Happy Face

Good read.. https://www.emptywheel.net/2016/12/12/cia-avoiding-conclusion-putin-hacked-hillary-retaliate-covert-actions/ On Ukraine: The likelihood that Russia targeted the former Secretary of State for a series of covert actions, all impacting key Russian interests, that at least started while she was Secretary of State. Those are: 1. Misleadingly getting the UN to sanction the Libya intervention based off the claim that it was about protecting civilians as opposed to regime change 2. Generating protests targeting Putin in response to 2011 parliamentary elections 3. Sponsoring “moderate rebels” to defeat Bashar al-Assad 4.Removing Viktor Yanukovych to install a pro-NATO government Importantly, the first three of these happened on Hillary’s watch, with her active involvement. And Putin blamed Hillary, personally, for the protests in 2011. Never mind the relative merit of these covert operations. Never mind that Putin has not, yet, released any evidence to support his claim that Hillary (or CIA) supported the 2011 protests targeting him personally; there is no doubt he believes it. During the primary Hillary as much as confirmed that when her diplomats negotiated the UN voted in 2011, they had regime change in mind the whole time. The US has acknowledged its covert operations against Assad in Congressional testimony. And hackers released a call from Victoria Nuland acting like she was in charge of deciding what post-Yanukovych Ukraine would look like. In other words, whatever the merits and evidence behind these four events, there is no doubt Putin sees them as a threat to Russian interests and blames the US for all of them, with merit in at least some of the cases.

I think the only one who made that sort of implication was a climate change denier worried about the mars base we have despite not having reached the moon.

Your timeline starts after this... http://www.stripes.com/news/us-nato-move-ahead-with-romanian-anti-missile-base-1.249597 and portrays Russia as acting to claw Ukraine back from a move West rather than Russia responding to a move east by US and NATO forces. This has long been documented as a Russian fear that has gone unheeded by our expansion. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-expansion-did-the-west-break-its-promise-to-moscow-a-663315.html

Fu! King! Hell maan. Even the people completely on board with your anti-austerity, anti-establishment Corbyn maypole dance aren't doing it right

Amazon were doing 99p Kindle versions of "The Establishment: And how they get away with it" by Owen Jones last week, so I've got that to read.

Most people know they do. Most think it's only in the tinpot countries that get trampled in the machinations of the major powers though. I think it's rare that major powers are shown to have meddled in each others elections successfully. That's why the CIA accusation is such big news right now and why the question of what was done requires evidence to calibrate exactly how far it extended beyond traditional norms.

"THE SECRET STORY OF HOW FOUR U.S. ADVISERS USED POLLS, FOCUS GROUPS, NEGATIVE ADS AND ALL THE OTHER TECHNIQUES OF AMERICAN CAMPAIGNING TO HELP BORIS YELTSIN WIN" http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19960715,00.html

Because Snowden approached Glenn Greenwald directly based on his years of writing and at that point Greenwald happened to be on a short stint at the Guardian. It was extremely fortuitous for them that the story landed in their lap. Greenwald left soon after. Of course, the fact that the Guardian hired Greenwald in the first place says a great deal about how they encourage anti-establishment writers, so your point stands.

Have you not read Parky on this for the last 10 years? Completely batshit.

Good read. The 1% could nip it in the bud by sharing more of the pie. Bernie was the route to salvation for capitalists with a conscience. They kept cheering for Clinton and more of the same though.

The UK public have no influence over those other despicable actors whatsoever though. Electing a government having been informed on their actions isn't naval gazing is it? When you miss a mortgage payment do you send the Halifax to talk to the bloke over the road that missed 2 payments or do you get your own house in order?

Not a gardener?

Good post. I think what's naive is reducing it to good and bad. There's not right and wrong, there's competing national (and business) interests. Manoeuvres played and responses, that's what I thought the Dan Carlin Podcast on "poking the Bear" was excellent at presaging. You can pick a side and argue why that is the one you want to prevail. Why ignorance would be bliss on one side and why knowing actual true facts destabilises our democracy. Most of us in the west would obviously want western interests to defeat Eastern, but IF the Ruskies have played the game so well as to get a stooge into power in the US, then western intelligence agencies are failing badly and need to get their arse in gear and either start hitting Russia back hard with their own information backed with evidence (not disinformation, because, as you say, there's no trust anyway) or at least diplomatically going to them with such information that could impact their interests and convince them to reign things in and retreat, lest it be made public. That's all entirely hypothetical for us uninformed proles though. The only evidence we see is the likes of the DNC mails, the Podesta mails and the Weiner mails cited as impacting the election. Prior to that, the Nuland Pyatt call, the Iraq tapes, the Afghan leak, the drone papers, Snowden, The diplomatic cables, The Syria Files, Stratfor and others all undermine western confidence in their leadership as you described. Many of those also implicated Russia in instances but have harmed the Western governments to a far greater extent. Are Russia engaging in less naughty behaviour or are they just better at doing it covertly? Do leakers in the US (despite the efforts of Obama) just not fear punishment as much as in Russia? Have the Russians kept their eye on the cold war fight while the west lost those skills worrying itself with a small group of terrorist bandits with so little artillary they have to use themmselves as weapons? Are Russia better at targeting useful information while the west have built such a large haystack they can't find any needles? Without comparable Financial, technological or military might, is information the only weapon Russia has and so they have become far better at hacking (others) and securing (their own) IT? Whatever the answers, IF this is going to be the story of the next few decades, then we best start improving our strategy. All of that said, there has been nothing whatsoever but baseless, anonymous claims that pre-election leaks (let's not call them hacks until they are shown to be hacks) were the work of Russia. Sabre rattlers on both sides would be delighted to have the public believe they were though. Russia being a powerful clear and present danger helps many powerful Americans and Russians. Democratic apparatchiks as well, they would love to have an excuse for somehow contriving to hand an election to TV's most famous twat, whose own party largely opposed him. If we blindly go along with these claims then it ramps up the danger. The danger has been escalating for years anyway with proxy wars expanding, but from my perspective, it's much better to err on the side of caution and have evidence before returning to cold war levels of mistrust and opposition. Given the reported disagreements between US intelligence agencies, there seems a reasonable chance that the evidence is overstated. Any claims of certainty that the Russians are responsible for Trump should be treated as sceptically as Saddam's WMD. /waffle

Bound to lose as people are leaving it for me to start the thread. You only have yourselves to blame. NUFC TO SCORE 0 - sammynb 1 - aimaad22, ewerk, Kevin Carr's Gloves, barnabox, Holden McGroin, Renton 2 - Dr Gloom, StoneColdStephenIreland, acrossthepond, The Fish, Ant, Anorthernsoul, LooneyToony 3 - Rayvin, Andrew, zico martin, SpartaFC, OTF, rogerbarton, David Kelly, Kitman, @yourservice 4+ - wykikitoon, Howay, Happy Face, MiddleAgeCool, strawb, ohhh_yeah, scoobos, Tom, Monkeys Fist NUFC TO CONCEDE 0 - Andrew, wykikitoon, Dr Gloom, Howay, aimaad22, OTF, rogerbarton, Happy Face, MiddleAgeCool, The Fish, strawb, ewerk, Kevin Carr's Gloves, Anorthernsoul, scoobos, Tom, Monkeys Fist, LooneyToony 1 - Rayvin, zico martin, StoneColdStephenIreland, SpartaFC, acrossthepond, Ant, David Kelly, barnabox, Kitman, ohhh_yeah, Holden McGroin, Renton 2 - sammynb, @yourservice

Everyone should have Storyville series linked. The James Foley Story on the other week was very good. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b006mfx6?suggid=b006mfx6

This 3 year old podcast about the US interference in the the Russian sphere (deciding the Ukrainian leader) stuck in my mind at the time. Well worth a listen for the warning about how these things escalate. https://audioboom.com/posts/2057050-show-270-poking-the-bear Best to start at 8 minutes to avoid pre-amble. But a prescient warning that what's good for the goose...

Obama to Romney in 2012 “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because…the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.” Why is Trumps relationship with Russia more troubling than Obama's appeasement? But aside from tit for tat, these say, they say, the FBI say etc. The questions to be answered are ..

Should also be noted that I was led to the post by wikileaks tweeting a link. You can read different things into them doing that, but to me it seems that they're standing by their non-russian source claim and disseminating the author's claim that he has knowledge of the source. It would be a remarkable position to take if you had any doubts whatsoever about who the CIA might be close to exposing as a source with ties to Russia.

His argument is valid either way. Even if he was making up anything about knowing who the leaker was.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/12/cias-absence-conviction/

Maybe in one of the weeks when someone fucked up the poll. Official point this week though

Total Poster 19 ewerk 17 Kevin Carr's Gloves 16 Happy Face 14 Anorthernsoul 14 OTF 14 Tom 13 Ant 13 Dougle 13 wykikitoon 12 acrossthepond 12 Howay 12 Rayvin 12 strawb 12 The Fish 11 scoobos 11 StoneColdStephenIreland 10 @yourservice 10 barnabox 10 David Kelly 10 MiddleAgeCool 10 ohhh_yeah 9 ChezGiven 8 Monkeys Fist 8 rogerbarton 8 TheGingerQuiff 8 zico martin 7 Andrew 7 Holden McGroin 7 Renton 7 tooner 7 ToonMarshy 6 Dr Gloom 6 Jintsay 6 Kitman 6 McFaul 5 Christmas Tree 5 gpirlo68 5 jonasjuice 5 SpartaFC 5 trophyshy 4 sammynb 3 247 3 Ausman 2 vimalraja 1 aimaad22 1 AJack 1 angrysteve 1 arc89 1 Bryn5 1 Geordie1973 1 holycrosser 1 JonGoodwyn 1 Monroe Transfer 1 PaddockLad 1 The Mighty Hog

NUFC To Score 0 - sammynb 1 - wykikitoon, Kevin Carr's Gloves 2 - ChezGiven, tooner, ewerk, Dr Gloom, StoneColdStephenIreland, Rayvin, Happy Face, OTF, Ant, barnabox, strawb, @yourservice, Tom 3 - Howay, Monkeys Fist, MiddleAgeCool, rogerbarton, The Fish, Andrew, Kitman, aimaad22, scoobos, ohhh_yeah 4+ - David Kelly, Anorthernsoul NUFC To Concede 0 - ChezGiven, wykikitoon, Howay, Monkeys Fist, Kevin Carr's Gloves, The Fish, ewerk, David Kelly, StoneColdStephenIreland, Rayvin, Happy Face, Kitman, OTF, Ant, barnabox, aimaad22, strawb, scoobos, ohhh_yeah, Tom 1 - tooner, MiddleAgeCool, rogerbarton, Dr Gloom, Andrew, Anorthernsoul, @yourservice 2 - sammynb 3 - 4+ -

Good read on the CIA claims coming hot on the heels of the review ordered by Obama.... https://www.emptywheel.net/2016/12/09/unpacking-new-cia-leak-dont-ignore-aluminum-tube-footnote/