Trump, a one-man wrecking ball, who comes at us shaking his leather-panted toosh like Smiley Silage; we know it's wrong to watch him twerk, but we can't look away; that's some bum. Trump even brings his own rally pole with him. Wall Street keeps tucking in dollar bills. And we fear this clown; he's not a polly; he's unpredictable in certain important ways. Too many of us believe what he says, when it's clear he's speaking Truth to bowels not power. He could pull a coup out of whimsy, for all we know. He may not be sane -- or worse, we may be insane. There's a vaccine we'll never see before 2030, the date scientists are telling us that Climate Change will be taking off the gloves.
So what the christ am I on about? Well, for one thing, Turd Blossom is back in the mix of the 2020 election cycle, working as an unpaid consultant for the Trump campaign. The Times piece even has Turd Blossom chiding Trump about his failure to dirty up Joe Biden sufficiently. But no above the fold play, where such news belongs. If Business Insider, a reliable alternative to the MSM dailies, hadn't featured that information, we might never have seen it deeply buried in the gassy vowels of a NYT piece. Well, to quote Trump, "What the hell is going on?" You might never know what The Truth is by trusting the MSM. That's what I'm going on about.
Just the other day, over at the Democracy Dies in Darkness Daily, columnist Josh Rogan had a go at empty blather with his piece, "Secret CIA assessment: Putin 'probably directing' influence operation to denigrate Biden." Probably? More unnamed sources high in the IC community, supposedly. Check out what Rogan offers up:
"We assess that President Vladimir Putin and the senior most Russian officials are aware of and probably directing Russia's influence operations aimed at denigrating the former U.S. Vice President, supporting the U.S. president and fueling public discord ahead of the U.S. election in November," the first line of the document says, according to the sources.
This is a near-repeat of the 2016 IC assessment that blossomed after the DNC "hack," but that ass-essment had pushers -- Clapper and Brennan, members of the "deep state" Liars Club.
The Rogan piece seems to have been 'developed' out of an August assessment reported by WaPo, "Russia is trying to 'denigrate' Biden while China prefers 'unpredictable' Trump not be reelected, senior U.S. intelligence official says." Note the repeat of 'denigrate', but this time we are treated to the source of the qualified opinion: by William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center. Again, despite the surveillance state clamp on global data streams, a meek assessment without evidence is offered up to the public -- just references to "Pro-Russia Ukrainian parliamentarian Andriy Derkach " spreading claims about corruption--including through publicizing leaked phone calls--to undermine" Biden and Democrats, Evanina said.
Underwhelming evidence of anything. Specific denigrating comments that might have undermined American confidence in Biden would have been helpful.
One wonders why WaPO didn't confer with a former director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, Cofer Black, the guy who gave Bush the head's up about an impending al Qaeda attack on American soil, we're told. Black joined the Board of Directors of Burisma Holdings just after Trump's 2017 inauguration (he would have conferred with Hunter Biden before the latter left a couple of months later). He probably has deep insight into what the pro-Russian Ukrainians were up to, just as he did al Qaeda in the lead up to 9/11.
In fact, one wonders why WaPo didn't chase after the Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin that Joe Biden crowed about having got sh*t-canned, who in February, around the time Rudy Guliani was in Ukraine probing for dirt on Biden, attempted to file a criminal complaint against Biden in Ukrainain courts for interfering in the internal affairs of Ukraine. The first question might be, did Trump put Shokin up to the filing? That would be more impeachable than the quid pro quo phone call that brought about the January circus. WaPo doesn't say, because they didn't check out Black or Shokin. We have to take their authoritarian word for it. Voice of God journalism in the Age of Relativism. Go figure.
While we're at it, even the Evanina report seems to have been derived from another sorry ass source, from the Guardian, asserting in January 2020, around the time Guliani was in Ukraine, "Russians Hacked Ukrainian Gas Company at Center of Impeachment." No 'alleged' -- headline statement of fact. Again, Cofer Black's expert input on this might have been helpful. But the kicker-in-the-head is the source of the allegation is another cybersecurity company, Area 1, that is owned and operated by two ex-NSA hackers. Given what Edward Snowden says is happening, it seems fair to ask if these ex-NSA hackers are homo contractuses, doing US government work in no-accountability private guise. It's almost like our democracy has been privatized. Neither WaPo nor the NYT nor the Guardian, the self-described papers of record, give a sh*t.
And while we're knocking the Guardian in its paper teeth, after knuckledusting the Times and the Daily Darkness, awhile back another Guardian piece stuck in my craw -- "Fresh Cambridge Analytica leak 'shows global manipulation is out of control,'" Duh! might be one response. But the thing here is, the author, Carole Cadwalladr, who broke the Cambridge Anal-ytica story, here brings together two main miscreants of the 2016 election manipulations: CA's "whistleblower" Brittany Kaiser and the one, the only "ex" British spy, Christopher Steele. Both were now concerned about American democracy. Brittany, with a just-released memoir, promised to dish more as the months passed. Nothing yet, October just ahead. Kaiser and Steele, who worked sleeze Left and Right during the 2016 cycle, now seem to be offering up their services as consultants in the new electoral cycle. Contrite, and to the right.
What the hell is going on?
I actually got some clarity when, while following the Julian Assange Extradition event -- live from the Old Barnum and Bailey -- I took the time to watch a short film -- The War on Journalism: The Case of Julian Assange -- that sums up what Assange and Wikileaks stand for, and why they're so goddamned important to any semblance of understanding current events. Instead of listening to all the quack-quack of Bush and Turd Blossom and Obama and Brennan and Clapper and Josh and the claptrap machine that surrounds the loudmouthed Trump, Wikileaks assumes you are intelligent and provides you with primary documentation that no fibbing federale can deny. It's a well-produced short film whose value becomes self-evident. You might want to find the time to watch it.
We are not only amidst a War on Terror, a war that is the terror, but a war on public narratives, cries of "conspiracy theory" from one corner, "Fake News" from the other -- the net effect is aural chaos and maybe even auditory hallucinations (did I just hear that?) that keep us from understanding what's actually happening in the world -- or, at least, America, which is the world for most Americans.
In Counterpunch the other day the estimable Jonathan Cook discussed the letdown lack of support at the trial by Guardian writers Assange collaborated with in the past to tell important public interest stories. He cites investigative journalist Iain Overton's tweet that wonders, "I do not know where those who worked with him at the Guardian are...And frankly, some of them should be ashamed of themselves for that." Worse, Cook shows how some of these past collaborations are being used against Assange, including an unauthorized biography that wants to reveal his thinking during the Wikileaks publication process. Such thinking is important to establish in a future political trial in the US.
I have already seen publications referring to Wikileaks in the past tense. This is not just sad, as we like to say on the Left, but unacceptable. Losing Wikileaks would be a great loss, especially if it is not to be replaced because its practices have been outlawed. In an excellent recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review, Harry Stopes immediately reminds us all of the Wikileaks value:
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
