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Should Facebook, Google and Twitter Be Public Utilities?

Should Facebook, Google and Twitter Be Public Utilities?

This opaque corporate censorship amounts to a private-sector Stasi, pursuing an Orwellian world of profits reaped from the censorship and suppression of dissent

My longtime friend GFB recently suggested I revisit my position on RussiaGate, the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US election.

I have been dismissive of the investigation because the idea that a pinprick of Facebook advertising ($100,000) could influence the sprawling ocean of public opinion struck me as preposterous.

But GFB suggested I look a bit deeper and consider the consequences of the Russian interference, however modest it might have been; and I have taken his sage advice and reconsidered.

I’ve reached the conclusion that Facebook, Google and Twitter should be operated as public utilities, not as for-profit corporations beholden solely to their shareholders and managers.

Here is my thinking:

1. As GFB so insightfully observed, Facebook says it sells advertising, as this is uncontroversial. But what Facebook is actually selling is data on its users. This enables enterprises to deliver adverts to highly specific audiences (surfers between the ages of 18 and 34 with an interest in traveling overseas, etc.), campaigns that are known only to the advertiser and Facebook, not to the targeted users. But it also enabled the Russian crew to target audiences most likely to be receptive to divisive, inflammatory content.

2. If we follow this dynamic to its conclusion, we realize that these for-profit corporations are threats to democracy, or incompatible with democracy, if you prefer that wording, as they directly enable the relatively affordable and easy sowing of intentionally divisive content.

A recent wired.com article, Inside the Two Years that Shook Facebook–and the World, describes Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s realization that the technology he’d assumed was both incredibly profitable and helpful could be used as a force for exploitation and propaganda.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

U.S. propaganda cites NATO’s PR agency’s confirmation that “evidence is overwhelming” Russia manipulated U.S. Elections

U.S. propaganda cites NATO’s PR agency’s confirmation that “evidence is overwhelming” Russia manipulated U.S. Elections

“There’s no possible way you can say that [Russia’s manipulation of the 2016 U.S. elections] didn’t happen,” says Ben Nimmon, of the Atlantic Council, which was set up by the U.S. Government in 1961 during the Cold War, to encourage increased military spending in U.S.-allied countries. The video, with Nimmon saying this, appears in the U.S. Government’s Voice of America’s February 19th article “Israel, Iran Clash Over Nuclear Threat at Munich Conference”, which opens by saying, “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that Iran is just years away from having a nuclear bomb.” This article presents the former U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, on the defensive, against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extensive statements there, for an invasion soon against Iran. Kerry negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran that U.S. President Donald Trump says the U.S. won’t honor.

On February 22nd, an article was headlined “Israel and Iran: Inching Toward Conflict”, by Peter Korzun, at the website of Strategic Culture Foundation, which favors Russia against NATO, and which article presents considerable evidence that Israel plans soon to invade Iran, and to use the airspace of “Sunni-dominated Arab states” (the U.S. Government’s other allies against Iran) in order to do it, or else to use Iraq’s airspace: Korzun wrote, “Iraq is not focused on monitoring its airspace — it has many other problems to deal with, and Israel could take advantage of that. The route through Iraq looks like it might be the best option.”

Israel, which receives $3.8 billion per year from the U.S. Government to buy U.S.-made weapons, is seeking the U.S. Government’s okay to use them for an invasion of Iran, which America’s fundamentalist-Sunni ally the Saud family also want to destroy. 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Coming Wars to End All Wars

The Coming Wars to End All Wars

“The compulsive hatred of Putin by many who have almost zero idea about Putin or Russian history is disproportionate to any rational analysis, but not surprising. Trump and Putin are like weird doppelgangers in the liberal imagination.”

– John Steppling, “Trump, Putin, and Nikolas Cruz Walk into a Bar”

The Trump and Netanyahu governments have a problem: How to start a greatly expanded Middle-Eastern war without having a justifiable reason for one.  No doubt they are working hard to solve this urgent problem.  If they can’t find a “justification” (which they can’t), they will have to create one (which they will).  Or perhaps they will find what they have already created.  Whatever the solution, we should feel confident that they are not sitting on their hands. History teaches those who care to learn that when aggressors place a gun on the wall in the first act of their play, it must go off in the final act.

These sinister players have signaled us quite clearly what they have in store.  All signs point toward an upcoming large-scale Israeli/U.S. attack on Lebanon and Syria, and all the sycophantic mainstream media are in the kitchen prepping for the feast.  Russia and Iran are the main course, with Lebanon and Syria, who will be devoured first, as the hors d’oeuvres.  As always, the media play along as if they don’t yet know what’s coming.  Everyone in the know knows what is, just not exactly when.  And the media wait with baited breath as they count down to the dramatic moment when they can report the incident that will compel the “innocent” to attack the “guilty.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Russiagate Isn’t About Trump, And It Isn’t Even Ultimately About Russia 

Russiagate Isn’t About Trump, And It Isn’t Even Ultimately About Russia 

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes recently asked a question of his Twitter following that was so heavily loaded it wouldn’t be permitted on most interstate highways: “Aside from genuine cranks, is there anyone left denying it was the Russians that committed criminal sabotage in the American election?”

Hayes asked this fake question because he works for MSNBC and it is therefore his job, and he asked it in response to a report first made viral by deranged espionage LARPer Eric Garland that a Dutch intelligence agency had been observing Russian hackers attacking US political parties in advance of the 2016 election. Like all “bombshell” Russiagate reports, this one roared through social media like wildfire carried on the wings of liberal hysteria about the current administration, only to be exposed as being riddled with gaping plot holes as documented here by independent journalist Suzie Dawson. The report revolves around an allegedly Russian cyber threat now known in the west as “Cozy Bear”, which as Real NewsMax Blumenthal notesis not a network of hackers but “a Russian-sounding name the for-profit firm Crowdstrike assigned to an APT to market its findings to gullible reporters desperate for Russiagate scoops.”

This “bombshell” overlapped with another as it was reported by the New York Times that at one point many months ago Trump had wanted to fire Robert Mueller, but then didn’t.

*Cough.*

Why does this keep happening? Why does the public keep getting sold a mountain of suspicion with zero substance? Over and over and over again these “bombshell” stories come out about Trump and Russia, Russia and Trump, only to be debunked, retracted, or erased from the spotlight after people start actually reading the allegations and thinking critically about them and see they’re not the shocking bombshells they purport to be?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Kim Dotcom: “Let Me Assure You, The DNC Hack Wasn’t Even A Hack”

Kim Dotcom has once again chimed in on the DNC hack, following a Sunday morning tweet from President Trump clarifying his previous comments on Russian meddling in the 2016 election.


I never said Russia did not meddle in the election, I said “it may be Russia, or China or another country or group, or it may be a 400 pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer.” The Russian “hoax” was that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia – it never did!


In response, Dotcom tweeted “Let me assure you, the DNC hack wasn’t even a hack. It was an insider with a memory stick. I know this because I know who did it and why,” adding “Special Counsel Mueller is not interested in my evidence. My lawyers wrote to him twice. He never replied. 360 pounds!” alluding of course to Trump’s “400 pound genius” comment.

Let me assure you, the DNC hack wasn’t even a hack. It was an insider with a memory stick. I know this because I know who did it and why. Special Counsel Mueller is not interested in my evidence. My lawyers wrote to him twice. He never replied. 360 pounds!https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.smh.com.au/world/us-election/dnchack-did-kim-dotcom-warn-the-world-about-the-democratic-party-hacking-20160622-gpp15a.html  https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/965202556204003328 


Dotcom’s assertion is backed up by an analysis done last year by a researcher who goes by the name Forensicator, who determined that the DNC files were copied at 22.6 MB/s – a speed virtually impossible to achieve from halfway around the world, much less over a local network – yet a speed typical of file transfers to a memory stick.

The local transfer theory of course blows the Russian hacking narrative out of the water, lending credibility to the theory that the DNC “hack” was in fact an inside job, potentially implicating late DNC IT staffer, Seth Rich.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Media Stopped Reporting The Russia Collusion Story Because They Helped Create It

The Media Stopped Reporting The Russia Collusion Story Because They Helped Create It

The press has played an active role in the Trump-Russia collusion story since its inception. It helped birth it.
Half the country wants to know why the press won’t cover the growing scandal now implicating the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice, and threatening to reach the State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, and perhaps even the Obama White House.

After all, the release last week of a less-redacted version of Sens. Charles Grassley and Lindsey Graham’s January 4 letter showed that the FBI secured a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to search the communications of a Trump campaign adviser based on a piece of opposition research paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The Fourth Amendment rights of an American citizen were violated to allow one political party to spy on another.

If the press did its job and reported the facts, the argument goes, then it wouldn’t just be Republicans and Trump supporters demanding accountability and justice. Americans across the political spectrum would understand the nature and extent of the abuses and crimes touching not just on one political party and its presidential candidate but the rights of every American.

That’s all true, but irrelevant. The reasons the press won’t cover the story are suggested in the Graham-Grassley letter itself.

Steele Was a Media Informant

The letter details how Christopher Steele, the former British spy who allegedly authored the documents claiming ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, told the FBI he wasn’t talking to the press about his investigation. In a British court, however, Steele acknowledged briefing several media organizations on the material in his dossier.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Agitprop Is Not News


Forget about sharks. In their Valentine’s Day editorial: Why Does Trump Ignore Top Officials’ Warnings on Russia?, The New York Times jumped several blue whales (all the ones left on earth), a cruise ship, a subtropical archipelago, a giant vortex of plastic bottles, and the Sport’s Illustratedswimsuit shoot. The lede said:

The phalanx of intelligence chiefs who testified on Capitol Hill delivered a chilling message: Not only did Russia interfere in the 2016 election, it is already meddling in the 2018 election by using a digital strategy to exacerbate the country’s political and social divisions.

Hmmm…. After almost two years of relentless public paranoia about Russia and US elections, don’t you suppose these Ruskie gremlins would find some other way to make mischief in our world — maybe meddle in the NHL playoffs, or hack WalMart’s bookkeeping department, or covertly switch out the real Dwayne Johnson with a robot? I kind of completely and absolutely doubt that they’ll bother with our elections.

Let’s face it, the United States is doing a stellar job of destroying itself with bad ideas, foolish ideologies, and pervasive self-deceit. If I was running the Russian intel services, I’d just pay to send a few Nebraska county commissioners to Disneyland — that would keep our seventeen US intel agencies busy until kingdom come trying to figure out the angle. And it would cheaper than spending a hundred grand to fuck with Facebook.

Actually the Times’s editorial seems to have CIA / NSA fingerprints all over it, or at least Deep State paw prints. By stating that the Russians are already “meddling” in 2018 elections that haven’t happened yet, aren’t our own security agencies setting up the public to lose faith in the electoral process and fight over election results? Oh, by the way, the Times presented no evidence whatsoever that this alleged “meddling” is taking place. They just assert it, as if it were already adjudicated.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Why ‘Russian Meddling’ is a Trojan Horse

Why ‘Russian Meddling’ is a Trojan Horse

Prior to the 2016 presidential election, if one were to ask what single act could seal a new Cold War with Russia, align liberals and progressives with the operational core of the American military-industrial-surveillance complex, expose the preponderance of left-activism as an offshoot of Democratic Party operations and consign most of what remained to personal invective against an empirically dangerous leader, consensus would likely have it that doing so wouldn’t be easy.

The decision to blame Russian meddling for Hillary Clinton’s electoral loss was made in the immediate aftermath of the election by her senior campaign staff. Within days the received wisdom amongst Clinton supporters was that the election had been stolen and that Donald Trump was set to enter the White House as a pawn of the Russian political leadership. Left out was the history of U.S. – Russian relations; that the largest voting bloc in the 2016 election was eligible voters who didn’t vote and that domestic business interests substantially control the American electoral process.

Graph: The Democrats’ choice to blame external forces, e.g. Russian meddling, for their electoral loss in 2016 ignores evidence of that none-of-the-above is the people’s choice. The largest voting bloc in the 2016 election was eligible voters who chose not to vote. In contrast to the received wisdom in political consultant circles, choosing not to vote is a political act. The U.S. has the lowest voter turnout in the ‘developed’ world for a reason. Source: electproject.org.

More than a year later, no credible evidence has been put forward to establish that any votes were changed due to ‘external’ meddling. As the Intercept has reported, since the election progressive candidates seeking public office have been systematically subverted by establishment Democrats in favor of those with connections to big-money donors.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Can the Impending Collapse of Russiagate Halt the Slide Toward a Nuclear 1914?

Can the Impending Collapse of Russiagate Halt the Slide Toward a Nuclear 1914?

Can the Impending Collapse of Russiagate Halt the Slide Toward a Nuclear 1914?

In the period preceding the World War I how many Europeans suspected that their lives would soon be forever changed – and, for millions of them, ended? Who in the years, say, 1910 to 1913, could have imagined that the decades of peace, progress, and civilization in which they had grown up, and which seemingly would continue indefinitely, instead would soon descend into a horror of industrial-scale slaughter, revolution, and brutal ideologies?

The answer is, probably very few, just as few people today care much about the details of international and security affairs. Normal folk have better things to do with their lives.

To be sure, in that bygone era of smug jingosim, there was always the entertainment aspect that “our” side had forced “theirs” to back down in some exotic locale, as in the Fashoda incident (1898) or the Moroccan crises (1906, 1911). Even the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 seemed less a harbinger of the cataclysm to come than local dustups on the edge of the continent where the general peace had not been disturbed even by the much more disruptive Crimean or Franco-Prussian wars.

Besides, no doubt level-headed statesmen were in charge in the various capitals, ensuring that things wouldn’t get out of hand.

Until they did.

A notable exception to the prevailing mood of business-as-usual, nothing-to-see-here-folks was Pyotr Durnovo, whose remarkable February 1914 memorandum to Tsar Nicholas II laid out not only what the great powers would do in the approaching general war but the behavior of the minor countries as well. Moreover, he anticipated that in the event of defeat, Russia, destabilized by unchecked socialist “agitation” amid wartime hardships, would “be flung into hopeless anarchy, the issue of which cannot be foreseen.” Germany, likewise, was “destined to suffer, in case of defeat, no lesser social upheavals” and “take a purely revolutionary path” of a nationalist hue.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Will Congress Face Down the Deep State?

Will Congress Face Down the Deep State?

The House Intelligence Committee’s vote on Monday to release a memorandum describing alleged malfeasance at the DOJ and the FBI could test constitutional principles, writes Ray McGovern.


With the House Intelligence Committee vote yesterday to release its four-page memorandum reportedly based on documentary evidence of possible crimes by top Justice Department and FBI leaders, the die is cast. Russia-gate and FBI-gate are now joined at the hip.

The coming weeks will show whether the U.S. intelligence establishment (the FBI/CIA/NSA, AKA the “Deep State”) will be able to prevent its leaders from being held to account. Past precedent suggests that the cabal that conjured up Russia-gate will not have to pick up a “go-to-jail” card. This, despite the widespread guilt suggested by the abrupt way that several senior-echelon DOJ and FBI rats have already jumped ship. Not to mention the manner in which FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, was unceremoniously pushed overboard yesterday, after Director Christopher Wray was given a look at the extra-legal capers described in the House Intelligence Committee memorandum.

Granted, at first glance Deep State’s efforts to undercut candidate Donald Trump at first seem so risky and audacious as to be unbelievable. By now, though, Americans should be able to wrap their heads around, one, the dire threat that outsider Trump was seen to be posing to the Deep State and to the ease with which it held sway under President Barack Obama; and, two, expected immunity from prosecution if Deep State crimes were eventually discovered after the election, since “everybody knew” Hillary Clinton was going to win. Oops.

Accountability This Time?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ghosts in the Propaganda Machine

Ghosts in the Propaganda Machine

S. Mangal’s social media profile and author photo.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

— Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Is this what online journalism looks like in the era of Russiagate fever? A fake writer (read Alice Donovan) catfishes CounterPunch and a dozen other online websites. A handful of her articles are published over a two-year period. The FBI is tracking her and believes this writer, whoever is behind the moniker, has some ties to Russia. What kind of ties and how deep do they go? We aren’t sure. No evidence is presented, perhaps because there isn’t much, or perhaps because the NSA and the FBI are also spying on actual journalists and editors right along with the alleged imposters. The Washington Post calls for a quote on the FBI’s allegation and runs an article a month later on Kremlin operatives “burning across the internet”.

More panic ensues.

But only one troll was named in the Washington Post piece, Alice Donovan — our suspected interloper. Prior to the Post’s article, we found out Donovan likely was not who she claimed to be and was a plagiarist to boot. We apologized for our screw-up and issued a lengthy investigation into the whole Donovan ordeal and the challenges of vetting writers in the fast-paced world of cyber-journalism. The story ends there, or does it?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Washington Post Also Misreported CNN’s False WikiLeaks Story

The Washington Post Also Misreported CNN’s False WikiLeaks Story

I left on holiday just as the news was breaking about multiple mainstream media outlets independently reporting a spectacularly false story about WikiLeaks, Donald Trump and Russiagate, and I was pleased to return to find they’d received their much-deserved beatdown for it. One fact that doesn’t seem to have received any attention however is the fact that the Washington Post, who broke the story about CNN’s journalistic scandal, itself grossly distorted the truth to slander WikiLeaks in its own coverage.

In what The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald called “one of the most embarrassing days for the U.S. media in quite a long time,” a breaking story which was sent into immediate virality by CNN and was then independently (and falsely) corroborated by MSNBC and CBS, reporting that someone had emailed Donald Trump Jr with a decryption key allowing him to preview an impending leak drop from WikiLeaks. By the time all the facts were in it turned out that the real story, in its entirety, was that some random guy had emailed Trump notifying him of a Guccifer 2.0 release (not even WikiLeaks) that had already been published.


678.4 MB of new “DNC documents” from @Guccifer_2https://uploadfiles.io/7dc58 
use 7zip to unpack
password: GuCCif3r_2.0

Uploadfiles.io @UploadFilesFree

NGP VAN.7z @UploadFilesFree

uploadfiles.io


Obviously Donald Trump Jr receiving an innocuous email about a publication already in existence is not a news story by any stretch of the imagination. It was exactly as newsworthy as it would have been if you, dear reader, had once sent an email to Don Jr informing him of Hillary Clinton’s leaked remarksabout Palestinian election rigging.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

‘Russiagate’ Is Actually Israelgate — Trump as Agent of Israel, Not of Russia

‘Russiagate’ Is Actually Israelgate — Trump as Agent of Israel, Not of Russia

The Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s main evidence thus far in his “Russiagate” probe is not actually about possible Russian collusion with Trump to win the Presidency, but instead about definite Israeli collusion with Trump after Trump had already won the Presidency but before he became inaugurated. As a lawyer explained on the day when Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was indicted in a plea-deal: “Mr. Flynn has just become the prosecution’s star witness.” What Flynn had pled to was his trying to obtain Russia’s support for Israel’s Government, against the Palestinians. Russia said no; Putin said no to Flynn’s request, which had been made on behalf of Israel.

The way that Mueller’s investigation, to find reasons for Trump’s impeachment, achieved on December 1st the indictment and plea-deal with Flynn, was to get Flynn to admit (after his first having lied to deny) that he had been asked by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who had been asked by Israel’s head-of-state Benjamin Netanyahu, to communicate to Russia’s head-of-state Vladimir Putin through Russia’s U.S. Ambassador, a request on behalf of the incoming U.S. Administration of Donald Trump, for Russia to get Israel out of a jam at the U.N. Security Council. Netanyahu didn’t want to be alone in trying to pressure Putin to turn against the Palestinians; he wanted the incoming Trump Administration also to be pressuring Putin to do that — for Russia to veto, this time, a resolution (#2334 in 2016), which, every year in the past, had been supported by Russia; or, failing to achieve that, to get Russia’s support for Israel’s effort to delay the Security Council’s vote, until after Trump would become installed as the U.S. President on January 20th. That’s what Putin was saying no to.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

CNN & MSNBC Attempt Coverup of Bogus Story They Started 

CNN & MSNBC refuse to provide any transparency on how they blew a major anti-trump story.

The headline image is from the BBC story Russia-Trump: Who’s who in the drama to end all dramas?

The BBC names the key players, but it missed one: the media.

In a nutshell, three news outlets, starting with CNN and followed by MSNBC broke a bombshell story on Trump that false. CBS jumped on the bandwagon but later blamed CNN.

Supposedly, multiple, credible sources said Trump had access to Wikileaks information on Russia before Wikileaks posted it.

The story timeline was false.

Coverup Begins

Days later, CNN refuses to disclose its sources or say what happened.

Greenwald blasted CNN in a Tweet again today.


Slate notes that because CNN & MSNBC completely refuse to provide even the most minimal transparency about how they got their big story so wrong, we still don’t know the answer to the key question – and probablynever will, since they’re burying it: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/12/medias-wikileaks-trump-jr-email-date-screwup-still-unexplained.html 

We Still Don’t Know Why Three Different Outlets “Confirmed” the Same Bogus Russia Story Last Week

Why did so many “sources” suddenly confuse the numbers 14 and 4?

slate.com


How Did It Happen?

“None of the outlets disclosed anything about the identities and/or motivations of the sources—and there are supposedly at least two of them!—who made such a consequential error of reading comprehension.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Russia-gate’s Litany of Corrections

Russia-gate’s Litany of Corrections

Exclusive: As much as the U.S. mainstream media insists that the Russia-gate scandal is growing, what is undeniably growing is the list of major corrections that news outlets have been forced to issue, reports Robert Parry.


The U.S. mainstream media’s year-long hysteria over Russia’s alleged role in the election of Donald Trump has obliterated normal reporting standards leading to a rash of journalistic embarrassments that have both disgraced the profession and energized Trump’s backers over new grievances about the MSM’s “fake news.”

Misguided groupthink is always a danger when key elements of the Washington establishment and the major news media share the same belief – whether that is Iraq’s supposed possession of WMD or the need to bring down some foreign or domestic leader unpopular with the elites.

Yet, we have rarely witnessed such a cascading collapse of journalistic principles as has occurred around the Russia-gate “scandal.” It is hard to keep track of all the corrections or to take note of all the dead ends that the investigation keeps finding.

But anyone who dares note the errors, the inconsistencies or the illogical claims is either dismissed as a “Kremlin stooge” or a “Trump enabler.” The national Democrats and the mainstream media seem determined to keep hurtling down the Russia-gate roadway assuming that the evidentiary barriers ahead will magically disappear at some point and the path to Trump’s impeachment will be clear.

On Friday, the rush to finally prove the Russia-gate narrative led CNN — and then CBS News and MSNBC — to trumpet an email supposedly sent from someone named Michael J. Erickson on Sept. 4, 2016, to Donald Trump Jr. that involved WikiLeaks offering the Trump campaign pre-publication access to purloined Democratic National Committee emails that WikiLeaks published on Sept. 13, nine days later.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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