Don't tell that to William Gibson. HATES Julian Assange. Has gone for broke in equating crit of Hillary with love of Trump, pushing rape allegations non stop. Generally being an ass.
Trump - If he wins, it's big. If he loses his brand is immensely toxic and no business/brand will want to do business with him. He'll have to go the Glenn Beck route and create his own media network and try to sustain and leverage the alt-right movement.
Alex Jones - Getting a lot more mainstream penetration in my view. He'll be selling a lot more seeds and prepper gear.
Julian Assange - Got a new lease on life after he started fading from relevance, especially after Snowden outscooped anything Wikileaks did.
She's at 41%[0] (38% among only registered voters, Trump is at 37% by the same metric) and falling favorably wise, Bush was also at 41%[1] when he was inaugurated but around 47% - 48% at this point in the election. Given her probable "private position" on TPP and other anti-worker policies that number will be lower than Bush (his personal worst in office is 29%), and in half the time. Democrats should hope that she steps down or is impeached, as it will be impossible for her to win the election in 4 years as an incumbent.
> ... as it will be impossible for her to win the election in 4 years as an incumbent.
It should be impossible for her to win re-election in four years. But it also should have been impossible for her to win this year. All the Republicans had to do was run somebody moderately competent. But...
Looking at the numbers, all they have to do is not pick Donald Trump. Carson is at 44% (8% never heard of him and 12% report they have no opinion) right now with no advertising spend. Assuming he doesn't have some dark past we don't know about in 4 years, against Clinton it's not even a contest.
Relative favorability isn't much of a guide to incumbent vs. challenger elections, though I think there is some evidence that it has some loose utility as a predictor of open-seat elections. (OTOH, the incumbent's approval -- not favorability -- seems to be a strong predictor for incumbent reelection.)
AFAIK, there's not much evidence of a particular link between favorability (as opposed to approval) and reelection prospects, and even less for pre-election favorability and reelection prospects.
> it will be impossible for her to win the election in 4 years as an incumbent.
4 years is a long time in politics. GWB was struggling in early 2001: his "compassionate conservatism" platform had been revealed for the religious fundamentalist welfare-slaughter program it always was, he was under fire for making backroom deals with energy-industry cronies and other serial polluters, was clearly stuttering in public appearances, and half the country thought he was just a rich brat who had cheated his way into the White House.
Then 9/11 happened and GWB became Fearless Leader. For a few years his power had literally no boundaries. He walked into re-election.
Hillary will need a bit of luck, but nothing that cannot be solved with a well-timed spat with North Korea or equivalent.
The ground zero speech[0] is why I believe that happened, while simple it stands as one of the most memorable in American history (This is coming from a kid who wore his "fuck bush" t-shirt to school). I don't think Hillary can pull something like that off.
Maybe, maybe not. The way the media works these days, you need very little to weave a narrative - a tear, a hug, a sign of rage, a simple speech in the right place... She's not a crowd-pleaser the way GWB or her husband were, but I'm sure she can muster a decent "Joan of Arc" in the right circumstances.
Hard to compare to someone who was never elected and served prior to the advent of modern communication or even polling to determine things like that (hardly implying that I consider modern polling authoritative).
So, then, how modern do our choices for comparison have to be? Or are you willing to keep producing eliminating qualities so that you can continue with your narrative about Clinton?
Not sure, Assange / wikileaks went from "impartial leaked docs hosting service" to "at the whim of founder's grudges" for me. Releasing the dem emails is fine, timing it for maximum damage to Dems election prospects isn't.
Anyone who ever thought it was the first was deluding themselves. Assange has always has an agenda. It's just that his old supporters don't like the new flavor of his Koolaid.
In addition to forcing transparency on governments, corporations, and non-profits around the world, I think he would like to secure his own future freedom.
It seems highly likely that a Trump administration would give him immunity or a pardon.
OTOH, many of his old Republican enemies who were calling for WikiLeaks to be treated like al-Qaeda love him, for now. And they have a lot more power and influence than the anti-establishment outsiders that were his old supporters, so he's definitely improved his own situation.
Maybe I've missed it, but most of the coverage and statements from Republicans on this seem to include disclaimers about how irresponsible Assange has been (hard not to when he dumps SSNs), while still happily using whatever red meat they can find.
If Assange had 'an agenda' (how nebulous) then why would he have been successful at interviewing the world's most cited academic, Noam Chomsky, and other high-level thought and political leaders? What exactly is the 'agenda' he is supposed to have? You are spreading fallacious FUD.
Are you really implying that Chomsky doesn't have an agenda? He's more famous for his political nonsense, e.g. being a far-lefty who supports people like Castro and Chavez, than his actually (very good) linguistics research.
Chomsky publishes his research and backs his arguments with innumerable facts, the man is practically a walking encyclopedia of US foreign policy, human rights violations and hypocrisy over the last 100 years.
The difference between an academic and someone with an 'agenda' is that one is interested in the truth and publishes cited analyses, the other is only motivated to impress a particular opinion.
Chomsky is voted by the global community of academics as a valued member of that community. Against that shadow, your assertions are valueless.
That came very early for me. I also believed Wikileaks was a force for good (I was thrown off by the name, Wiki implied to me being something like Wikipedia), then they released the Collateral Murder video in 2010 which revealed Assange's intentions (propaganda). From Wikileaks' perspective, it was a great move because it brought them massive publicity and they basically made their name off of it.
> If he loses his brand is immensely toxic and no business/brand will want to do business with him.
As if the usual short-attention-span media and population will ever care about it. It'll be maybe until a couple of months after Clinton's inauguration and no one gives a f... about Trump any more. There's always something more newsworthy than the misery of a failed presidential candidate.
The only exception will be the GOP: they're in for a couple very nasty years, divided between a couple remaining "ordinary" conservatives, the Trump/Tea Party extreme-right-wing movement which surely won't be retreating even if Trump loses, and a society that is more and more moving towards the left end of the political scale - just look at marijuana, homosexual marriage, abortions... society is on a way towards progress and you just can't sell abortions and homosexual marriages to a party consisting of (extreme) Christians and right-wings. No one will vote for them any more.
The GOP will be shattered, the only problem is that there's no one to fill the gap yet.
> It might as well be that the alt-right is already the one filling the gap.
By their volume and tone in shouting on the Internet, yes, for sure - but in numbers? I seriously doubt that the alt-right is capable of maintaining a nationwide powerful political party.
So they're saying Assange is a dangerous sex offender who also likes to try and fuck kids over the internet via dating agencies, while taking Russian bribes.
It all reads like the lowest budget attempt at framing someone possible.
They're coming on thick and strong with attempts to discredit the source, rather than deny the authenticity of the material.
Ironically, the former actually serves as an authentication of the material itself.
As Tyrion Lannister would say, "when you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say".
Edit: to clear up confusion, by 'source' I mean wikileaks and Julian Asssange, how it seems they're pulling out all the stops to try and discredit him, with 'they' being whoever is afraid of what he has to leak.
They're coming on thick and strong with attempts to discredit the source because the source is seriously lacking in credibility. I'd already spotted and commented on the bizarre UN shenanigans earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12737648 The fact that the sole source is a dating company press release in which they claim to be a United Nations signatory and member, and that they accuse the UN of conspiring with Assange and the Bahamas police, should've been enough justification not to take everything as gospel. Unfortunately, Daily Kos are keen to attack Assange and not so keen on fact checking and research, as are Mrs Clinton's Twitter supporters.
>They're coming on thick and strong with attempts to discredit the source because the source is seriously lacking in credibility
the way they could do this correctly is to contradict assange's claims with evidence... do that, and if their evidence is valid, assange's claims collapse.
but they aren't doing that; they can't do that.
here is the recipe upcoming from the clinton campaign:
1. attack source
2. escalate attacks on source
3. deny claims of source categorically
4. deny context of facts that source puts forth
5. deny specifics of facts that source puts forth
6. deny involvement of high level people
7. throw scapegoats
8. deny witting involvement of high level people
9. admit item numbers 3 through 8, sequentially, as separate steps
10. media "loses attention" of the story before reaching the point where high level people admit that the allegations of the source are correct
I agree with you completely. My comment was written after discussing this elsewhere on the internet where the context was that people are trying to discredit wikileaks and Assange as a source. I've edited my post to reflect that.
Not only that, according to Buzzfeed they got in touch with the Bahama police force and no complainant ever came forward: https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/the-bizarre-story-o... (The Buzzfeed article is a good summary of the problems with the allegations in general.)
To paraphrase Tyrion Lannister, we're not questioning the credibility of the source, we're denying its existence.
"Toddandclare" is, rather blatantly, a front company for some organization. There is no doubt of this fact. They probably want to be able to claim that "a UN conspiracy is silencing them", but their attempt to set this up is so ludicrous, I'm having trouble imagining who would even think of such a thing.
To not paraphrase Tyrion Lannister because I'm about the only person in existence who hasn't watched the show, if the attempt to set this up is wilfully ludicrous, the most obvious people to think of are probably people that don't want you to think there's any basis behind any of the more longstanding and somewhat similar rumours floating around about the purported setup victim.
And probably want you to go to Wikileaks.com and look for embarrassing stuff about Hillary Clinton instead.
> The UN wants to have its headquarters in our country, but at the same time, doesn’t want to acknowledge its own American member’s constitutional rights, like freedom of speech.
Quite a political statement coming from a mere dating site :/
And
> Like the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention’s misguided support for a fugitive rapist
Well he has had that allegation hanging over him well before T&C started signing deals with him they are now trying to sue him over.
They have done a good job on the Rapist thing. And it's probally true. I honestly don't know.
I don't know if it's a orchestrated conspiracy either? I don't like anyone who has a bunch of kids around the world, and a woman who claim he raped her.
That said, I do believe what come from Wikileaks. It the be site I do trust. That's pretty sad?
Don't particularly like the guy, but I believe what other Hackers, have sent him over the years. You can dislike someone, but trust their integrity.
So far the only link to Clinton seems to be post-hoc (this happened around the same time as the Podesta etc. emails) and guilt by association (the accusations were reported on DailyKos and "pro-Clinton Twitter accounts"). Weak. Is there really anything more, or is this just Assange being Assange?
Tracking down and proving who is behind it would probably be very hard, but if this took place as they write, I think it's already quite interesting as a case study in information warfare.
If there's one person that doesn't stand to gain from lots and lots of attention being drawn to Julian Assange, it's Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton doesn't want you to be researching into this Julian Assange guy whose apparently been the victim of a scheme to accuse him of accepting Russian money and chatting up infants in the Bahamas, both via the same dating website (which is obviously a totally plausible cover story that a real conspirator with near unlimited resources would definitely choose as the best avenue to set him up) but also has a very interesting website with a lot of very awkward statements linked to at least one of the candidates for the presidency.
If there's one person that stands to gain most from a reported attempt at a hatchet job on Assange that's far too silly to have any basis in truth, it's probably a person who would really, really like you to (i) visit Wikileaks.com, preferably before November 9th (ii) not believe a word of all these - actually quite possibly not true - rumours floating around about Russians being prime movers behind Wikileaks.com (iii) not think too much about that interview he just postponed again because obviously allegations of sexual impropriety against Julian Assange are just part of a fiendishly stupid conspiracy.
Funnily enough in the last couple of weeks this person has also had his internet cut by a state actor... wait for next round of stories.... not the state actor you think... wait for next round of stories.... just kidding, it was American influence all along, and had to cancel a widely publicised balcony announcement because of apparently unanticipated security concerns.
(I can actually think of a second person that might benefit from people visiting Wikileaks before November 9th and people tending to suspect that all allegations of sexual impropriety should be treated as politically motivated until proven otherwise, but I think Ockham's razor and his campaign team's preference for blunter instruments rules that one out...)
Except that it was almost entirely Clinton supporters pushing this on sites like Daily Kos, Twitter, HN, etc. Wikileaks were really late to the party on getting a press release out about this, with Buzzfeed dismantling the whole thing shortly before they got their press release out and rendering it almost moot, and the attack was timed when the internet connection cut limited their ability to respond effectively. The fact that the whole hatchet job was ridiculous didn't matter, because Clinton's supporters just ignored this and accused anyone who pointed it out of being pro-pedo, and it got almost 24 hours of being spread around the internet unchallenged. Not only that, countering it tied up a bunch of time and resources that could've been used to post things damaging to her instead.
It looks like Ecuador have also just published a press release about cutting his internet connection that's perfectly timed to distract from this too. So Clinton's in no way losing out here. She benefits from people believing that Assange is a pedo and no-one hears about part where it's an incompetent frameup. The taint from this will stick to anything Assange says about her in future.
Clinton doesn't need a conspiracy to win, it's as simple as that. She's polling at +8 nationally, if the election were held today she has at least a 75% chance of a landslide election (320+ EVs) if the election were held today, and there's zero indication that Trump's numbers have any upward mobility whatsoever at this point. In fact, the Republicans will be lucky to hold onto the House if things keep going the way they have the past couple weeks.
There's no reason to do a dumb attempt at stinging a has-been like Assange. Literally all it could do is hurt her (if it backfired and people took Assange seriously).
Hanlon's Razor says that if it looks like some dumb idiot ("small business owner") who thought he could hire Assange for his TV commercial and then got his jimmies rustled that Assange said no then it probably is that instead of an international conspiracy. But even if we're moving into conspiracy territory, Clinton doesn't have the motive here.
She doesn't benefit from people believing Assange is a paedo, which I don't think any mainstream media source has bothered reporting as potentially true. She benefits much more from nobody talking about him at all, and focusing on all the nasty stuff coming out from basically everywhere except Wikileaks about the man she's running against (but apparently not comparable dirt on Pence; wouldn't she focus more effort on framing her opponent's running mate than some foreign journalist who's already got the not insignificant matter of a Swedish prosecutor wanting to charge him with rape hanging over him?)
Just because a few Clinton supporters on Twitter who really don't like Assange think the allegation is worth crowing about and the Daily Kos has no journalistic standards and will print anything if it's a scoop doesn't mean Clinton is anything but a little worse off if this news cycle is about Assange.
> Am I the only one somewhat concerned over the absolutely blatant declarations that Russia is now our enemy again?
Something's definitely fishy about the resurgence of the anti-Russia propaganda in the United States.
I recently found a copy of The Soviet Achievement (1967) [1] in a library's discarded booksale. From the jacket:
"... This is a study of the deliberate creation of a new industrial society from a relatively backward, underdeveloped and basically rural country. Mr. Nettl illustrates the shifting balance between theory and practice, the attempt to apply Marxist ideology to practical problems, and the evolution of those distinctively Soviet solutions which have made the USSR one of the two dominating world powers. ..."
My impression is that the Soviets were never the villains that they were portrayed to be in the West. They knew they were behind, couldn't keep up with the US, and were quite afraid of western efforts to subjugate them.
I like Scott Adams' take on 'blaming the Russians':
When Clinton’s surrogates respond to questions about
Wikileaks by saying the Russians are behind it, that’s an
acknowledgment of guilt. Guilty people almost always
question the source of the information first. Innocent
people start with a clear denial, or sometimes confusion
as to why the question is being asked.
The Adams quote, as with a lot of other things that Scott Adams has said lately, is pretty biased. 'Because they said things this way they're obviously guilty' even though that's a huge leap in logic. It's the kind of thing you would say when you want to paint someone you dislike in a negative light in a way that's difficult to outright refute (because it makes no logical sense).
> "My impression is that the Soviets were never the villains that they were portrayed to be in the West. They knew they were behind, couldn't keep up with the US, and were quite afraid of western efforts to subjugate them."
Well, the Stalin government killed millions of people, had massive propaganda campaigns, and was rife with corruption. They certainly felt there was an existential threat, as did the US and other western nations, but that's not surprising in that sort of political environment.
Were they villains? Well, not necessarily. Undoubtedly there were a lot of officials who truly believed in the cause they were supporting, but there was also a lot of self-serving abuse of power that started at the top and worked its way down, at the expense of the citizens (to a larger and more extreme extent than what happens in the West).
TL;DR very few people are truly evil but it's hard to imagine the soviets as good guys either; the same is true of the current Russian government, which is very apparently corrupt and frequently abuses its power and, lately, starts wars it knows it can get away with, so there's a very tangible sense that Russia's current motives are bad for the majority of people, including Russian citizens.
Russia has been behaving as, if not an enemy, an actor whose interests align with our enemies (see: their partnership with Iran, their support of Assad, and their annexation of Crimea).
And while it's ironic to watch the media that could not have been more supportive of Wikileaks when the reveals focused on Bush-era scandals (at least some of which deserved the attention as abuses) now discovering that Assange is as self-interested as they come now that his dumps concern Clinton, who they're clearly much more supportive of than Trump (justifiably), but he's been known to despise Hillary for a long time now, and the recent dumps have been far less carefully redacted this time around. Wikileaks should be a whistleblowing service. Unfortunately, Assange won't let it be that simple.
Perhaps this sounds harsh, but consider the possibility that US intervention in conflicts among and within other sovereign nations may do more harm than good. "Team America: World Police" is a fun movie. It may not be the best of foreign policy goals.
> When he started chlorine and barrel bombing civilians?
I would suggest to you that the world is more complicated than the soundbites vomited to you by the as of lately, largely discredited media and Obama administration.
The accusations against Assad change as necessary. It used to be Sarin, until that was disproved, for example. Bottom line, they just really want Syria to be destroyed like Iraq and Libya were, and will make up accusations as necessary. Did he drop some barrel bombs (home made bombs)? Probably. Did some of them hit civilians? Probably. The US has killed it's share of civilians also, hasn't it?
You don't know anything, but you want a nuclear war with Russia. Seems appropriate.
EDIT: just want clarify that I don't necessarily disagree that Iraq and Libya were disasters, and that the Syrian situation seems to have devolved into a no good options situation, but that in no way excuses Assad's human rights violations.
Am I defending he used Sarin? Hell yes. That's already disproved.
Am I defending he may have killed civilians while bombing rebels? Well, not defending, but putting in perspective, since we kill civilians almost daily.
Am I saying that you have been lied to by an administration that destroyed Libya and wants nothing more than to do the same to Syria? Yes, I am.
Killed civilians as collateral damage, while tragic, and something that we should work to reduce and minimize, is in no way equivalent to targeting civilians. Following your logic, manslaughter should not be a distinct crime from murder.
There's no proof that he targeted civilians. He may have, he may not have. How do you know he did? Who told you so?
1) It's a war. There is a fog of war where accurate information is not always available.
2) It's a common tactic to lie about your enemy to garner more money and weapons from your US sugar daddy.
3) The US government itself has an agenda to topple Syria for it's own reasons and those of it's Sunni ally, Saudi Arabia.
Given 1,2, and 3, you are confident that you are in possession of the true state of affairs, even as you conveniently discount that the sarin gas accusation that so infuriated everybody originally, has been proven to be a lie.
But hey, let's go to war with Russia based on unproven accusations. I wonder if you're old enough to remember Iraq, and the lies we were told about that? In 2003, we were told a lot of lies to get the population behind the destruction of Iraq. That was 13 years ago, so you were probably in high school or grade school. But it does happen that our government lies to the populous when it wants to destroy a country.
I can't reply directly to pdx, but pdx seems convinced that Assad has not targeted civilians despite ample evidence to the contrary, based on one post from a site that strains credibility, and takes acceptance of the very clear fact that he has done so to mean someone is advocating for a nuclear war with Russia, and accuses me of not being old enough to remember Iraq. How these conclusions are reached is left unstated besides "you don't have every single fact that could possibly be had about this despite that not being necessary." You've shown the level of credibility we should attribute you, which is none.
I am being polite and laying out the reasons why you need to examine your beliefs.
Nobody said you need to know every event in Syria to form an opinion. You just need to know about a single, proven event that supports the war hysteria narrative you have been fed.
In what way is pointing out that Assad has behaved as an enemy to the United States would or that Syria is on the state sponsors of terrorism list (compiled by people with more knowledge than either of us) creating a war hysteria narrative? Are you claiming that Syria is not in the midst of a war claiming the countless lives? Are you claiming that Assad is not an aggressor? If you object to everything as unproven based on the fact that you found a website saying it's unproven, is it even possible to find a "proven" event?
It's equivalent in the eyes of the families and communities in which these civilian deaths are occurring. And, I think you're naive to say that we don't target civlians. The MSF hospital strike was clearly intentional -- it may not have come as an order from the top (the strike was authorized by regional commanders), but the feeble attempt at discipline (there were no criminal charges) is essentially a go-ahead for other low level actors to engage in the same behavior.
The US government paid out a pathetic $6000 to families of the dead civilians. I'm guessing that didn't quite break the bank.
As the previous posters have stated, it's complicated.
If Assad's regime falls, the Al-Queda and ISIS affiliated groups move in. I'm not sure America wants that. Do we want that? Hard to say!
Saudi Arabia supports the Assad regime falling because the Assad regime is not Sunni.
If we set up a no fly zone in Syria, we are then in direct conflict with Russia's forces. It's no longer a proxy war.
I hope there's a way to be against US intervention in Syria(if only because of grim realpolitik reasons) and simultaneously not defend Assad.
I fully recognize that the Assad regime is terrible(I can pummel you with New Yorker articles). I don't quite believe the Assad people used poison gas, I think the jury is still out on that.
As I mentioned, Syria seems to have spiralled into a "there are no good outcomes" territory. But the fact that deposing Assad could (is even likely) to create a new enemy doesn't negate the behavior that has landed Syria on the state sponsors of terror list.
Killing civilians has absolutely nothing to do with whether a country is an enemy or ally of the USA. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Israel are recent counterexamples to your theory.
The Syrian regime has, in a sense, been recognized by the US as not only a national enemy but as among the common enemies of humanity generally since it's formal designation as a state sponsor of terrorism in 1979.
Sorry, but anybody who support Hezbollah is given the moniker "State sponser of terrorism".
Iran and Syria support Hezbollah because they are unhappy with Israels expansion. Lots of people are unhappy with Israels expansion. How many UN resolutions have condemned Israel for it's actions? You count them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_UN_resolutions_con...
We are Israels big buddy, so we give scary names to the countries that support Hezbollah. But at the same time, we support rebel groups all over the world. Hell, we're supporting rebel groups in Syria right now. We also supported them in Libya.
Don't let the fact that Syria is on a list because of our unhealthy relationship with Israel, make you forget that we belong on that same list ourselves.
Seriously? Syria is currently one of three countries on the United States list of state sponsors of terrorism.[1] You can quibble with the list, but short of an explicit declaration of war, there's no better (although not necessarily exhaustive) source for a list of current enemies of the US
"There’s been a lot of misquoting of me and WikiLeaks publications. In this particular case, the misquoting has to do with that we intend, or I intend, to harm Hillary Clinton or that I don’t like Hillary Clinton. All those are false. They come about as a result it seems of this campaign and those who are trying to personalize our publications."
Russia is treated as the evil foreign boogieman which happens primarily because it's useful to so many powerful groups of people. They're a convenient scapegoat because in real life there are rarely actual evil bad guys that fit neatly into this category, more often reality is much more boring and harmless, so exaggeration fills the void.
The jews suffered heavily from this in the early 20th century/late 19th century, they were constantly used by others for justifications of power grabs or used as distractions. Before that "Vikings" were heavily used as a constant abstract threat by the English government in the 13-15th century. The church used it to recruit and crown used it to justify authority. In public announcements and oratory they would often warn the population about the threat of savage invasion, spreading fake stories of previous invasions, even though there were zero significant viking events in those times. Much like how anti-semites spread a fake story of Jewish consipracy to take over the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of...
Russia is flawed, corrupt, has some backwards policies and cultural norms (see: homosexuality), and does pose some danger in a foreign policy sense, but largely they're a heavily weakened state with a far bigger bark than bite. Any serious conflict with them would turn nuclear fast so any large war is extremely unlikely. But for the people in question bark is all that's need to exploit the situation.
For example if you're an influential person with deep PR connections and embarassing papers come out, you can make the narrative about the Russia rather than the leaks. 75-90% of the recent coverage of Wikileaks has been about Russia instead of the leaks.
The US military dreams of having a modern military/navy like Russia as an adversary. The military industrial complex is hugely incentivized to promote this narrative and push it heavily in the press.
NATO recently released a statement warning of a repeat of the Ukraine incursion in places like Estonia/Latvia... even though the Ukranian thing was entirely a result of exploiting the crisis and near lawlessness that was already happening there. Russia didn't just randomly decide to invade a sovereign state. So it's so incredibly highly unlikely they'd invade stable NATO counties because they happen to have minor Russian populations.
NATO and other security organizations which are seemingly out of date in a world of modern terrorism warfare are also continuing to pump up the threat to justify their existence (NATO only THIS year opened a counter-terrorism department).
There's lots of other examples of people exaggerating the Russia threat for their own ends but this comment is long enough as it is.
But does that make it any more likely they'll invade Estonia or Latvia as NATO is currently claiming (my original point)? That is such an unlikely scenario that would end very badly for Russia. Yet we're being sold this as a plausible scenario and the militaries in a number of countries are spending massive amounts in preparation and sabre rattling.
I'm not saying they didn't do those things or were justified. But that was a very different scenario as Ukraine was very unstable.
The Syrian stuff is a whole other beast. US partners like Saudis and Qatar are supporting some pretty awful stuff in Yemen and Syria too. Even the supposedly moderate rebels the US is backing were apparently extremely hostile to US soldiers who deployed in a village recently, calling them invader devils. Aleppo is bad but if the rebels took the save exit to other towns as the UN chief offered then the horror the civilians stuck there are facing would end. The cease fire failed so I'm not sure what their plan is as the US isn't going to double down. Unless they are betting on Clinton being a war hawk.
The current EU assessment is that they might try and annex some of these countries before NATO can respond, hoping to present them with a fait accompli in the belief NATO and the US and EU's lack of willingness to go to war with Russia will stop them from responding. So yes, this is an actual feat.
The new cold war with Russia started in the 1990s, little more than a handful of years after the Soviet Union fell (it was quite obvious in the Balkans crises of the 1990s.)
Clinton's famous "reset button" was an effort to try to create an opening to reverse that (or, more cynically, merely to be seen as making such an effort.)
Apropos nothing it occurred to me there is an excellent property of encrypted drives, even if you can be forced to decrypt them, illegal data can't be added to the drive by physical capture alone until you are forced to turn over the password.
Read the article and it's even better. With gems like
"The UN Declaration on Human Rights talks about citizens being able to live without state-level interference, yet here the UN is today, delisting and blocking a small company because we criticized their support for Julian Assange"
Which is a little odd form of argument, not only because it's an unusually highbrow line for a dating agency to take, but also because it doesn't make sense as the UN isn't really "state-level" and the UNDHR doesn't use that word either.
Almost like the person drafting it had interference by "state-level actors" on the brain. Wonder if anyone tweeted something which also used that rather rather arcane term to their 3.7M followers recently?
tldr: Recent events have been suggestive of a plot to frame Asange for sex crimes. If it pans out, it could become the strongest evidence that false allegations are being made against him.
this seems like pretty good proof that the dirt on clinton is real, legitimate, and devastating... why else would there be such a sudden and intense effort to shut him up (push ecuador to cut off his internet) discredit him, shut him down, and smear him as an enemy spy?
seriously, if the allegations were crazy, they'd just say "nope, and here are the facts that are correct". all hands on deck for discrediting him speaks volumes about what is really going on.
the pedophilia smear is very predictable, also... i believe assange himself may have predicted this years ago.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 221 ms ] threadI'll say it again: just move all those old 80s cyberpunk novels into the non-fiction section. Pretty soon we'll have Rastas in space.
Trump - If he wins, it's big. If he loses his brand is immensely toxic and no business/brand will want to do business with him. He'll have to go the Glenn Beck route and create his own media network and try to sustain and leverage the alt-right movement.
Alex Jones - Getting a lot more mainstream penetration in my view. He'll be selling a lot more seeds and prepper gear.
Julian Assange - Got a new lease on life after he started fading from relevance, especially after Snowden outscooped anything Wikileaks did.
Hillary Clinton - President of the United States
Big losers: the citizens of the United States of America
In any event, if she's elected, she will have 4 years to drop below 30%, its an easy goal.
[0]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/08/31/a-... [1]http://www.pollingreport.com/BushFav.htm
It should be impossible for her to win re-election in four years. But it also should have been impossible for her to win this year. All the Republicans had to do was run somebody moderately competent. But...
4 years is a long time in politics. GWB was struggling in early 2001: his "compassionate conservatism" platform had been revealed for the religious fundamentalist welfare-slaughter program it always was, he was under fire for making backroom deals with energy-industry cronies and other serial polluters, was clearly stuttering in public appearances, and half the country thought he was just a rich brat who had cheated his way into the White House.
Then 9/11 happened and GWB became Fearless Leader. For a few years his power had literally no boundaries. He walked into re-election.
Hillary will need a bit of luck, but nothing that cannot be solved with a well-timed spat with North Korea or equivalent.
EDIT: uh, why the downvotes?
[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7OCgMPX2mE
Second, one of the candidates in this election has previously stated that Assange should be killed.
To me that moves the motivation from founder's grudge to self-defense.
Is it really biased to expose lies and wrongdoings of a person who called for you to be executed without trial?
Claim does not hold up.
http://www.snopes.com/julian-assange-drone-strike/
It seems highly likely that a Trump administration would give him immunity or a pardon.
Chomsky publishes his research and backs his arguments with innumerable facts, the man is practically a walking encyclopedia of US foreign policy, human rights violations and hypocrisy over the last 100 years.
The difference between an academic and someone with an 'agenda' is that one is interested in the truth and publishes cited analyses, the other is only motivated to impress a particular opinion.
Chomsky is voted by the global community of academics as a valued member of that community. Against that shadow, your assertions are valueless.
meaningless. what you mean to say is "something I disagree with"
As if the usual short-attention-span media and population will ever care about it. It'll be maybe until a couple of months after Clinton's inauguration and no one gives a f... about Trump any more. There's always something more newsworthy than the misery of a failed presidential candidate.
The only exception will be the GOP: they're in for a couple very nasty years, divided between a couple remaining "ordinary" conservatives, the Trump/Tea Party extreme-right-wing movement which surely won't be retreating even if Trump loses, and a society that is more and more moving towards the left end of the political scale - just look at marijuana, homosexual marriage, abortions... society is on a way towards progress and you just can't sell abortions and homosexual marriages to a party consisting of (extreme) Christians and right-wings. No one will vote for them any more.
The GOP will be shattered, the only problem is that there's no one to fill the gap yet.
By their volume and tone in shouting on the Internet, yes, for sure - but in numbers? I seriously doubt that the alt-right is capable of maintaining a nationwide powerful political party.
It all reads like the lowest budget attempt at framing someone possible.
Ironically, the former actually serves as an authentication of the material itself.
As Tyrion Lannister would say, "when you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say".
Edit: to clear up confusion, by 'source' I mean wikileaks and Julian Asssange, how it seems they're pulling out all the stops to try and discredit him, with 'they' being whoever is afraid of what he has to leak.
the way they could do this correctly is to contradict assange's claims with evidence... do that, and if their evidence is valid, assange's claims collapse.
but they aren't doing that; they can't do that.
here is the recipe upcoming from the clinton campaign:
1. attack source
2. escalate attacks on source
3. deny claims of source categorically
4. deny context of facts that source puts forth
5. deny specifics of facts that source puts forth
6. deny involvement of high level people
7. throw scapegoats
8. deny witting involvement of high level people
9. admit item numbers 3 through 8, sequentially, as separate steps
10. media "loses attention" of the story before reaching the point where high level people admit that the allegations of the source are correct
this cycle will take a while, maybe a year or so.
The original dailykoss article cites a report, removed by the UN for defamatory reasons, that only exists now on google cache.
toddandclare.com registered name also matches:
equal-pac.org (2014) (Other equalpac website is Hillary backed)
Other Todds (?) but still interesting: http://viewdns.info/reversewhois/?q=Todd+Hammond
PC SECURITIES Scam
Has same address as domainsitestats.com/ratings-reviews/toddandclare.com/
Address:10685-B Hazelhurst Dr. #10138 Houston, TX 77043 USA
All very very shady.
"Toddandclare" is, rather blatantly, a front company for some organization. There is no doubt of this fact. They probably want to be able to claim that "a UN conspiracy is silencing them", but their attempt to set this up is so ludicrous, I'm having trouble imagining who would even think of such a thing.
And probably want you to go to Wikileaks.com and look for embarrassing stuff about Hillary Clinton instead.
First post of this to hw news that I saw: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12736247
I noticed this post because it was pretty shitty source for such strong accusations.
Really.
From https://www.toddandclare.com/datinglife/online-dating/united...
> The UN wants to have its headquarters in our country, but at the same time, doesn’t want to acknowledge its own American member’s constitutional rights, like freedom of speech.
Quite a political statement coming from a mere dating site :/
And
> Like the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention’s misguided support for a fugitive rapist
Well he has had that allegation hanging over him well before T&C started signing deals with him they are now trying to sue him over.
Kinda making me think its not? Don't the 3-letters routinely buy or start companies like this to use for their own purposes?
I don't know if it's a orchestrated conspiracy either? I don't like anyone who has a bunch of kids around the world, and a woman who claim he raped her.
That said, I do believe what come from Wikileaks. It the be site I do trust. That's pretty sad?
Don't particularly like the guy, but I believe what other Hackers, have sent him over the years. You can dislike someone, but trust their integrity.
I trust Wikileaks.
If there's one person that stands to gain most from a reported attempt at a hatchet job on Assange that's far too silly to have any basis in truth, it's probably a person who would really, really like you to (i) visit Wikileaks.com, preferably before November 9th (ii) not believe a word of all these - actually quite possibly not true - rumours floating around about Russians being prime movers behind Wikileaks.com (iii) not think too much about that interview he just postponed again because obviously allegations of sexual impropriety against Julian Assange are just part of a fiendishly stupid conspiracy.
Funnily enough in the last couple of weeks this person has also had his internet cut by a state actor... wait for next round of stories.... not the state actor you think... wait for next round of stories.... just kidding, it was American influence all along, and had to cancel a widely publicised balcony announcement because of apparently unanticipated security concerns.
(I can actually think of a second person that might benefit from people visiting Wikileaks before November 9th and people tending to suspect that all allegations of sexual impropriety should be treated as politically motivated until proven otherwise, but I think Ockham's razor and his campaign team's preference for blunter instruments rules that one out...)
It looks like Ecuador have also just published a press release about cutting his internet connection that's perfectly timed to distract from this too. So Clinton's in no way losing out here. She benefits from people believing that Assange is a pedo and no-one hears about part where it's an incompetent frameup. The taint from this will stick to anything Assange says about her in future.
There's no reason to do a dumb attempt at stinging a has-been like Assange. Literally all it could do is hurt her (if it backfired and people took Assange seriously).
http://election.princeton.edu/todays-electoral-vote-histogra...
Hanlon's Razor says that if it looks like some dumb idiot ("small business owner") who thought he could hire Assange for his TV commercial and then got his jimmies rustled that Assange said no then it probably is that instead of an international conspiracy. But even if we're moving into conspiracy territory, Clinton doesn't have the motive here.
Just because a few Clinton supporters on Twitter who really don't like Assange think the allegation is worth crowing about and the Daily Kos has no journalistic standards and will print anything if it's a scoop doesn't mean Clinton is anything but a little worse off if this news cycle is about Assange.
You've got a one presidential candidate claiming that the other is Bad Guy because he might have ties to The Russians.
It sounds like something from McCarthyism, or from the height of the cold war.
And now the mainstream attempts to discredit what is effectively a whistleblowing service seem to center around The Russians.
It's creepy.
Something's definitely fishy about the resurgence of the anti-Russia propaganda in the United States.
I recently found a copy of The Soviet Achievement (1967) [1] in a library's discarded booksale. From the jacket:
"... This is a study of the deliberate creation of a new industrial society from a relatively backward, underdeveloped and basically rural country. Mr. Nettl illustrates the shifting balance between theory and practice, the attempt to apply Marxist ideology to practical problems, and the evolution of those distinctively Soviet solutions which have made the USSR one of the two dominating world powers. ..."
[1] https://books.google.com/books?id=z81BAAAAIAAJ
My impression is that the Soviets were never the villains that they were portrayed to be in the West. They knew they were behind, couldn't keep up with the US, and were quite afraid of western efforts to subjugate them.
I like Scott Adams' take on 'blaming the Russians':
- http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151933602961/lie-detection-and-...> "My impression is that the Soviets were never the villains that they were portrayed to be in the West. They knew they were behind, couldn't keep up with the US, and were quite afraid of western efforts to subjugate them."
Well, the Stalin government killed millions of people, had massive propaganda campaigns, and was rife with corruption. They certainly felt there was an existential threat, as did the US and other western nations, but that's not surprising in that sort of political environment.
Were they villains? Well, not necessarily. Undoubtedly there were a lot of officials who truly believed in the cause they were supporting, but there was also a lot of self-serving abuse of power that started at the top and worked its way down, at the expense of the citizens (to a larger and more extreme extent than what happens in the West).
TL;DR very few people are truly evil but it's hard to imagine the soviets as good guys either; the same is true of the current Russian government, which is very apparently corrupt and frequently abuses its power and, lately, starts wars it knows it can get away with, so there's a very tangible sense that Russia's current motives are bad for the majority of people, including Russian citizens.
And while it's ironic to watch the media that could not have been more supportive of Wikileaks when the reveals focused on Bush-era scandals (at least some of which deserved the attention as abuses) now discovering that Assange is as self-interested as they come now that his dumps concern Clinton, who they're clearly much more supportive of than Trump (justifiably), but he's been known to despise Hillary for a long time now, and the recent dumps have been far less carefully redacted this time around. Wikileaks should be a whistleblowing service. Unfortunately, Assange won't let it be that simple.
Perhaps this sounds harsh, but consider the possibility that US intervention in conflicts among and within other sovereign nations may do more harm than good. "Team America: World Police" is a fun movie. It may not be the best of foreign policy goals.
I would suggest to you that the world is more complicated than the soundbites vomited to you by the as of lately, largely discredited media and Obama administration.
The accusations against Assad change as necessary. It used to be Sarin, until that was disproved, for example. Bottom line, they just really want Syria to be destroyed like Iraq and Libya were, and will make up accusations as necessary. Did he drop some barrel bombs (home made bombs)? Probably. Did some of them hit civilians? Probably. The US has killed it's share of civilians also, hasn't it?
You don't know anything, but you want a nuclear war with Russia. Seems appropriate.
https://off-guardian.org/2016/07/25/assad-the-tyrant/
EDIT: just want clarify that I don't necessarily disagree that Iraq and Libya were disasters, and that the Syrian situation seems to have devolved into a no good options situation, but that in no way excuses Assad's human rights violations.
Am I defending he may have killed civilians while bombing rebels? Well, not defending, but putting in perspective, since we kill civilians almost daily.
Am I saying that you have been lied to by an administration that destroyed Libya and wants nothing more than to do the same to Syria? Yes, I am.
But hey, let's go to war with Russia based on unproven accusations. I wonder if you're old enough to remember Iraq, and the lies we were told about that? In 2003, we were told a lot of lies to get the population behind the destruction of Iraq. That was 13 years ago, so you were probably in high school or grade school. But it does happen that our government lies to the populous when it wants to destroy a country.
https://off-guardian.org/2016/07/25/assad-the-tyrant/
Nobody said you need to know every event in Syria to form an opinion. You just need to know about a single, proven event that supports the war hysteria narrative you have been fed.
Do you?
The US government paid out a pathetic $6000 to families of the dead civilians. I'm guessing that didn't quite break the bank.
If Assad's regime falls, the Al-Queda and ISIS affiliated groups move in. I'm not sure America wants that. Do we want that? Hard to say!
Saudi Arabia supports the Assad regime falling because the Assad regime is not Sunni.
If we set up a no fly zone in Syria, we are then in direct conflict with Russia's forces. It's no longer a proxy war.
I hope there's a way to be against US intervention in Syria(if only because of grim realpolitik reasons) and simultaneously not defend Assad.
I fully recognize that the Assad regime is terrible(I can pummel you with New Yorker articles). I don't quite believe the Assad people used poison gas, I think the jury is still out on that.
Iran and Syria support Hezbollah because they are unhappy with Israels expansion. Lots of people are unhappy with Israels expansion. How many UN resolutions have condemned Israel for it's actions? You count them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_UN_resolutions_con...
We are Israels big buddy, so we give scary names to the countries that support Hezbollah. But at the same time, we support rebel groups all over the world. Hell, we're supporting rebel groups in Syria right now. We also supported them in Libya.
Don't let the fact that Syria is on a list because of our unhealthy relationship with Israel, make you forget that we belong on that same list ourselves.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Sponsors_of_Terrorism#Sy...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6mARUrPtXk&feature=youtu.be...
"There’s been a lot of misquoting of me and WikiLeaks publications. In this particular case, the misquoting has to do with that we intend, or I intend, to harm Hillary Clinton or that I don’t like Hillary Clinton. All those are false. They come about as a result it seems of this campaign and those who are trying to personalize our publications."
The jews suffered heavily from this in the early 20th century/late 19th century, they were constantly used by others for justifications of power grabs or used as distractions. Before that "Vikings" were heavily used as a constant abstract threat by the English government in the 13-15th century. The church used it to recruit and crown used it to justify authority. In public announcements and oratory they would often warn the population about the threat of savage invasion, spreading fake stories of previous invasions, even though there were zero significant viking events in those times. Much like how anti-semites spread a fake story of Jewish consipracy to take over the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of...
Russia is flawed, corrupt, has some backwards policies and cultural norms (see: homosexuality), and does pose some danger in a foreign policy sense, but largely they're a heavily weakened state with a far bigger bark than bite. Any serious conflict with them would turn nuclear fast so any large war is extremely unlikely. But for the people in question bark is all that's need to exploit the situation.
For example if you're an influential person with deep PR connections and embarassing papers come out, you can make the narrative about the Russia rather than the leaks. 75-90% of the recent coverage of Wikileaks has been about Russia instead of the leaks.
The US military dreams of having a modern military/navy like Russia as an adversary. The military industrial complex is hugely incentivized to promote this narrative and push it heavily in the press.
NATO recently released a statement warning of a repeat of the Ukraine incursion in places like Estonia/Latvia... even though the Ukranian thing was entirely a result of exploiting the crisis and near lawlessness that was already happening there. Russia didn't just randomly decide to invade a sovereign state. So it's so incredibly highly unlikely they'd invade stable NATO counties because they happen to have minor Russian populations.
NATO and other security organizations which are seemingly out of date in a world of modern terrorism warfare are also continuing to pump up the threat to justify their existence (NATO only THIS year opened a counter-terrorism department).
There's lots of other examples of people exaggerating the Russia threat for their own ends but this comment is long enough as it is.
> even though the Ukranian thing was entirely a result of exploiting the crisis and near lawlessness that was already happening there.
"We were just protecting Russian citizens" right?
I'm not saying they didn't do those things or were justified. But that was a very different scenario as Ukraine was very unstable.
The Syrian stuff is a whole other beast. US partners like Saudis and Qatar are supporting some pretty awful stuff in Yemen and Syria too. Even the supposedly moderate rebels the US is backing were apparently extremely hostile to US soldiers who deployed in a village recently, calling them invader devils. Aleppo is bad but if the rebels took the save exit to other towns as the UN chief offered then the horror the civilians stuck there are facing would end. The cease fire failed so I'm not sure what their plan is as the US isn't going to double down. Unless they are betting on Clinton being a war hawk.
Clinton's famous "reset button" was an effort to try to create an opening to reverse that (or, more cynically, merely to be seen as making such an effort.)
Seriously, what the hell dating site claims to be "the first dating site ever to be integrated in a United Nations program."?
"The UN Declaration on Human Rights talks about citizens being able to live without state-level interference, yet here the UN is today, delisting and blocking a small company because we criticized their support for Julian Assange"
Which is a little odd form of argument, not only because it's an unusually highbrow line for a dating agency to take, but also because it doesn't make sense as the UN isn't really "state-level" and the UNDHR doesn't use that word either.
Almost like the person drafting it had interference by "state-level actors" on the brain. Wonder if anyone tweeted something which also used that rather rather arcane term to their 3.7M followers recently?
First, the backstory on this bizarre entanglement: https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/the-bizarre-story-o...
Second, who is the mystery Google engineer tied into this?
seriously, if the allegations were crazy, they'd just say "nope, and here are the facts that are correct". all hands on deck for discrediting him speaks volumes about what is really going on.
the pedophilia smear is very predictable, also... i believe assange himself may have predicted this years ago.
https://wikileaks.org/IMG/pdf/final_report_t_c_17_oct_2016-2...
Does sound pretty sus.
But I was also interested in the quote they have from Noam Chomsky on the KATIA project...
“Very worthwhile project.” —Noam Chomsky on KATIA, 5/11/16
Can't find him mentioning it or anything like it online. Just circular references and none that lead back to Chomsky.
All very odd indeed.