire in a few years.

Steven D

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sojourns's picture

herself.

Everything you point to is perfectly plausible. It's snarkalicious!

However, I'm among those that believe that Putin has a lot of dirt on Trump and basically owns him. A greater reason for Trump's defense of Putin. Take the election away from him ... very, very bad. Expose all the dirt Putin has on him? That may result in Trump's suicide. More's the pity.

I bet they really did kiss.

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

CB's picture

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sojourns's picture

Curious foreign policy measure.

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

dervish's picture

The man isn't normal, and is literally impossible to embarrass. If he were caught stealing money from the church box while having sex with a duck, he'd just shrug and put it on reality television.

I don't see how the blackmail angle could work.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

Alligator Ed's picture

You mean have sex with the duck and then eat it, don't you?

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dervish's picture

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

how much dirt do you think Russian intelligence has gathered on the Clintons and their foundation over the years. I understand that Putin was cutting into profits. But Clinton and Co were hitting the Russians so hard and so often that I've wondered whether in part it was an effort to inoculate Hillary Clinton from disclosures if she won.

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snoopydawg's picture

that Russia interfered with the. There have been some who have written that Russia hacked their state's voting machines.
And of course the Vermont electrical grid.
I wonder how many of these people would still believe this if Hillary had won and it was someone from Trump's campaign whose emails were leaked?
I'm betting that most of them wouldn't believe it.
The Bush base believes the WMDs story, while most of see through the propaganda.
I guess it just depends on which party is president.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Fionnsboy's picture

...or perhaps I should say quibblinski, comrade-- is that we did indeed get to see Hillary's war powers in action, alas-- Iraq, Honduras, the Ukraine, Libya, Syria, Yemen, etc. That is one reason why I, for one, gave her a big fat NYET on both Primary Day and GE Day.

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Semper ubi sub ubi

dervish's picture

The Tsar of all of the Russias and the Supreme Soviet makes thanks to you for giving the voting.

Now we turn your power back on.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

snoopydawg's picture

If that is what you are saying, then you are sexist, misogynistic pig who just didn't want to see her become the first woman president.
And you are spreading right wing talking points.

Dawg, I hope I don't need to add snark

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

dervish's picture

some serious PTSD.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

tapu dali's picture

Sovyetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika.

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There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

All rationality has left the building with Elvis. Let me repeat the central claim of the newest report.

We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her
unfavorably to him.

The claim itself is so absurd it needs no evidence in fact to say the claim is absurd. The accusation is what happens in every political campaign--every one--no exception. Does anybody actually believe that comparing and contrasting candidates is by itself, no matter done by whom, is beyond the normal or indicative of a possible plot? With no irony, my conclusion from the charge is that the Russians (if guilty) participated in our political process in a way that is totally normal.

There were plenty of foreign influences in the election. Foreign leaders came out loudly for Clinton and denigrated Trurp. The Ukrainians suddenly discovered payment receipts to one of Trump's advisers. I would speculate with a high degree of confidence that banking authorities in Europe gladly handed over and gave information to pro-Clinton hacks and reporters (sorry about the redunancy). Didn't some foreign agent spread give information about Putin/Trump secretly communing with each other with two servers? Let's not miss money from outside the country.

If I heard Clapper correctly in the one clip I saw of his testimony, he admitted no revealed information could be identified
which changed the course of the election.

Anybody making the claim that that hacks undermined the foundation of our democracy are suffering from mass hysteria of the kind that lead to the Salem witch trials. We are to believe that American democracy is so fragile, so unstable, so immature, so incompetent in its execution, that revealing information about the political positions and speeches of a candidate will cause it all to crash down? This is the stuff of American exceptionalism and propaganda--criminalize your actions if done by "the enemy". Or as LaFeminista noted sarcastically: our democracy is more fragile than a butterfly.

But the democrats will pay a price for this down the road. I worked many an election inside and outside the polling areas.
The only people who can undermine the system are the people running the system--not somebody in the Kremlin which now most democrats seem to believe.

As a former democrat, let me give current democrats some advice if they are participating in this dumbshittery and reading this (doubtful). While you obsess how long Putin's penis can reach, the gop is fucking you, black people, Hispanics, students with their now well oiled voter suppression tactics, caging, purging voter rolls, etc etc etc. You will keep losing and get your asses gerrymander-ed from here to next week.

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sojourns's picture

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

dervish's picture

A lot of those beltway types are salivating at the prospect of sending cookies to Uzbekistan and Khazakstan, and stealing their oil. Ginning up hatred for Putin helps.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

Hey, mentioning/showing documented facts regarding any of the self-interested-at-public-expense/undemocratic/illegal/murderous things the obviously-above-all-law-and-concept-of-morality Clintons have said, planned, supported or done is part of a massive right-wing, Communist conspiracy by definition! So there!

BTW, anyone else finding that they keep getting logged out for no apparent reason?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Lily O Lady's picture

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

Thanks, Lily O Lady - that explains a lot.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Bollox Ref's picture

is willing to go 'all in' to preserve the Clinton Brand reputation.

Those two (three?) must have quite the collection of 'material' on the movers and shakers in our glorious capital.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

SparkyGump's picture

too bad she failed to recognize that the republicans had 20 years to get ready for her and her record. I hope the democrats learn from this and stop forcing unelectable people on us, but I doubt it. Arrogance is bliss.

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The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.

Pluto's Republic's picture

Their platform and policies jettisoned most of their electorate:

The Worker Class
The Millennials
The Independents
The Left

The majority of Americans hate both Parties.

Heck, 25 percent of Americans polled that they wanted their state to secede last week.

The Russians don't have to lift a finger.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
gulfgal98's picture

The maps in La Feminista's essay show just how horribly the Democratic party has performed over the last eight years. When a political party tells its traditional blocs of voters that it neither needs them or cares about them by its own actions, those voters will either go elsewhere, even to Trump, or stay home.

What the Democratic party insiders fail to understand is that no voters should be taken for granted and demographics alone will not win elections. They have been running a "we're not as bad" strategy for years and the voters have finally caught on and said enough. Will the party insiders change? Hell no as long as the big corporate and banking money lines their campaign coffers. The Democratic party is on its last legs and those in charge refuse to change due to their own addiciton to big money. This is the very definition of corruption.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

asterisk's picture

There is some confusion about how to acquire them. Money was not sufficiently effective last year. The current preference for vote acquisition is demanding them by imperial decree. Dem leaders seem to forget that they managed to lose the election despite attempts by We, the Peasants, to warn them.

Here is a recent response Elsewhere to one of my many suggestions that the way to avoid losing Dem voters is to actually do stuff that really does improve the lives of actual people.

Jan 07 · 12:51:13 PM

Let them be lost. I certainly want the vote of the people who were crazy enough to be Putin agents and voted for Trump, Stein, or stayed home, but I absolutely don't want those people in the Democratic party. Anyone who was stupid enough to be duped by Trump/Stein/Putin will only come into the party and be irrational and nothing but trouble.

This was an historic election, everyone knew it, and those who didn't vote or helped fascism by voting Trump/Putin or Stein, have demonstrated the worst judgement imaginable and nobody should take their opinions seriously.

There is still a popular theory that promising to fix things is the same as fixing them. Peasants have no right to have any say in how the fix will be in done. They should be grateful we don't cut their food stamps as much as the Repub team will.

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dervish's picture

This was an historic election, everyone knew it, and those who didn't vote or helped fascism by voting Trump/Putin or Stein, have demonstrated the worst judgement imaginable and nobody should take their opinions seriously

Is that no one will take Democratic opinions seriously for a very long time. They are as close to irrelevancy as a political party as they've ever been.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

dervish's picture

They have all the influence and call all of the shots. These are the people whose phone calls Hillary will always accept. The rest of us are just the riff-raff to be exploited and manipulated. The trouble is, now that the legacy media has largely collapsed, they aren't as good at managing our opinions and behavior.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

jwa13's picture

beginning with a "Broadway Opening" --

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/05/nyregion/hillary-clinton-de-blasio-new...

https://nypost.com/2017/01/06/new-york-city-needs-hillary-clinton-to-run...

followed by a "tour" of the "show" to all of the "provinces" --

https://www.zazzle.com/hillary_clinton_for_president_2020_bumper_sticker...

Hmmm ... even the Hindenberg only crashed once --

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When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.

jorogo's picture

Bernie crushes her.....again. It may be our biggest challenge yet.

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"If I sit silently, I have sinned." - Mossadegh

tapu dali's picture

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There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.

edg's picture

RT has an interview with Richard Black, a state senator in Virginia, in which he speculates the CIA et al. are throwing this "Russia hacked the election" temper tantrum because they're upset at having lost the Syria narrative.

OMFG!! This could all be hurt fee-fees on the part of US intelligence agencies because they were made to look foolish by Putin/Russia who came into Syria and have made large strides toward ending the war. To punish Putin and as a side benefit damage Trump, this fake news story is being pushed hard by the 17 US intelligence agencies.

[On a side note, WTF do we need 17 (!!) intelligence agencies for? Seems to me that's a good place to start budget cutting.]

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Bollox Ref's picture

because individually, they're not all that intelligent at intelligence gathering.

A cull would be useful for budgetary purposes.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

snoopydawg's picture

after he set his red line when he accused Assad of using sarin gas against his own people. Putin helped arrange for Assad to give up all of his chemical weapons.
The neocons in congress were absolutely pissed that Obama never sent troops into Syria. But after Hillary became president she was going to set up a no fly zone and then it would need up to 70,000 troops to coordinate the air strikes.
Hersh found evidence that she gas was used by Obamas's moderate rebels who got the gas from either Turkey or the CIA who got it from Gaddafi's weapons cache that they were running out from the embassy in Benghazi.
And Hillary's state department was also helping
And as you stated, Putin helped Assad win the war because he bombed the 'moderate rebels' who were actually members of AQ and their offshoots.
The same AQ who 'attacked' us on 9/11 and fought our troops during the Iraq war.
I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that our country is working with AQ to help remove Assad.
It's too bad that the American people aren't aware of that. The people I have told about this don't believe me because Obama would never do that and I'm being a racist and spreading right wing talking points. Of course.
Here's Hersh's article about the sarin gas.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line
I hope that people will read the article.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

don't believe that either Snoop and they probably do think I'm merely being misogynist now. It's harder for them to call me racist as I was inter-racially married but then again, I guess that's no guarantee against my being taken in by racist Obama hate, now is it? And when she asked if I would vote for Michelle if she ran, because it is SO important we have a woman POTUS and I said no? Why, there's her clue that I have really just gone completely off the deep end now, and I'm so Left that I hate everybody and just won't play the right game. I am the loony one who simply reads too much and buys into the CT that all our leaders sell us out willingly. Sure. And when I bring up WMD and Iraq? Why, same as you've encountered - Obama would NEVER do the same thing with Russia, how could I even allow myself to think he'd be just as bad as GWB?

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

Bisbonian's picture

Cutting back on "intelligence" agencies among them.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

asterisk's picture

If all good, loyal, decent, red-blooded-American Dems yell FU and other insults at them often enough they will go back to Russia where they belong and stop throwing up off our elections.

Don't forget the worst Russkie traitors.
A vote for Stein was really two votes for Trump, due to the new, top-secret Russian math conspiracy.
We need to throw all Stein voters into FEMA de-education camps. Libertarian is really secret code for Libtard, so they can be in charge of building the camps to expiate their guilt.
Camp computer security will be Podesta-ized to prevent excess pfishing.
Since pfish are a type of brain food they might interfere with the deborschting.

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dervish's picture

Who knew that she was a Russian spy?

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

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Bollox Ref's picture

The Macedonian Candidate.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

asterisk's picture

Somebody whose cousin's friend anonymously works at the CIA could tell them so. That is PROOF.
But you can't know what it is because you might be a secret, sleeper Russian.

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WaPo asks the question:

" ... how tenable is this for Trump? How long can he go on questioning the information he receives from intelligence briefings, as he seems intent upon doing?"

Pat Lang's response:

Wait for it! The answer to the question is - indefinitely. I would think that the Trump Administration will go through the ranks of the SES/SIS position holders at CIA/DIA/NSA, etc. like a scythe. These folks, of whom I was one (SES-4) are not career protected like the lower members of the federal civil service. In return for their elevated rank (equivalent to military flag officers) they lack actual legal job security and can be much more easily removed. They are usually highly politicized schemers and enablers for their presidential appointee bosses at the very top of the food chain. But who will run things!? Well, pilgrims there are lots of eager beaver GS-15s awaiting their turn and eager to prove their loyally to the administration.

And then there is the little matter of the chain of command in the federal government. NEWS FLASH!! The IC agencies work for the president. He does not work for them. If he does not accept their analysis - so be it! They are not semi-divine creatures endowed with some special gift of understanding the world, Well, some are, but not many.

Any intelligence is destined to support decision making for policy. It should NEVER be prescriptive. The news idiots keep asking old intelligence hands what policy should be... What a sad joke.

For Trump, the IC is just another consultant group. pl

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native

I know some might find this odd, but all the circumstantial evidence supports my contention that Mook, Hillary's campaign manager was the secret Russian mole in the Clinton campaign.

Alias is Robby Myk

Instead, Mook and company relied on a computer program to make all their important decisions regarding the allocation of campaign resources, and more importantly where not to allocate them.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

…can be had a Reddit in the DNC Leaks forum.

Meanwhile, the Russians aren't going anywhere. As an ancient Chinese philosopher once said, "They are able to deflect their opponent's force with the mere touch of a feather." They have not responded to US oafishness.

As some have noted above, Americans have started to mock the narratives of the "Leaders." That's far worse than a revolution. That's why they are behaving like fools.

Here is the iconic exchange between Hillary, Trump, and Putin in the final days of the election. Who did what to whom? What would you change if you could?

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Fionnsboy's picture

Is that so many of Killery's buyers/backers were lining up for more war (Syria, then Iran, maybe Russia) and salivating at the pro$pect$, that they will not go quietly into that night; additionally, we need a new Bogeyman to keep the MIC tap flowing-- ISIS is so five minutes ago! So let's go back to Ol' Reliable-- them damn Russkies! Since Trump mentioned making peace with Russia, they can't have that! This is all to forestall any such endeavors. I saw on my local news this evening a bunch of soldiers shipping out to Poland, Lithuania, Latvia-- WTF!!!!!!!! And how would we react if Russian soldiers starting lining up along our borders? Looks like they're trying to provoke them before the changing of the guard. A pox upon them, I say.

Finally, last night, like an addict falling off the wagon, I took a brief look at TOP. WOW!!!! Assange was being pilloried left, right, and center, and I would imagine that if anyone had come to his defense (they hadn't at that point) the recriminations/doughnuts/bojoing would have looked like the Spring Purges-- speaking of the Russkies. I believe the irony of their Politburo behavior is totally lost upon them. AND STILL, NO ONE WILL SPEAK ABOUT THE TRUTH OF THE EMAILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Between that, and listening to Kos Thursday evening on the Mark Thompson show (they call it progress Radio!!!! Can you imagine? I couldn't stand it more than five minutes) I have concluded the Augean Stable has nothing on the Dem establishment and its shills. Oh FDR, JFK, RFK, MLK-- you all must be spinning in your graves.

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Semper ubi sub ubi

Someone gives a shit what he thinks?

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

snoopydawg's picture

Those troops on those countries borders have been been staging there for over a year or longer. NATO has been sending troops to those countries too and Obama is saying that it's because of Russia's aggression.
Yeah right, it's not Russia who has troops in Mexico and Canada.
If anyone did that to our borders it would be treated as an act of war.
But since it's the exceptional USA, it's okay. I guess.

Obama has also been putting missile defense shields in some of those countries. Some people think that if they use mini nukes then they will be able to survive using nuclear weapons.
If Russia sends nukes from inside its borders, the defense shields will stop them. I guess that they have forgotten that Russia has nuclear weapons on its submarines.
A few articles I have read state that we are as close to MAD as we were during the Cuban missle crisis.
The insanity of the people in our government is hard to believe.
This is what the Russia interfered with the election propaganda is about,
They want people to get behind the war with Russia.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

dervish's picture

Check this out, Snoop.

Note the weasel-words "nuclear capable", all missiles in this class are "nuclear capable" but that doesn't mean that they're packing them now. The Iskandar is usually mounted with conventional warheads. The pinheads in the media will likely be screaming about this soon.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

Lookout's picture

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Alligator Ed's picture

Your journalistic endeavor has been exceedingly successful in revealing THE truth about covert Russian spies hiding in our midst...well, let me cite this from one of your citations:

One of the Russians, who identified herself as Cynthia Murphy of Montclair, N.J., provided financial planning for Alan Patricof, a New York venture capitalist and top Democratic donor who was finance chairman of Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign, according to news reports.

The agents were known as "illegals," because they weren't operating out of Russian embassies or military missions. Instead, they led seemingly normal lives in the U.S.

....
One of Murphy's neighbors remarked: "How could she be a spy? Look at her hydrangeas," Figliuzzi said.

I am hoping you will keep this information in strictest confidence and not reveal it in your next expose (although, sigh, this one was quite thorough enough!) At this point, I request all but Kamerad Steven to stop reading as official Russian State secrets will now be revealed and I want you to all have plausible deniability.

My confession, Kamerad Steven, is that I am not an alligator, I am a shape-shifting mole with roots in Russia. My grandparents, who were actually alligators in a Crimean swamp and excellent swimmers, made their way to Amerikka, under their own power. They were imbued with the sort of Fanatical Bolshevism which now threatens to overwhelm my adopted country. Thanks to their influence and abetted by my parents, who were avid readers of Pravda, I have been a Russian mole, spying on all you subversive, supposedly progressive refugees from the proletariat. I have gleaned much information, and digested some of it (not very tasty), passing the rest of it rearward for further use by my "handlers".

Now for you, Steven, it must seem incongruous that an alligator can be a mole, but we all know that moles eat hydrangeas.
In strictest confidence, A. E.

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Steven D's picture

I will abstain from outing you Al, for old times sake. Wink

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

asterisk's picture

The CIA/FBI/NSA, et.al. have informed us that you are, in fact, the sauroid who swam away with the ethics committee. Detailed analysis of resulting spraints indicates that Putin forcefully imposed pervasive sexism on all potential American voters thereby preventing rational comprehension of contentless intelligence reports. In conclusion, we hereby conclude that you are, in fact, the mole who enabled the banksters to consume Wall Street.

Everybody knows it and it is definitely true because the Washington Post says so.

Note: Although spraint is normally a technical term for otter excrement, it is also well known to be a Russian code-word for the digestive results of alligator bemusings.

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Alligator Ed's picture

I thought my disguise was impenetrable. By the way the counsel for the ethics committee was delicious. Please send more.

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dervish's picture

Good catch on the hydrangeas. I have always thought that my neighbors were Russian spies, now I can finally prove it!

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

TheOtherMaven's picture

Even caught one doing it, early one morning. If they kill them off, I'll replace them with something deer don't like. Supposedly they don't eat lilacs - but some people have reported seeing deer chomping away on their lilac bushes....

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

Alphalop's picture

At least this way when the deer eat them both you and they get some entertainment value out of it. Wink

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"I used to vote Republican & Democrat, I also used to shit my pants. Eventually I got smart enough to stop doing both things." -Me

Not Henry Kissinger's picture

They damaged Hillary in the primary with their constant rallies, which emboldened Sanders to attack Clinton for her many friendships and connections to the leaders of our free enterprise system. It's clear that Sanders' and his followers' anti-American attacks on Clinton dovetailed nicely with the Trump campaign's own treasonous messaging.

I know it's snark, but not so far off what more than a few Dem Enders actually think.

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

divineorder's picture

Have to chuckle when see someone who lives in a country where former head of CIA was elected President breathlessly hiss that Putin being a former KGB official is proof that The Russians The Russians done caused election loss#!!!!

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

dervish's picture

of being an "exceptional nation". We are exempt from logic, reason, fairness and justice.

Being exceptional means never having to say you're sorry.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

shaharazade's picture

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(Only sane person in the room) at this juncture. Hope he prevails for two more weeks, because we'll soon have an "incident" leading to war, damnit. I fear that the fever-pitch war stirrings are accelerating each day until the swearing in. Today's orange banner (coincidence?) in Reuters is a quote from Reince Priebus - "Actions may be taken in response" to Trump "accepting" "intelligence" reports that Russians hacked the election.

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jwa13's picture

I agree that The Donald may be the only sane person in the room, at this point. He isn't particularly hooked in to the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) just now - he is more into the hotels/gambling/hooker business (think: MOB rather than MIC). For a person in The Donald's line of bidness, war is not a particularly lucrative sideline -- I believe that this was part of the reason that most voters in the mid-State "Rust Belt" voted for The Donald (and most of The $Hill's DC-centric acolytes voted against him) - they are disgusted with the subsidy of the ongoing wars which only favor the 0.01 percent (who all happen to be heavily invested in the MIC).

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When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.

Steven D's picture

who volunteer for the military and suffer the consequences of those wars.

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

CB's picture

His responses to all the provocations that the US and it's allies have thrown at him since he has become president is remarkable. His highly reasoned reactions are not made on an ad hoc basis, in fits of rage, or out of pique or petulance. He is cool, calm and deliberate like a judoka master.

“Judo teaches self-control, the ability to feel the moment, to see the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses, to strive for the best results. I am sure you will agree that these are essential abilities and skills for any politician.” - Vladimir Putin

On the other hand, Obama functions like a WWF wrestler. A lot of blustery pre-match talk but not very effective in the ring against a ninth Dan.

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relatively amicable relations with Russia, all this red-baiting hysteria will blow away like fog. There is no real substance to any of it, other than as political theater. Detente with Russia, should it occur, would do the USA no harm whatsoever. That being the case, establishment Dems would end up with egg all over their faces, and Trump will have upstaged them -- yet again.

The D Party leadership has absolutely no idea how to win elections. It has become so chronically calcified, so majorly dependent on corporate cash, and so politically nearsighted, that it is currently worse than useless to the American Left. I see very few indications of any significant reform -- and without that, whatever is left of the Left will need to turn elsewhere for inspiration and leadership.

Simply being "anti-Trump" will get the Democrats exactly nowhere. No matter how vociferously they object to whatever Trump tries to do, and no matter how self-righteously they proclaim their moral superiority, they will come across looking like sore losers -- like whiny, privileged, out-of-touch elitists. Which in fact is what a good many of them are.

There is some hope, or fear, or expectation, that Trump will go too far rightward and overstep the bounds of all human decency, thus providing Democrats the opening they need for a return to power. I wouldn't count on that happening. It appears to me that Trump's hyperbolic buffoonery is something of a mask that conceals a shrewd and pragmatic political mind. It's no accident that no one knows exactly what to expect from him.

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native

... Simply being "anti-Trump" will get the Democrats exactly nowhere. ...

Seems to me, looking back on the similar and suspiciously well-publicized Republican oath to deny the passage of anything Obama tried to put through for the public good, that this appears simply another indication of corporate/billionaire involvement in keeping the two-corporate-party 'lesser evil' trade-off scam running, by their pawns on 'both sides' using such excuses for why nothing beyond the tossing of the odd social bone is ever done to benefit the public which democratic government exists to serve. Same old, same old, just becoming more rotten and deadly with age and use - something which far more of that public, already drained almost dry by the 1%, recognizes than ever before.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Strife Delivery's picture

So throughout the general, and even the primary, Trump morphed in the eyes of the Democrats.

Trump is now a fascist-Nazi-Russian agent....I mean that just sounds like stuff that someone who heard those terms for the first time throws out there as an insult at someone.

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Seems the site editors are trying to keep the Putin story going. Looks like every major front pager has had to write a Putin stole the election diary or accuse Russians of being evil. It appears that the DNC plans to keep the Putin issue alive until Trump leaves office.

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best we can do at this point. lol
thx.

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Trump voters were making a dead dump. er,drop
Republican colors are red remember.
Hillary hired Mook and the others.
Hillary was a Goldwater Girl.
Only Hillary could lose to Trump.
Hillary, Putin's Chief of Station in the USA !
It's all soo clear now.
Putin is a genius beyond compare!
Thx Steven.

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With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU