How Russiagate makes you stupid

Submitted by gjohnsit on Thu, 08/30/2018 - 8:32pm

Glenn Greenwald took CNN to task for lying about the latest Russiagate "scandal"/non-scandal.
The best part of the article is the list of Russiagate non-scandals (i.e. lies).

When reporting on that story, I detailed just some of the similarly significant and false stories major outlets have published on this story over the last eighteen months, notably always in the same direction, pushing the same narrative interests:
..
Russia hacked into the U.S. electric grid to deprive Americans of heat during winter (Wash Post)
An anonymous group (PropOrNot) documented how major U.S. political sites are Kremlin agents (Wash Post)
WikiLeaks has a long, documented relationship with Putin (Guardian)
A secret server between Trump and a Russian bank has been discovered (Slate)
RT hacked C-SPAN and caused disruption in its broadcast (Fortune)
Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery app (Crowdstrike)
Russians attempted to hack elections systems in 21 states (multiple news outlets, echoing Homeland Security)
Links have been found between Trump ally Anthony Scaramucci and a Russian investment fund under investigation (CNN)

Whatever words one wishes to use to defend the U.S. media’s conduct here, “rare” and “isolated” are not among those that can be credibly invoked. Far more accurate are “chronic,” “systematic” and “reckless.”

That's a lot of lies. Lies that the media is quick to forget.
If I compare this to the lead-up to the Iraq War, we would be around February 2003- when the lies began to be exposed (remember Mohamed Atta's alleged Prague connection?)

John Oliver calls Russiagate 'Stupid Watergate'.
He's right, but for the wrong reasons.
Caitlin Johnstone says Russiagate Is Making Everyone Stupid.

How stupid, you ask? This stupid.

Surprise: The Entire GOP May Be Involved in RussiaGate
In a Rolling Stone article addressing this very topic: Latest Russian Hacking Bombshell: Damning Revelations About GOP, Trump

“It wasn’t just Donald Trump who dismissed and rejected charges that Russian spies hacked the election last year. Now we know that pretty much the entire Republican Party team did so, too — from the Republican congressional leadership down to GOP Secretaries of State in the states whose local electoral systems were under attack. They blithely served as Vladimir Putin’s defense team, even as President Obama’s national security aides were uncovering a vast Russian conspiracy to undermine America’s electoral process.

That’s just one conclusion from a blockbuster investigative piece published Friday by the Washington Post, telling the inside story of the Obama administration’s effort to grapple with the evolving Russian hack-and-leak effort in 2016.”

And yet less than 1% of Americans care that the ruling political party is under the control of the leader of a minor economic nation on the other side of the world for...REASONS.

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Comments

Submitted by snoopydawg on Thu, 08/30/2018 - 9:59pm

It's one thing for people to believe that Russia interfered

with the election, it's another thing to believe that the GOP is also being Putin's puppets because of reasons.

I keep imagining how people would react if it was Trump who was blaming his loss on Russia. When he was hinting that he wouldn't accept the election results if he lost Obama told him to quit whining and blaming others. Hey Hillary. You lost. Quit blaming others for your failures.

—

“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

Submitted by Pricknick on Thu, 08/30/2018 - 10:02pm

One minor correction.

Russian hack-and-leak effort in 2016.”

Leak and hack is what podesta and company did in 2016.
Paid off handsomely.
Her lost.

—

Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

Submitted by lotlizard on Fri, 08/31/2018 - 12:31am

Democrats’ collusion with media is what got Trump to where he is

Wikileaks: DNC strategy was to push Trump to front of Republican line

Submitted by Lookout on Fri, 08/31/2018 - 9:18am

absolutely!

@lotlizard

We know for a fact the $hill cheated and rigged the election. How sad none of the news outlets repeats that over and over and over again.

Russia is the great distraction and the vehicle by which you continue to increase the revenue of the warmongering capitalists.

I thought that was a nice clip with jimmy, nick and ron illustrating the absurdity.

—

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

Submitted by CB on Fri, 08/31/2018 - 10:22am

It is all becoming as clear as Russian vodka

The Jimmy Dore show is a Russian influence operation personally overseen by Putin himself. I have proof.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6OUdV5fEaE]

Submitted by Mark from Queens on Fri, 08/31/2018 - 11:56am

#PodestaEmails #PiedPiperStrategy

#BernieWouldHaveWon
#DemExit

I make sure to include these hashtags every time I tweet something about the election or the Dems or even any remotely related stuff.

This smug and blatant collusion should always be reminded to people. It’s so incredible that this is not the Real Story.

Under the heading “Our Goals and Strategy,” the memo stresses that “the goal of a potential HRC campaign and the DNC would be one-in-the-same: to make whomever the Republicans nominate unpalatable to a majority of the electorate.”

Could it be anymore obvious about how weak they knew their shitty, entitled candidate to be? Their “goals,” as stated here, were to make it a contest of lesser evil voting and nothing else. Their goals! Nothing aspirational, no concessions to any constituencies, no nothing.

Her Turn, first female prez, most qualified. Heh...

This should never be forgotten.

Their pathetic “goals” gave us Drumpf.

—

"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

Submitted by Linda Wood on Fri, 08/31/2018 - 1:57pm

Sowing Doubts!

I don't know how many ways in which Russiagate has made us stupid, but here's a case of an actual journalist showing how it at least worked to make us doubt the the reliability of our election systems!

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/08/28/how-the-department-of-homeland-sec...

How the Department of Homeland Security Created a Deceptive Tale of Russia Hacking US Voter Sites
August 28, 2018
By Gareth Porter

… Meanwhile, the FBI was unable to come up with any theory about what Russia might have intended to do with voter registration data such as what was taken in the Illinois hack. When FBI Counterintelligence official Bill Priestap was asked in a June 2017 hearing how Moscow might use such data, his answer revealed that he had no clue: “They took the data to understand what it consisted of,” said the struggling Priestap, “so they can affect better understanding and plan accordingly in regards to possibly impacting future elections by knowing what is there and studying it.”

The inability to think of any plausible way for the Russian government to use such data explains why DHS and the intelligence community adopted the argument, as senior DHS officials Samuel Liles and Jeanette Manfra put it, that the hacks “could be intended or used to undermine public confidence in electoral processes and potentially the outcome.” But such a strategy could not have had any effect without a decision by DHS and the U.S. intelligence community to assert publicly that the intrusions and other scanning and probing were Russian operations, despite the absence of hard evidence. So DHS and other agencies were consciously sowing public doubts about U.S. elections that they were attributing to Russia.

Submitted by edg on Fri, 08/31/2018 - 3:20pm

If there was a hack ...

@Linda Wood

of US voter sites (which is doubtful), it was done to glean personal info that could be sold on the dark web or used by the hackers for financial crimes. Considering how lax security is at most online websites, it's no surprise some 14 year old in Mommy's basement can break in at will.

Submitted by Deja on Fri, 08/31/2018 - 6:18pm

The '16 Dem Primary Farce caused me to mistrust "system"

@Linda Wood
Not the Russia Hacked Everything lies. Not the goofball who won.
Not anything other than what the DNC did in 2016, is responsible for my mistrust in our entire joke of electoral process. Their obvious collusion with the joke of our "free" press, even before the leaked emails were released, proved where the real collusion was, as well.

Later learning Her Hidiousness has ties to the voting (bwahahaha) machines, exactly the ones I have used, only nailed the coffin shut on this dumbass wasting my time voting again. I now know, it's pointless.

The criminals responsible have yet to be charged. If they are, and convicted, I might have a change of heart, but considering it's treasonous, imo, the only fitting punishment would be execution, and I don't see that happening any more than I see the criminal scum being charged at all.