This is what happens when a journalist actually does journalism

It's easy to forget that the news media once did actual reporting, and what it meant to a society when the "Fourth Estate" was a functional entity. Every once in a while you see a brief glimpse of it even today.

This after a month or so of the U.S. Administration insisting that a Russian invasion of Ukraine was “imminent.” It was a claim dramatically refuted by none other than the one political leader who on paper would benefit most from such a narrative – the Ukrainian president himself – who told Biden on a phone call to go take his meds and stop fear-mongering about a Russian invasion of Ukraine!

So a new threat needed to be cooked up in the bowels of Foggy Bottom and Langley.

Enter Ned Price from the State Department, who had the thankless task today of selling the hollow narrative that U.S. intelligence had uncovered a fantastical plot by the Russians to bring in crisis actors and fake bodies to sell a false narrative to justify their no longer “imminent” invasion of Ukraine.

Price’s pathetic talking point was this: we are declassifying intelligence information that Russia is about to release a fake video of a Ukrainian attack on Donbas as a false flag to open the door to Russian involvement.

Here’s a summary of what followed:

AP’s Matt Lee replied with a question any normal journalist would ask before our current era: “OK, but what evidence do you have that this is indeed the case?”

Ned: “Well that’s it – my ‘declassified’ claim that Russia is about to do it.”

Matt Lee: “Well, that’s not ‘declassified’ information, that’s just you claiming it. Surely you understand the difference. I mean, crisis actors, fake dead bodies – that’s Alex Jones territory.”

Ned: “You are a Russian propagandist.”

Yes this is the Reader’s Digest version, but essentially this is what took place in the extraordinary State Dept. briefing on Thursday. [Price told Lee: “If you doubt the credibility of the U.S. government, of the British government of other governments and wanna, you know, find solace in information that the Russians are putting out, that’s for you to do.”]

The U.S. government’s position position is that if you ask for any evidence of a U.S. government claim … you are a Putin agent!

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get from someone who is actually reporting on its content.

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@humphrey Why We Cannot Afford M4A

Housing as a Human Right

Etc,etc,etc.

Bully America stands only for Brute Military Displays

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NYCVG

thanatokephaloides's picture

State Dept.: Russia is going to launch a false flag attack as a pretext to invade Ukraine.

Reporter: What's your evidence?

State Dept.: I just gave it to you.

Reporter: No, you made an allegation.

State Dept.: Yes, that's the evidence.

Reporter:

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

Wink

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@thanatokephaloides Before Breakfast"

More or less what Alice says she does--

Ned Price is definitely in Lewis Carroll territory.

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earthling1's picture

Ask no questions and you will be rewarded with no lies.
Move along...nothing to see here.
Go back to sleep. We will wake you when we need you.
Pay your taxes on time.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

can be seen here by the worst (aka best) practioner, and therefore the most trusted to obfuscate.

ob.fus.ca.tion
noun
the action of making something obscure, unclear, or unintelligible.
"when confronted with sharp questions they resort to obfuscation"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1smryz-D4xQ

Daily Press Briefing - September 12, 2016

At about minute 7:50 please see:

Matt Lee questioning John Kirby on AL NUSRA being MARBLED AND MIXED with our MODERATE OPPOSITION to Assad.

The "JIC" they're referring to is a "joint implementation cell" being set up to enable a ceasefire.

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Have seen other clips of him reducing Jen when she was at State. He defended an RT reporter when the guy at Pentagon accused her of propaganda. The guy at state was insulting and Matt said shouted she had a legit question. My guess is that Price will be WH press secretary as being at State and dealing with Lee is a test to see if they can lie and get away with it.

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Instead of Ned Price. She could have invoked the basic premise of the Me Too movement: that all women are to be believed without evidence on their word only.
One of the oligarchies more successful operations to strip away habeus corpus and undermine our basic rights.

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