Grave New World

Langley... We Have a Problem.

"The traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through the alleys..."

Grave New World

by J.D. Tippit | January 07, 2017 (reposted from Medium)

Try to imagine how Apollo 13’s astronauts must have felt after the explosion and the subsequent discovery that the oxygen in their command module was slowly being replaced with CO2. With each breath, they were moving closer and closer to their demise, and time was not on their side. As we all know, that near-disastrous event famously ended happily ever after.

Maybe a more prescient example of our current times then might be that of the Challenger disaster, where career ambition and blind hubris led to the greatest single tragedy in NASA history up to that point in time… a disaster that some say could have been avoided.

As a nation, we are facing a very grave threat. The circumstances that have unfolded over these last few months have the potential to manifest into the gravest danger our country has ever faced… on the one hand, the mere notion that somehow at Putin’s direction, Russia sought rather brazenly and has succeeded in influencing our 2016 electoral process would be a nightmare scenario of epic Cold War proportions; an act of war even. And the mere notion was all that was required to create a veritable hysteria amongst Hillary supporters and Trump haters alike.

Worse still, if Trump is proven to be a Putin loyalist, he would be just the last in a long line of Russian sympathizers embedded in our government. The running narrative coming out of the media, from the Democratic establishment and from Clinton herself throughout the election cycle, was that there were various individuals whose loyalty to America should be questioned and scrutinized. This even included Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein. Later, however, since winning the presidency, all the attention shifted solely to Trump and, most recently, to some of his close advisors. Even General Michael Flynn’s motives have begun to be questioned.

Anonymous sources within the Intelligence Community (IC) have offered their narrative of what they describe as Flynn’s possible criminal behavior. This scenario, if true, would mean that Russia has been busy… on somewhat of a roll you might say… displaying an incredible ability to infiltrate and coerce a fair number of formerly loyal members of our government, including Trump’s team and Trump himself.

…or, one wonders if it could be that Cicero’s words are more apt and prescient, “A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor…”

By now, most believe it to be the latter. The sheer volume of hype, operating in concert as one collective voice…was frankly a dead giveaway. It was all too coordinated… far too repetitive, rehearsed, and frankly desperate. Notwithstanding, the desired effect has been achieved with now as many as 30% of Americans believing Russia had a hand in “helping” Trump get elected and/or in hurting Hillary’s bid for the presidency. Although there is no evidence to support it, many are drawing a direct line of collusion between Trump and Putin supported by the belief that Michael Flynn had nefarious intentions when speaking to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on December 29th.

Now why would Flynn be a target? Maybe he knows where the bodies are buried in Libya and Syria. Maybe that audit he requested at the DIA set off alarm bells. Maybe it's payback for Aljazeera back in 2015. Maybe he's just too dangerous now that Trump is in and Hillary's out.

At this point, there seems to be no stopping the Political Establishment and, by extension, its Corporate Media shills from running this out to the bitter end. The concern is, to what end might that be? Is this a coup to overthrow a democratically elected US President as many have said? …could it be to simply discredit or delegitimize Trump so much that he is mortally hamstrung over these next four years and unable to implement his agenda? …or is it to force an impeachment so that the more reliable and “establishment-friendly” Pence can take over in his place (that still sounds like a coup)? None of these sound good in the long run.

No matter how much one might hate Trump, could any of those ends justify the means? Is it not clear there will be too high a cost? Doesn’t it seem apparent to these insurgents that we are already paying and will continue to pay for this for a very long time? If we allow our system to degrade to such a degree, can we ever hope to regain our moral center as a nation, or are we already on a slope that is too slippery? Worse still, the stench of desperation is so rancid that one must imagine that they will stop at nothing; that the cost for them is never too high. Has that been the plan all along?

The Executive Branch IS and always has been the “primary client” of the powerful Intelligence Community (IC), and collectively, the IC serves at the pleasure of the President. By calling upon that power as it appears Obama has done in a sort of “Houston, we have a problem” moment, he has either inadvertently or purposely scuttled the ship.

Consequently, many will be wishing the Russians had indeed done what they are accused of doing rather than the almost incomprehensible alternative that, as Cicero said, comes from within and maybe something we cannot survive.

Assertions are not Evidence

These assertions about Russia… and they are and always have been assertions and nothing more, need to be backed up with concrete evidence. Reasserting a narrative, in place of providing evidence is, for those who are paying attention, a telling sign that something is awry. Indeed, very few are truly buying it (see poll done by CNBC’s John Harwood, a Clinton surrogate).

Reasserting over, and over again, having experts speculate and hypothesize about their veracity, enlisting other people to confirm the original assertions, getting reporters to write articles about those assertions, or putting them into official reports, doesn’t make them true.

On the other hand, lacking proof does not disprove either. But since the various intelligence agencies and the White House have had ample opportunity to provide something concrete, something damning and have not done so, then we must presume they have nothing concrete or damning to provide. This is supported by the fact on this note they have been utterly mute in this regard, providing no explanation for the lack of real evidence, letting only vague official reports, speak to the confidence they have in the assertions, namely moderate to high, rather than providing real evidence, if it even exists.

Still, there are those who are naturally inclined to give the CIA and the NSA the benefit of the doubt. A willing suspension of disbelief is all that is required.

So, for those who are still convinced that the assertions being made by our intelligence community are the truth, I ask one question.

If something you thought was true was, in fact, NOT TRUE… when would you want to know?

Warning: If you are living in a Post-Fact reality or are factually-faint-of-heart… or in other words, if you are easily triggered when you are presented with facts that are inconsistent with your personal reality, then stop reading now and continue as you were, “informing yourself” by simply reading headlines via tweet, meme or FB friend, never diving deeper… and I promise no one will ask you to think ever again.

The Surveillance State

As US Citizens, we should all know by now that we are being spied upon… wiretapped all the time. Everyone needs to concede to that reality and let it sink in.

Now, enter William Binney, a 32-year veteran Technical Director of the NSA and crypto-mathematician turned whistleblower, who along with Kirk Weibe, worked for Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center (SARC) and created a program, ThinThread, which could collect and filter through massive amounts of communications data (Signals Intelligence or SIGINT) but filter out the irrelevant information making analysis faster and storage more efficient. It was designed to prevent a terror attack like 9/11 but because it collected data on everyone, a specific feature was integrated into the system by Binney and Weibe to protect the privacy and the 4th Amendment rights of American citizens by automatically masking the identities of the American individuals being monitored.

Sometime later, Binney and Weibe discovered that the NSA had taken the mass collection components of ThinThread and adapted them to two other programs, TrailBlazer and later Stellar Wind but had done away with the privacy protections.

As a result, Binney, Weibe, and three others entered into protected whistleblower status and began providing details of the abuses directly to members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The group was responsible for making the first public disclosures of Stellar Wind, the mass surveillance program under G.W. Bush that so famously helped to get Barrack Obama elected. These disclosures revealed how technology was illegally enabling the bulk collection and storage of SIGINT data on all of the communications of US citizens without any 1st, 4th, or 5th Amendment protections.

Essentially the system intervened at the various intersecting hubs of all internet and telecommunications providers. To understand the extent of the data collection, it is estimated that the NSA was collecting over 1.5 billion phone calls per day just through Verizon’s servers alone, and they had cooperation from AT&T, Google, Yahoo, etc. Since 2002, when these programs were implemented, the estimates put the number of bulk collections currently in the tens of trillions. Through the Freedom of Information Act, a report by the DOD Inspector General substantiates Binney’s account of these abuses. As a result of their courage, rules have been put in place that require intelligence officials to minimize, mask, or otherwise redact the names of Americans whose data, phone calls, emails, texts, etc., have been collected and/or monitored in order to hide their identities and afford them their constitutional protections. At least it’s supposed to work that way.

Notwithstanding these efforts, all of us are nevertheless still being surveilled 24/7, through every mode of communication we use. In direct contradiction to the 4th and 5th Amendments, this collection is done without a court order or probable cause even though most of us have not committed any crime, nor are we conspiring to commit a crime.

Also, when William Binney is being interviewed his qualifications on this subject matter are nearly always understated. He is not your average technical analyst paid by a network to say what they want him to say. He is someone who intimately knows the inner workings of the NSA, the Intelligence Community at large, and, most importantly, their capabilities because he has designed some of the most extremely sophisticated surveillance systems being operated by our government today. Additionally, he went through legal whistleblower channels at a time when they were still being honored and was eventually given immunity for disclosing the abuses he and his colleagues were witness to. Binney and Weibe are also members of an elite group of current and former intelligence officials, Veteran Intelligent Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), and as recently as 2015, Binney was honored with the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence award.

Using that as a point of reference, Binney has confirmed dozens of times that if there is any truth to the assertions being made by the IC of collusion between Trump and the Russians, then the NSA would have a record of it. Because they collect every communication that passes from one individual to another, they would absolutely have direct evidence on their servers and would be able to provide that evidence. They would only need to go and get it and unmask the identities of the participants in each of the relevant conversations. He and many of his peers further maintain that since they haven’t provided it thus far, then it must not exist.

The Trade Craft of Propaganda and Misinformation

Following this line, then, what if… what we are being subjected to is classic intelligence agency “Trade Craft,” as it’s called, funneled through a chorus of coordinated leaks reported by varied but familiar voices in the press? This, by the way, is a “Trade Craft” that has been practiced in coordination with the media for over 70 years. Indeed, propaganda as a means of advancing one’s ideas has arguably been around in some form or another since the first governments of Greece and Rome. The standalone term itself, however, appeared in the 19th century and began to be a perfected form of influence manipulation around World War I, when the applied psychological teachings of Freud and Bernays came into favor.

Propaganda has been one of the most significant influences of the 20th century on our society. These last 100 years have been directed largely by the deliberate and coordinated efforts of the government to manipulate our attitudes, beliefs, and motivations. The internet and, most especially, the social media echo chamber have only made it more easily deliverable, sustainable, and ultimately more effective.

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in a democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”― Propaganda, Edward L. Bernays; cir. 1928

One might refer to this statement as the Establishment’s Manifesto. The “invisible government” Bernays refers to is, without a doubt, what we now know to be The Deep State...

…and it’s not as though Bernays said this without knowing what he was talking about. He wasn’t just connecting dots, nor was he the world’s first conspiracy theorist. “The conscious and intelligent manipulation,” as an “unseen mechanism of society” that he spoke about was, in fact, of his own design. It's no accident that by 1930, he would become widely known as the “Father of Public Relations." Living to the ripe old age of 103, I would argue that he was the single most influential human being of the 20th century. Yet, almost no one has ever heard of him.

They say the greatest achievement the devil ever pulled off was convincing the world he didn't exist.

To wit, the establishment counts on the fact that most Americans have short memories, busy lives, and/or a limited attention span. We're also lazy, and no one likes to read. This makes us highly susceptible to manipulation. In addition, the average person rarely gets to see the complete picture of anything; we are like two flies on an elephant, each seeing a different view of one small part. It’s not our fault. We have been the subjects of a protracted mind experiment [I mean marketing campaign] conducted over many years, decades really, and it takes some effort to step out of the echo chamber of America’s mainstream media and the political establishment it represents to forge ahead and find the truth.

For more context, Read: From PSYOP To Mind War: The Psychology Of Victory 

(don't worry, it's only ten pages)

Furthermore, in the search for answers, it is imperative that we see the whole picture as one piece. These answers we seek are also not usually found all in one place. Similar to the elephant, imagine looking at a mosaic up close. A few tiles don’t really tell us what we’re looking at. We must stand back before the larger impression comes into view. To that end, this chronicle became somewhat of an odyssey to dig up all the pieces. To make matters more difficult, the story evolved very rapidly and took many different turns, especially after the election. Until now, I have not seen the entire compilation of events as outlined here, written as one story or in any one single piece. Take a little time to read it as it walks you forward through the story unfolding as it did in real-time, and at the same time, providing the needed context, references, and links.

Perception Management through Coordinated Leaks

It is an unfortunate fact that the political establishment relies very heavily on perception management and its ability to sustain its control of any given number of narratives over extended periods, particularly in times of crisis.

The media has had a longstanding relationship with the IC… This was quite widely exposed in the 1970s by the Church Commission, Operation Mockingbird, and a 25,000-word expose by the well-known useful idiot, Carl Bernstein, among others. Suffice it to say that the CIA had embedded thousands of journalists and reporters into the press and media organizations to plant information, create stories and rumors, and forward various narratives that served their specific ends.

In WWII, battleships would shell a fortified beach for hours, sometimes days before an amphibious landing would be attempted… a practice often referred to as “softening the beach.”

Perception management has this same effect using classic psychological and illusionist techniques to “soften the beach” to help people wrap their minds around whatever impression the power structure is trying to achieve. First, they implant an idea by floating a series of trial balloons using several desired narratives to see what kind of reaction is achieved from each one. There’s no need to convince everyone, just a few people. Herd mentality takes over.

The illusionist creates what can be referred to as a “first impression” that sets up an expectation of what the observer is about to experience by telling them what they are going to see before they actually show it to them. Think of David Copperfield. The illusionist tells them what they are about to see and how they are going to feel after they see it. Then… they roll through the narrative to show them what they wanted to show them, and the embedded first impression dominates and overrides their experience. Simple, right? I’m going to make this pink elephant disappear from the room and you will be completely perplexed and amazed. When the elephant does indeed “disappear” we feel perplexed and amazed. The more time one spends establishing the “first impression”, the stronger the expectation and anticipation, thereby cementing a desired experience that is highly predictable. Indeed, the CIA has been making a 75-year study on human behavior and its inherent predictability. As it turns out, we humans are as predictable as cheese-seeking mice.

Fortunately, one of the most useful ways to counteract the ethereal effects produced by our mainstream media’s 24-hour news cycle is to simply go back and create a timeline of the events in question by organizing all the available information and viewing it as a whole story while applying a critical mind. Picture the evidence wall of a DEA or RICO investigation.

Dating back to early 2016, we find what I would call several well-placed statements provided by people at the very highest levels of our intelligence community (community sounds so warm and friendly). Statements made by James Clapper, John Brennan, Mike Morell, Michael Hayden and some others were published, with the Washington Post (WaPo) mostly taking the lead. Oddly, I actually can’t recall a time when so many high-level people from the intelligence services were speaking to the press on the record, on such a consistent and frequent basis and in such a seemingly coordinated way, either directly or through surrogates. Actually, I take that back… it was at the end of 2002, leading up to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, but we’ll come back to that later.

This story began in mid-2014 when congressional investigators (House Select Committee on Benghazi) had requested documents from the State Department (State) regarding their interest in the attack on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi. Their requests, however, went unanswered. Additionally, the Associated Press (AP) and other media outlets looking into the Benghazi affair had submitted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for documents going as far back as 2010 that also went unanswered.

Then towards the end of 2014, in anticipation of Clinton’s expected run for president, various organizations made dozens of additional FOIA requests to State…

While many documents were turned over to committee investigators, it wasn’t until they learned from the State that Clinton had no emails on the State Department server that they discovered Clinton kept her own personal server. This also begs the question of why Secretary John Kerry stalled in responding to the many FOIA requests from media and other organizations.

Ultimately, the revelation that Sec Clinton had been exclusively using a personal email server instead of a government email server became public in March of 2015 in a story in the New York Times (NYT). To be clear, the only email system she was using was a personal server that she had built for herself, she was not using two systems, one for personal business and one for government business. Federal Regulations, says spokesperson Laura Diachenko, of National Archives and Records, “agencies that allow employees to send and receive official electronic mail messages using a system not operated by the agency must ensure that federal records sent or received on such systems are preserved in the appropriate agency record-keeping system.”

You might be thinking: Colin Powell had a personal email, so what’s the big deal? Well, there were glaring differences. In addition to his government email, Powell had a third-party AOL account, not his server, so records were still retrievable. He did not send classified information or material through this personal email and he had a special executive classification afforded him by President Bush to classify and declassify information as he reasonably saw fit. None of those apply to Clinton. Lastly, the rules at that time did not restrict his use of a personal email account but were changed in 2009 by the Obama administration. It is of note that Powell and Clinton had discussions about how to go about using personal devices including email exchanges.

Jason Baron, director of litigation for the National Archives and Records Administration between 2000 and 2013 said, “It is very difficult to conceive of a scenario — short of nuclear winter — where an agency would be justified in allowing its cabinet-level head officer to solely use a private email communications channel for the conduct of government business,” adding, “I can recall no instance in my time at the National Archives when a high-ranking official at an executive branch agency solely used a personal email account for the transaction of government business.”

Ultimately, it was how the Clinton camp reacted to the public disclosure of the server that would be most revealing.

On May 18, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, while speaking at a cybersecurity conference at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, said that “attempts to hack the presidential campaigns have been detected.” He also disclosed that there had been hacks of the Obama and McCain campaigns in 2008 as well as Mitt Romney’s campaign in 2012. Clapper casually added, “I anticipate as the [upcoming] campaigns intensify, we’ll probably have more of those [attempts].” In fact, hackers had even breached the White House back in 2014 as well as the Joint Chiefs. In the previous month, Clapper had released the annual report on Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community which outlined among other things the risks posed by cyberattack and the top state actors involved.

Interestingly, there was a lot of discussion even back in the fall of 2015, when Jonathan Lampe, a cybersecurity expert with the InfoSec Institute, issued a report to the emerging campaigns that outlined how nearly all of the top presidential campaigns were in danger of being hacked… that any candidate for president “should take information security seriously.” He went on to say, “When hackers can potentially crash planes and cars and disrupt critical infrastructure, the issue becomes an existential threat to the society we live in.”

Then on June 14, it was reported by WaPo and a few other news outlets that the DNC servers had been breached in an apparent effort to secure files compiled as “opposition research” on Donald Trump. When she heard the news, Hillary Clinton made a statement saying, “So far as we know, my campaign has not been hacked into and we’re obviously looking hard at that.”

The DNC decided to bring in CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that quickly determined that Russian hackers had penetrated the server and obtained opposition research that had been compiled on Donald Trump. The intrusion into the DNC was one of several that targeted American political organizations and committees. The networks of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were specifically targeted, as well as the computers of some Republican political organizations. According to CrowdStrike founder Dimitri Alperovitch, “The secondary goal is what can they find in terms of anything negative the DNC may have uncovered about Trump that they may be able to use against him should he get elected president.”

Former general counsel at NSA and council to the CIA Director Robert Dietz, said, “Trump’s foreign investments, for example, would be relevant to understanding how he would deal with countries where he has those investments” if he ended up getting elected. Dietz added, “They may provide tips for understanding his style of negotiating. In short, this sort of intelligence could be used by Russia, for example, to indicate where it can get away with foreign adventurism.”

CrowdStrike’s Alperovitch seemed impressed, “They flew under the radar.” The two crews we detected have “superb operational tradecraft,” he said. A curious contradiction, though, is for the intruders to have such superb tradecraft and yet leave all those fingerprints pointing back to themselves. However, Alperovitch and CrowdStrike claimed to be certain about who hacked the system.

Did anyone bother to notice that Crowdstrike was principally funded by Google, which was one of Hillary's major donors? Or that Alperovitch is a pro-Ukrainian (anti-Russian) fellow at the Atlantic Council alongside Susan Rice?

Another curious detail, the DNC claims the FBI never requested access to do a forensic examination of their servers after the breach was discovered and in fact NO government agency has to date, performed an independent forensic analysis on the system. It would have been standard operating procedure for the FBI to investigate this type of intrusion just as they had with Sony. But if you ask the FBI, they contend the DNC wouldn’t let them examine the server, nor has any intelligence agency examined the DNC servers.

Indeed, the DNC refused the FBI’s repeated requests to analyze the data even though, according to a statement given to CNN by a senior FBI law enforcement official, “The FBI repeatedly stressed to DNC officials the necessity of obtaining direct access to servers and data, only to be rebuffed until well after the initial compromise had been mitigated. This left the FBI no choice but to rely upon a third party for information. These actions caused significant delays and inhibited the FBI from addressing the intrusion earlier.” The third party the FBI had to rely on was CrowdStrike. When asked about the FBI’s statement, the DNC declined to comment further. Perhaps there is more to this story than meets the eye…

The next day, the report outlined the oppositional research done by the DNC on Donald Trump. The report was released by The Smoking Gun who was among the first to break the story. Guccifer 2.0 also claimed to be on the server for over a year. While these claims cannot be entirely validated Guccifer did indeed provide a large amount of documents that were not available publicly and clearly appear to be DNC documents. These documents include a Dossier on HRC, DNC Financial Reports and Donors, some Trump financial documents and additional opposition research, along with documents from Nancy Pelosi, Ben Ray Lujan, and the DCCC for NH, OH, IL, NC, PA and FL showing more collusion which favored certain candidates over others.

June 16, from the NY Daily News, Guccifer 2.0 releases a memo from the Clinton campaign, “Use specific hits to muddy the water around ethics, transparency, and campaign finance attacks on HRC.” “Another memo claims that they ‘will utilize reporters to drive a message’ but do so ‘with no fingerprints’ in the process so that the public believes the messages are coming from the reporters and not the campaign.”

On July 5, FBI Director James Comey released a statement that outlined the scope of Clinton’s email server investigation, what they found, and what recommendations they would make to the DOJ, namely they found that 110 emails in 52 chains were classified at the time they were sent through the personal server. Eight were Top secret, 36 were Secret and eight were Confidential (see Executive Order 13526). Also, among the deleted emails, they found three that were classified, one Secret and two Confidential. Lastly there were 2,000 emails that were “up-classified” after examination that were not classified at the time they were originally sent. Although these were violations of the law in and of themselves, based on several provisions of 18 US Code § 798, the FBI was recommending that no prosecution be pursued.

On July 22, WikiLeaks released just over 44,000 emails and 17,000 attachments “leaked” from the Democratic National Committee. As the emails began to appear in various news reports a narrative of Russian interference began to swell proportional to the emails being released.

On July 24, a determination had already been made that Putin had “Weaponized WikiLeaks.” That same day, the Clinton camp jumped right in blaming it on Russia. There was virtually no talk of the content of the emails themselves. A massive effort, however, was being launched to develop what very obviously looked like a calculated attempt to misdirect the public away from the content.

What proof do we have? Only during the ensuing media storm, they barely covered the substantive content of the emails and instead spent the vast majority of air time hypothesizing over unsubstantiated and nonexistent evidence provided by mostly anonymous sources from some of the most disreputable and opaque organizations about who most likely was responsible for leaking this information.

Moreover, there was a familiar flare to the intensity of it all. I felt like we were squarely in the heat of 2002 and 2003 when the media was hysterical over WMDs in Iraq, culminating in Colin Powell’s “Adlai Stevenson” moment in front of the UN Security Council. But instead of having satellite photographs of missiles, Powell would stake his reputation on “intelligence assessments” that he was confident were accurate. Up to that point, I had not at all been convinced we should be going into Iraq. I wasn’t buying the WMD narrative, but I put faith in Colin Powell and took him at his word. A prime example of the administration and its CIA manipulating the narrative… at any cost (more elaboration on this to follow a bit later).

July 26, in Reuters, “I know that experts have attributed this to the Russians,” Obama said. Red-baiting he says, “What we do know is that the Russians hack our systems, not just government systems but private systems.” “What the motives were in terms of the leaks, all that, I can’t say directly,” and curiously conflating from thin air, Trump with the so-called hack and Putin, “What I do know is that Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed admiration for Vladimir Putin.” He went on to say that the FBI was investigating the leak of the over 19,000 DNC emails which revealed collusion with and favoritism toward Clinton. The trouble is that the FBI has denied investigating the so-called server intrusion reported by the DNC, which wasn’t reported until much later.

Many other articles reporting the same comments shorten the quote to “Experts attribute this to the Russians.” (Politico). Mother Jones goes even further: Clinton Campaign Says There is a “Direct Link” Between Trump and Russian Hackers. (see later)

Next on July 27, former CIA Director Michael Hayden was quoted in a story by WaPo as saying, “Frankly, I don’t think they’re motivated by thinking they can affect the election itself.” Another official stated, “We have not drawn any evidentiary connection to any Russian intelligence service and WikiLeaks — none.” Now here the story plays devil’s advocate citing skepticism amongst various intelligence experts, while doing a very good job of conflating DNC emails, WikiLeaks, Trump, Putin, and Russia, it employs a specific technique that works like this:

I say, DON’T think about the Statue of Liberty!

What happens? I just got you to think about the Statue of Liberty.

The title of the article reads: Is there a Russian master plan to install Trump in the White House? Some intelligence officials are skeptical. Stating it as a question enhances the effect of getting people to think it’s a genuine part of the narrative.

They just got you to think there is a Russian master plan to install Trump in the White House! 

Worse still, it implies there are intelligence officials who do believe it to be true. Otherwise, it would have read “everyone” is skeptical. Trust me, the Post has refined this to an art form and they’re just getting started.

5 weeks later on September 5, the Post again with more breadcrumbs… quoting unnamed intelligence and congressional officials, there is a “broad covert Russian operation in the United States to sow public distrust in the upcoming presidential election and in U.S. political institutions.” Now they conflate the hacking with our voting systems and a Russian operation being conducted on American soil.

Even worse, they enlisted Senators and members of Congress to join in the chorus and were quoted on a daily basis expressing how outraged they were, how alarmed we should all be, and how something needed to be done. Remember David Copperfield.

Senate Intelligence Committee member Daniel Coats of Indiana uses a very effective “if-then strategy”, if Moscow is indeed trying to influence the U.S. election, “such actions would be an outrageous violation of international rules of behavior and cannot be tolerated.”

Senator Ben Sasse from Nebraska, adopting as true with utter conviction, wrote in a statement to Obama, “Free and legitimate elections are non-negotiable. It’s clear that Russia thinks the reward outweighs any consequences,” adding, “That calculation must be changed. . . . This is going to take a cross-domain response — diplomatic, political, and economic — that turns the screws on Putin and his cronies.”

Known liar Rep. Adam B. Schiff of California said, “We’ve seen an unprecedented intrusion and an attempt to influence or disrupt our political process.”

There were many others voicing similar hysteria, but you get the idea… in fact, I’m reminded of an often-quoted line from Bill Murray, “human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!”

A concerted effort to create that hysteria was unfolding, drip by steady drip, keeping in mind that no proof, no evidence of any kind had been presented. There were only the contentions of many high-profile Clinton surrogates… clearly aimed at distracting people away from the real story of collusion between the Clinton campaign and the DNC to sabotage Sanders… but having a distinctly chilling effect as a dangerous and precedent-setting by-product.

Sept 6, the Observer’s Michael Sainato writes “Never mind that Bernie Sanders fellow — Democratic elites called Hillary their candidate in 2015,” adding “from leaks released by Guccifer 2.0 and WikiLeaks so far, it is apparent the Democratic Party [DNC] anointed Clinton as their nominee and worked behind the scenes to manufacture support for this coronation in opposition to Sanders’ candidacy.” Shortly after, Brian Fallon tweeted: “Russian hackers now leaking directly to Jared Kushner’s paper. Trump campaign is not even subtle anymore.” Another transparent attempt at red-baiting, except to the gullible.

Later on Sept 6, Mother Jones headline reads: Clinton Campaign Says There is a “Direct Link” Between Trump and Russian Hackers.

Venturing into exceedingly dangerous territory, they report his baseless tweet and quote Fallon elaborating on the tweet: “Guccifer 2.0 is known to be the Russians. Now that they are leaking materials obtained from their hacking to Trump adviser Jared Kushner’s newspaper, that’s a pretty direct link between Trump and the Russians behind this hack.” That is a whopper of a big stretch and if you read the entire article, it does include quotes from a WSJ interview with the hacker claiming responsibility, but they are at the bottom of the article.

From Guccifer 2.0, “I read several reports, and some experts found out that my proxy IP is hosted at a service that’s somehow connected with Russia and has a version in Russian as well as in English.” “This is their strong evidence.” Remember too that he released damaging information on Trump as well but that was nowhere to be seen on MSM.

First Debate on Sept 26: Clinton Red-baiting to the country, “But increasingly, we are seeing cyber attacks coming from states, organs of states. The most recent and troubling of these has been Russia. There’s no doubt now that Russia has used cyber attacks against all kinds of organizations in our country, and I am deeply concerned about this.”

…and the subtle yet predictable Red-baiting to Trump, “I know Donald’s very praiseworthy of Vladimir Putin, but Putin is playing a really tough, long game here. And one of the things he’s done is to let loose cyber attackers hack into government files, to hack into personal files, hack into the Democratic National Committee.” There it is, she said it. For the cherry on top, wait for it… Clinton herself has tied the DNC to the Russians and called it a “hack”. If there is one thing that can be found in reading the WikiLeaks emails it is the astonishing level of calculus involved in every single action taken or avoided by the Clinton campaign.

On Oct 6, from DC Leaks, another release of hacked emails, this time from Clinton insider Capricia Marshall, revealing “inner circle PR tactics and networking efforts,” including favoritism from MSNBC and its producers.

Oct 7, WikiLeaks begins releasing the Podesta files in daily drips of 2–3,000 leaked emails per day. Fully expecting the leak for several days, the Obama administration answered preemptively and officially named Russia, “ ‘The U.S. Intelligence Community is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations,’ said a joint statement from the two agencies. ‘…These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process.’ ”

Julian Assange after the release of the Collateral Murder tapes in 2010, “…our experience is, that we get attacked when people don’t like the message… we get attacked, not in proportion to whatever we’re doing wrong or doing right, but in proportion to the impact that our material is having.” “They will attack the messenger and try to discolor the message, by proxy.”

Second Debate on Oct 9, two days after the Podesta emails started coming out, Clinton conflates WikiLeaks and Russia for the first time: “Our intelligence community just came out and said in the last few days that the Kremlin, meaning Putin and the Russian government, are directing the attacks, the hacking on American accounts to influence our election. And WikiLeaks is part of that,” and Trump responds, “But I notice, anytime anything wrong happens, they like to say the Russians are — she doesn’t know if it’s the Russians doing the hacking. Maybe there is no hacking. But they always blame Russia. And the reason they blame Russia is because they think they’re trying to tarnish me with Russia.”

Obama talking about censoring [Fake News] in PA on Oct 13, “We are going to have to rebuild within this wild-wild-west-of-information flow some sort of curating function that people agree to.”

Last Debate on Oct 19: Clinton’s continues conflation of WikiLeaks, Russia, Podesta, and the DNC, “You are very clearly quoting from WikiLeaks and what’s really important about WikiLeaks is that the Russian government has engaged in espionage against Americans,” “They have hacked American websites, American accounts of private people, of institutions, then they have given that information to WikiLeaks for the purpose of putting it on the Internet,” she added.

“This has come from the highest levels of the Russian government, clearly from [Vladimir] Putin himself, in an effort — as 17 of our intelligence agencies have confirmed — to influence our election.” “So I actually think the most important question of this evening, Chris, is finally will Donald Trump admit that the Russians are doing this and that he rejects Russian espionage?”

This is referred to as a PSYOP.

Although the emails continue to be released daily, many still firmly believed Hillary won at least two of the debates and would easily win the election.

The debate follow-up article in Esquire on Oct 20 really crossed a line. By assuming the narrative as a fact, as a forgone conclusion, yet still with zero evidence is astonishing.

On Oct 28, Director Comey sent a highly controversial letter supplementing his congressional testimony regarding the discovery of new emails that appeared pertinent to the original investigation and the need to examine them for classified material. With only 11 days remaining before the election, it sets off a firestorm from the Clinton campaign and the media.

Then on Nov 5, the weekend just before the election, esteemed investigative journalist and war correspondent John Pilger, interviews Julian Assange. Very few people saw this captivating interview because the mainstream media would not broadcast it. Assange very clearly articulates his belief that Hillary will win, that his source is not Russia. And “WikiLeaks has been publishing for ten years, and in those ten years, we have published ten million documents, several thousand individual publications, several thousand different sources, and we have never got it wrong.” In response to a question about favoring Russia he points out the fact that WikiLeaks has, quote, “published about 800,000 documents of various kinds that relate to Russia. Most of those are critical; and a great many books have come out of our publications about Russia, most of which are critical. Our [Russia] documents have gone on to be used in quite a number of court cases: refugee cases of people fleeing some kind of claimed political persecution in Russia, which they use our documents to back up.” Assange, in fact, has been quite critical of Russia’s policies and human rights abuses, and Putin is by no means a fan of his either.

On Nov 6, Comey determined from the 650,000 newly discovered emails that, “Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton.”

Notwithstanding Comey’s bombshell letter and subsequent retraction, the polling numbers hardly moved and seemed to indicate an easy win for Clinton. Many of the polls appeared to be weighted towards Clinton, though, and that could very well be the primary contributing factor as to why the result was so different from the expectations. One example was Reuters/Ipsos on Nov 7, which had Hillary at 42.1% to Donald Trump’s 33.8%. If you look deeper, however, the number of Democrats polled was 6736 compared to 5186 Republicans (1787 Independent, 1315 Other). That means 44.83% of the 15,024 polled were Democrats, and 34.51% were Republicans, making the race a dead heat. Now you can see how that poll’s weighting (and they were not the only ones) could have presented problems. There are only so many reasons why a poll would be weighted like that. A simple mistake is not likely. Some say it was to create a winning atmosphere for Clinton, which would ostensibly lead to more enthusiasm to vote for her; and/or to discourage Trump voters from coming out to vote since it was a lost cause anyway.

Election Day, Nov 8… what a shocker.

The irony of it all is that Clinton chose Trump as her “Pied Piper Candidate,” whom they would “elevate” in the GOP race. Quoting a Clinton campaign memo released by WikiLeaks, “Our hope is that the goal of a potential HRC campaign and the DNC would be one-in-the-same: to make whomever the Republicans nominate unpalatable to a majority of the electorate.” Engineering which Republican nominee they wanted to run against was, in their mind, a great strategy for an easy win, especially because they were so sure an “unpalatable” Trump would be easily defeated. The strategy memo was contained in an email attachment released by WikiLeaks.

The ironies don’t stop there as the arguably very left leaning Salon points out in their election post-mortem on Nov 9, that “while the Clinton camp was facilitating the rise of Trump, it was systematically undermining the campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s left-wing opponent.” Adding further, “Leaked emails from the Democratic National Committee show that the organization, which is supposed to be bound to impartiality, sabotaged Sanders’ insurgent presidential campaign, which had mobilized millions of people and inspired a massive grassroots movement.” They don’t seem at all bothered that the source of the information is WikiLeaks, touting them as the whistleblower organization that revealed the DNC manipulation of the primary. Oddly, there was no mention of hacking or fears that the Russians were coming.

Meanwhile, Mother Jones cited a HuffPost poll showing Sanders was the most favorable politician in the country just two weeks before the general election.

Obama makes a statement as he is beginning to regroup on Nov 9, “We have to remember that we’re actually all on one team… We’re not Democrats first, we’re not Republicans first, we are Americans first. We’re patriots first. We all want what’s best for this country.” Just remember that nothing the WH does is by accident. Calculus. Every statement, every action and every reaction and the timing thereof is carefully weighed and analyzed and then nuanced for the greatest political impact.

Meanwhile, reports began to emerge that so-called [Fake News] was somehow responsible for the election results, that somehow people were deceived by this and changed their votes as a result.

Zuckerberg posted a statement on FB on Nov 12, “To think [Fake News] influenced the election in any way is a pretty crazy idea.” “Of all the content on Facebook, more than 99 percent of what people see is authentic,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Only a very small amount is fake news and hoaxes. The hoaxes that do exist are not limited to one partisan view, or even to politics,” adding it was “extremely unlikely hoaxes changed the outcome of this election.” Yet, two weeks later, he was rewriting algorithms because Fake News was the hugest problem, and it needed to be stamped out. Yet by Nov 19, he was promising to develop tools to fight fake news and in the middle of December, Zuck unveiled his “first serious effort to wipe out fake news.”

On Nov 25, the Obama administration issued an official statement referring to the breach of the DNC server and the leak of emails from John Podesta, “The Kremlin probably expected that publicity surrounding the disclosures that followed the Russian government-directed compromises of emails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations, would raise questions about the integrity of the election process that could have undermined the legitimacy of the president-elect.”

He went on to defend the integrity of our election, “Nevertheless, we stand behind our election results, which accurately reflect the will of the American people,”

The administration said it remained “confident in the overall integrity of electoral infrastructure, a confidence that was borne out.” …adding, “As a result, we believe our elections were free and fair from a cybersecurity perspective.” Read the full text.

But on the same day, Nov 25, and a full two weeks prior to its “CIA leak piece”, the Post article on so-called Fake News sets off a media frenzy. Equally as forceful, however, is the unanticipated pushback from these purveyors of Real News. Maybe now, we start to understand that the real question everyone should be asking is, what are the true reasons behind this Fake News, PropOrNot propaganda?

The CIA leaks to the Washington Post?

The next frenzy came on Dec 9 as the Washington Post ran the highly controversial article that cited “anonymous sources” at the CIA who were referencing a “secret assessment” that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, and none of those sources were as yet willing to come forward. That’s an easy one to swallow, wouldn’t you say? Hasn’t the CIA been doing this for 70 years? They are the CIA after all. Surely, we can trust anything they say.

Referring back to the September 5 WaPo article: “officials” stated that this was a “broad covert Russian operation in the United States to sow public distrust in the upcoming presidential election and in U.S. political institutions,” so then why would the CIA leak this so-called “secret assessment”, if not to sow public distrust in our political institutions? Just as importantly, why did they wait until after the election to leak this, if not to see who won first before deciding that indeed, the public’s trust needed to be undermined? It seems obvious. Like most everyone, they thought Hillary was going to win the election, and if she had, it would have been swept under the rug along with all of the other cyberattacks directed at our campaigns, institutions, and agencies over the last 8 years. When she didn’t win, they would then need to undermine the public’s trust in Trump. This is where I declare that I’m not a Trump apologist. The significance of the efforts being taken cannot be overstated. Trump, and Hillary for that matter are but symptoms of a much deeper problem.

And Now for the Magic Show

For people who have seen this type of thing before, it is clearly starting to look like a Psyop. A coordinated and purposeful effort to conflate issues that are not really connected while misdirecting events away from each other that should be linked. Adding to that, several narratives are designed to distract and misdirect from what is really going on.

Hacking. Russian hacking. Trump's affection for Putin! Is Putin hacking our election? Voting systems were hacked? No one denying hacked voting machines. Trump is a Russian puppet! Putin altered our election. He did it to help Trump. He did it to hurt Clinton. Not My President! He did it to help Trump. It did help Trump. David Copperfield says Abracadabra and Trump are illegitimate.

Now it’s time to connect a few dots…

One thing that is quite relevant and very interesting in that it has been wholly underreported is the Washington Post’s relationship with the CIA. It is not widely known, but in August 2013, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos personally purchased the Post for 250 million dollars. Some months later he signed a 600 million dollar contract with the CIA to build Cloud Servers to house CIA data.

As the Post has been way out front on both of these bombshell stories, namely Fake News and CIA leaks as well as many others that have been derived from so-called “anonymous sources” at the CIA and other intelligence agencies, one need not take any great leap to see the connection of some dots. One might say that in being a “friend” of US Intelligence, Bezos’ motivations are called into question as he has a significant financial stake in the CIA. Certainly this extends to a potential financial interest in discrediting Trump who has threatened to shut down foreign wars in Syria and policies of regime change, which the CIA has made into a cottage industry. Nor has détente with Russia ever been part of their agenda.

Bezos is also no fan of WikiLeaks. Siding with the Dept. Homeland Security, he took an aggressive stance toward Wikileaks by booting them from Amazon Web Services which provided the web hosting for WikiLeaks during the release of the Collateral Murder tapes.

Now it’s time to connect a few more dots…

Who originally leaked the story that Russia is influencing? Clapper, Crowdstrike, WaPo

Who are the players?

CrowdStrike

a) Third Party who provided “hacking” analysis to the intelligence community

b) Owned by Senior Fellow at Pro NATO think tank Atlantic Council, cozy with Obama

c) Anti-Russian Atlantic Council

d) HRC supporter Google provided the venture capital @ 100mn 2/3

e) DNC refused analysis from the FBI

CIA through WaPo

a) Bezos owns WaPo

b) Bezos under contract with CIA (600m)

c) Remind me, who is being called a fascist?

What is the connection to the media? Some may ask, why would the media be so eager to let the CIA feed them information? The media has a long and incestuous relationship with the CIA. This is by no means news. It’s, in fact, extremely well documented. Look no further than the CIA’s own website, for starters, and although many of the operations listed there tend to put the CIA in a good light, they are nevertheless quite revealing. Also, throughout the history of the CIA, there have been many Congressional and Senate Sub-committee investigated…

Threat Inflation and the Russian Hacking Narrative

Although there is nothing new about “Red-baiting”, this latest form of neo-McCarthyism has been embraced to such a large extent in the media and now among a sizable amount of the US populous that one might call it, to coin a new phrase, “herd McCarthyism.”

Red Scares began in earnest around the time the CIA was created in 1947, and even before. Today, the average journalist is under 30 and hasn’t had the experience to realize that this is not new. Many may not even be aware of Senator Joe McCarthy’s communist witch hunt in the early 50s or the tactics he employed. More recently, by that, I mean since the ’80s, we see political opponents slinging the “Russian sympathizer” slur back and forth and across the aisles to gain a perceived political advantage, weakening political rivals, using the media who are eager to lap up the ratings in quite a predictable fashion. It’s so regular at this point that the only thing unpredictable about it is which side, the Republicans or the Democrats, will claim to be the patriot while labeling the other a Pinko loyalist.

Most disturbing of all is how effective it is; it really works! I doubt most have any real idea of how prevalent it has been in the past and, thus, how transparently obvious these tactics have become to those who have seen them before. There’s been a cumulative psychological effect produced over the last four or five decades which makes it quite easy to raise people’s fear. It’s as old as a White Hat/Black Hat western. A sustained narrative that paints the Russian communists as the bad guys and the US as the good guys.

25 years of Red-Baiting

In 1992, during the presidential campaign, President Bush (41) made references to Bill Clinton’s visit to Moscow in 1969 as a student, hinting at possible connections to the KGB and conflating his anti-war protests in England as anti-American to drive the point home and paint him good and “Red.” Bush was quoted as saying, “To be in a foreign country and demonstrate against your own country when it’s at war — that’s wrong.” The Denver Post wrote, “Bush hints that when Bill Clinton visited the Soviet Union on a student tour, Clinton may have met with KGB officers. Bush implies that something sinister was arranged. What was it?? The KGB sent a brainwashed Bill Clinton back to become governor of Arkansas.”

Retired FBI agent Ivian C. Smith, who worked in the Little Rock field office, said about Clinton’s 1969 visit, “That’s never been satisfactorily explained,” adding, “We would have liked to have a more complete answer to what happened during those weeks there.” All that was needed was one small seed of doubt that no one could ever explain away because there was no proof either way. These rumors persisted well after the campaign into Clinton’s second term and beyond.

Ironically enough, as reported in Time, the US exerted significant influence on the Russian election in 1996 to bring about the reelection of the drunk “butcher of Chechnya” Boris Yeltsin, under Clinton’s direction. Some say this provided back-door access to US corporations into the Russian economy. Whether that was the true motivation for meddling in their election or not, Yeltsin’s victory paid large dividends to US corporations who capitalized on the untapped opportunities. It would seem Time Magazine, among others, has no taste for nostalgia, wanting to leave the past in its place as we see MSM failing to revisit the good ole days when this story was first reported… when journalism still had some integrity. As it were, Putin was swept into power over the very issue of Western capitalists overrunning the country. This certainly had what appeared to be CIA fingerprints all over it. It’s common knowledge that the CIA directly supports and intervenes internationally on behalf of Wall Street and US corporations.

Later, in 1997, Clinton and VP Al Gore were accused of being too soft related to Russia’s contract with Iran to build the Bushehr nuclear reactor on the Persian Gulf Coast (sounds familiar). This spilled over to the 1999 campaign season. The GOP used that to fuel a controversy involving Gore and the Russian mafia to make him appear sympathetic to the Russians for providing “tacit approval” of the Russian mob activity as he was campaigning for what turned out to be his unsuccessful run for president in 2000. Questions were also raised about Al Gore’s family connections to Soviet agent Armand Hammer. According to J. Michael Waller, a writer for Insight magazine, “some U.S. intelligence professionals have viewed with deepening concern the two generations of relations between the Hammers and the Gores.” Waller quoting a retired CIA official, “Are you unwilling to ask the public if they want a president who owes his personal family wealth to a known Soviet agent?”

In 2008, Hillary Clinton’s campaign circulated a picture of Obama in traditional African dress and turban as if to bolster the claim that he was a Muslim. While it’s not “Red” baiting, it is the exact same tactic. Obama had to spend much of his campaign defending himself as a Christian. The Clinton campaign and eventually Hillary herself denied being behind the release although one staffer was quoted as saying, “Wouldn’t we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were [Clinton]?”

It was Romney’s turn in 2012, red-baiting Obama on his attitude of flexibility: “Russia, this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe,” Romney said. “They fight every cause for the world’s worst actors. The idea that [Obama] has some more flexibility in mind for Russia is very, very troubling, indeed.” Romney’s comments were not entirely without merit. As was the case, Obama was unaware his comments to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev were being recorded on a hot mic… it is, however, a prime example of red-baiting an opponent using a weak argument or contextually ambiguous comment.

Obama’s reply to Romney at the debate? “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because…the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.” Obama surely regrets this attitude given current circumstances.

…and Clinton pivoting Obama to downplay Romney. “It’s somewhat dated to be looking backward,” adding that Romney was stuck in a “Cold War mind warp.” So, which is it? One would think the Russians weren’t worthy of a second thought. Obama, Clinton, Kerry, Albright, and pundits alike were all quick to defend the narrative that Russia wasn’t a threat worth considering…

Unfortunately, that narrative didn’t play very well considering the 2014 crisis that followed in Ukraine. Nevertheless, Obama still tried to hold the line that Romney was still wrong on Russia. It does, however, run rather inconsistent with the official line that the coup was of Russian origin.

Clinton also compared Russia/Ukraine coup to Nazi aggression: “Now, if this sounds familiar, it’s what Hitler did back in the 30s,” she said. “All the Germans that were … the ethnic Germans, the Germans by ancestry who were in places like Czechoslovakia and Romania and other places, Hitler kept saying they’re not being treated right. I must go and protect my people and that’s what’s gotten everybody so nervous.”

The term “Red-baiting” itself dates to 1927 and naturally, as one might expect, has been used most frequently by the right to target the left. However, what we’ve recently seen is a dramatic shift, with the Clinton campaign turning the tables and Red-baiting her political opponents throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, all of whom are apparently Russian sympathizers to a degree never seen before. On the surface, one might think that our country has been infiltrated by numerous Russian sleeper cells who have been living here for decades and have only now been activated within our political system.

Senator Sanders took to honeymooning in the Soviet Union in 1988 and, somewhere along the way, was compromised, as evidenced by speaking admirably about Cuba and being a self-described Socialist. The New York Times associated him with the Hammer and Sickle…

George Will sowing seeds of doubt, called him morally obtuse because of his so-called “associations with communism” in Cuba and his comments about communist countries from China to Nicaragua. He was just flat-out called a die-hard communist by the NY Post.

Once Trump was the opposing candidate it was only a matter of time before Clinton began to “paint it red” with this attack ad as it were. Trump was an easy target with his campaign rhetoric which advocated for a reduction in tension with Russia and goals of working more closely on matters of common interest. Trump/Putin hit piece. As it turns out, the running processional of so-called Putin loyalists provided well-needed political cover for Clinton from WikiLeaks’ release of leaked DNC emails on July 22. Two days later, the threat inflation continues unabated with Defense One’s sensational hyperbole, WikiLeaks has been “weaponized” by Putin…

Next was Jill Stein, who quite frankly, made it pretty obvious that she was under Putin’s spell by criticizing US war policy while standing in front of the Kremlin. Economist and Clinton operative Andrew Weiss called it “creepy” saying Stein was “gushing over Russian support for human rights.” Weiss is a senior advisor at the Albright Stonebridge Group, working under close Clinton ally Madeleine Albright, and has close ties with the Clinton Global Initiative. In an interview with Democracy Now two days before, Julian Assange said he was seeing attacks on Stein from the “Clinton threat machine” increasing and described what the Clinton campaign was doing as “extortion.”

Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at NYU and Princeton and who is the furthest thing from a Trump supporter described on CNN the “reckless branding of Trump as a Russian agent, most of it is coming from the Clinton campaign,” adding “the media is full of what only can be called neo-McCarthyite charges that he is a Russian agent, that he is a Manchurian candidate, and that he is Putin’s client.”

Esquire was perhaps one of the more alarmist with its bold graphics and shocking headline:

How Russia pulled off the Biggest Election Hack in US History; the clear ownership as fact is quite breathtaking only to be exceeded by its sublime implications.

Let’s be honest… isn’t this simply a form of institutionalized xenophobia? But it is condoned because we are talking about our arch-enemy, the Russians. It takes Threat Inflation to a whole new dimension without inventing a new bogeyman. There are already generations of imbedded ideas in the American psyche, which makes it easy to stir up fear and resentment over Russia by using very subtle propaganda, and now this… “hacking our election” well must be stopped.

Russian Reset

Comically, if anyone should be accused of being in bed with Putin, it would be Hillary Clinton. In fact, MADSEC Clinton under Obama was accused of being soft on Putin when the Russian “Reset” was announced in 2009. Like Trump, Obama desired and was attempting to improve relations with Russia. While things did improve, something else occurred behind the scenes in the form of a significant windfall for the Clintons. This all happened right under Obama’s nose, notwithstanding the written guarantees she had provided to the Obama administration promising that she and her foundation would not benefit from her appointment to the State Department and that all donations to the Clinton Foundation would be disclosed accordingly for review.

The Wall Street Journal reported that HRC State Dept. urged US investors to fund Russian military research. In a subsequent report by the Government Accountability Institute, we learn these companies were later warned by the FBI that their business relationships with research facility Skolkvovo, “may be a means for the Russian government to access our nation’s sensitive or classified research development facilities and dual-use technologies with military and commercial application.”

Uranium One

Meanwhile, the Clinton, who between 2009 and 2013 had been involved in a transaction that “gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States,” are swirling in crimson. Uranium One’s chairman gave the Clinton Foundation millions of dollars which were not disclosed, violating the Ethics Agreement State had with Sec Clinton and the Memorandum of Understanding signed by Bill Clinton had with the State Department. WJC was also paid an inordinately high speaking fee of $500,000 by one of the investment banks brokering the deal. In a press release from WikiLeaks that coincides with the release of the Podesta email leak on October 7, references to further documentation on Uranium One are revealed, connecting John Podesta and a Clinton donor, Jose Fernandez.

Who then is more likely connected to Russia and who exactly is influencing who?

It’s About the Content, Stupid

What’s simply astonishing is how the content of the emails… none of which has ever been disputed, has been so completely drowned out by what has been an incredible effort at misinformation, misdirection, and obfuscation. Since Day One, there has been a calculated effort to steer the media and the public away from the story. Indeed, very few people have read any of the emails themselves, nor have they looked beyond the context of the situations being discussed. The content has simply been disregarded out of hand. Delegitimized and Invalid. Why? Because “she” doesn’t deserve this…. And why is that? Critical thinking is the proverbial baby being thrown out with the bathwater… and no one seems to regret the loss of that child as long as the content of the emails disappears. Or is content the baby and critical thinking the bathwater? Either way, it’s tragic.

Well beyond the tragedy is the danger this has placed our country in by floating a narrative that involves a nuclear power like Russia. Even worse, it places the legitimacy of our institutions at risk and sets a precedent for future administrations to utilize these tactics if they are unhappy with the results of a free and fair election. Utilizing this narrative serves only the establishment: to cast blame for the election loss away from the DNC, the Clinton campaign, and the Democratic party leadership and to misdirect attention away from the content of the email leaks and coinciding hacks which reveal the vast corruption within our so-called democratic system.

What doesn’t play well for the aggrieved parties is the narrative of a disgruntled DNC staffer passing the emails along to WikiLeaks through go-between Craig Murray. If that’s the narrative, then one cannot divert attention away from the content because the content is the reason the staffer is disgruntled. Another narrative needed to be supplanted.

One needs only to read a select few emails to realize the depth and weight of what is there and how truly damning the content is.

Among the choicest of exchanges, dates back to the very beginning of “ServerGate” in March of 2015, when the NYT first broke the story about the private server… the Times submitted questions for the Clinton camp to respond. The way Clinton staffers reacted is very telling and serves as a clear example of how the Clinton spin machine went to work to conflate the ServerGate story and change its narrative. One needn’t make a very big leap to see it as a primer for RussiaGate.

My personal theory is that once the discovery was made that the emails had been leaked back in March, the Russian “hacking” narrative was cooked up as a way to piggyback onto smaller hacks from DC Leaks and Guccifer 2.0 as a way to run interference in the event the information was made public. Would John Podesta rather look stupid or guilty? Stupid for allowing a phishing campaign to penetrate his email or guilty for the content found in the emails themselves. The latter even provides a low level of sympathy for screwing up so badly. Plus these stories also provide perceived validity in that they are all titled “How the Russians hacked Podesta’s email” still without providing any proof. The old saying, “Perception is everything.” There is no difference between this narrative and the one that the media is peddling; neither one has a shred of proof but is a mere assertion. The only person telling us that Podesta responded to the phishing attempt was, you guessed it, John Podesta.

Clinton Staffers are seen trying to misdirect the NYT. The objective was to “conflate” Benghazi and the private server controversy to draw the focus away from what was then being called “ServerGate.”

“If the objective is purely to undermine the Benghazi hearings, I think these spots will certainly help do that,” Shur shot back. “But if the objective is to connect emails-Benghazi and conflate the two in voters’ minds (which consultants feel is an imperative here), I’m not sure we know whether we can credibly do that”

Nick Merrill noted “a few tweaks” he and others had made to the statement.

“Specifically, we added some straight-forward language in the third paragraph that aims to do two things: give this guy some simple context for the emails he references, and nudge this ever-closer to put it in the Benghazi box,”

John Podesta “My perspective is that we want the fight to be about Benghazi, not about servers in her basement,” Podesta said.

Oren Shur “The trick, of course, is to connect Benghazi to emails in a way that’s credible. But we discussed different ways to do it.” “The difficult part here is testing — if we want to ship something early next week, our testing options are very limited, and I feel like we really need to understand whether voters will believe that we can credibly conflate Benghazi and emails,” he continued.

This series of emails shows how Clinton attempted to hide a “private position” in favor of a more palatable “public position” by publicly downplaying the email server while in private recognizing how damaging the scandal could be. Further, the efforts made to manage perception are breathtaking. Ironically, it was revealed later in an email, how she described the need for having a public position and a private one in a talk she gave to National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC), which she so bitterly refused to release willingly. “I mean, politics is like sausage being made. It is unsavory, and it always has been that way…” using a remark often attributed to Otto von Bismark who said, Laws are like sausages. It is better not to see them being made.

It would seem that one of the planks of the new Democratic party’s platform is the denial of all critical thought… or in the affirmative, we will swallow the establishment media’s plat du jour.

If people want to say Trump is somehow delegitimized because of “possible” Russian involvement in the obtaining and releasing of true information about Clinton and the DNC, then what does that say about Clinton’s legitimacy as the Democratic nominee when the information itself, again true information, pertains to the DNC corruption and manipulation that won her the nomination in the first place.

As per Article 5, Section 4 of The Charter and Bylaws of the DNC:

In the conduct and management of the affairs and procedures of the Democratic National Committee, particularly as they apply to the preparation and conduct of the Presidential nomination process, the Chairperson shall exercise impartiality and evenhandedness as between the Presidential candidates and campaigns. The Chairperson shall be responsible for ensuring that the national officers and staff of the Democratic National Committee maintain impartiality and evenhandedness during the Democratic Party Presidential nominating process.

Remember that Debbie Wasserman Schultz was fired along with Chief Executive Amy Dacey, CFO Brad Marshall, and Communications Director Luis Miranda. The DNC apologized to Bernie Sanders but how does that restore Clinton’s legitimacy as the nominee? Remember too that CNN fired an indignant Donna Brazile for assisting Clinton with unfair debate prep, namely leaking debate questions to Clinton ahead of the debates with Sanders. Does the adage, “Cheaters Never Prosper” come to mind? More to the point, this corruption was all discovered because of the leaked emails released by WikiLeaks.

There was a time when the discovery and prosecution of political corruption was applauded, no matter what the means. Without Deep Throat, Nixon might have gotten away with the Watergate burglaries. Would we have uncovered on our own, the Iran-Contra arms dealings between Iran and the US, if Mehdi Hashemi, who was later executed for treason, had not leaked the information to the Lebanese newspaper Ash-Shiraa. Or if freshman Senator John Kerry (now Sec of State) had not maintained his dogged pursuit into the matter and pushed even further against the CIA’s connection to drug smuggling in Nicaragua, would the story have ever come to light?

Conflation Strategy

It has become a quite common political tactic to purposely confuse or conflate issues and events that are neither linked nor truly associated with each other but rather, they may be politically embarrassing or damaging. There are at least two clear examples of this.

What has been completely lost on most people is that the so-called “hacked” portion of emails only accounts for part of the entire collection of documented disclosures. The Clinton campaign and the press went to great lengths over many months to first “conflate” (their word, not mine) all the information that had been exposed while shifting or misdirecting the focus away from the content and towards the “hacking” angle. Away from legitimate document releases such as the State Dept., FOIA & FRA requests and lawsuits, Congressional subpoenas, compliant releases & WikiLeaks, and towards the “hacked” variety, namely Guccifer 2.0 and DC Leaks. Linking legitimate information with illegal activity provided an easy bridge to the threat inflation of hacked political campaigns and committees perpetrated by Russian operatives. It also provides an ever-unfolding narrative for finding the perpetrators, protecting ourselves from future attacks, punishing those responsible, answering questions as to how we let it happen, and then passing laws to make it harder in the future. Meanwhile, the real subject of the scandal gets forgotten and is never addressed.

The second conflation is as subtle as a lead brick. We have “hacked” emails, State-sponsored espionage, a plot to alter the outcome of our election, a Russian cyberattack, Putin loyalists seeking the presidency, and a Putin loyalist headed for the White House.

…to be continued soon.