General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAnyone who doubts wikileaks is working w/ Putin: read KURT EICHENWALD Now.
The Putin/Trump connection. One manufactures disinformation, w/in hours, the second is reading it at campaign rally.Anyone who doubts wikileaks is working w/ Putin: read how my words falsely became those of a Clinton confidante.
Updated | I am Sidney Blumenthal. At least, that is what Vladimir Putinand, somehow, Donald Trumpseem to believe. And that should raise concerns not only about Moscows attempts to manipulate this election, but also how Trump came to push Russian disinformation to American voters.
............
To understand the full importance of the storyand how much Putin and his Kremlin cronies must have been dancing with delightI have to quote the top few paragraphs:
In a major revelation from the second batch of WikiLeaks emails from Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta it was learned that Hillary's top confidante Sidney Blumenthal believed that the investigation into Benghazi was legitimate because it was "preventable" and the result of State Department negligence.
In an email titled "The Truth" from Hillary's top confidante Sidney Blumenthal, the adviser writing to undisclosed recipients said that "one important point that has been universally acknowledged by nine previous reports about Benghazi: The attack was almost certainly preventable" in what may turn out to be the big October surprise from the WikiLeaks released of emails hacked from the account of Clinton Campaign Chair John Podesta.
Then came the money quote: "Clinton was in charge of the State Department, and it failed to protect U.S. personnel at an American consulate in Libya. If the GOP wants to raise that as a talking point against her, it is legitimate," said Blumenthal, putting to rest the Democratic Party talking point that the investigation into Clinton's management of the State Department at the time of the attack was nothing more than a partisan witch hunt.
Those words sounded really, really familiar. Really familiar. Like, so familiar they struck me as something I wrote. Because they were something I wrote.
The Russians were quoting two sentences from a 10,000 word piece I wrote for Newsweek, which Blumenthal had emailed to Podesta. There was no mistaking that Blumenthal was citing Newsweekthe magazines name and citations for photographs appeared throughout the attached article. The Russians had carefully selected the of course paragraph, which mentions there were legitimate points of criticism regarding Clinton and Benghazi, all of which had been acknowledged in nine reports about the terror attack and by the former Secretary of State herself. But that was hardly the point of the story, Benghazi Biopsy: A Comprehensive Guide to One of Americas Worst Political Outrages. The piece is about the obscene politicization of the assault that killed four Americans, and the article slammed the Republican Benghazi committee which was engaged in a political show trial disguised as a Congressional investigationthe tenth inquiry into the tragedy.
..........
The Russians have been obtaining American emails and now are presenting complete misrepresentations of themfalsifying themin hopes of setting off a cascade of events that might change the outcome of the presidential election. The big question, of course, is why are the Russians working so hard to damage Clinton and, in the process, aid Donald Trump? That is a topic for another time.
MORE:
http://www.newsweek.com/vladimir-putin-sidney-blumenthal-hillary-clinton-donald-trump-benghazi-sputnik-508635
MADem
(135,425 posts)msanthrope
(37,549 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)Foggyhill
(1,060 posts)Now, almost all so called leaks are fabrications
Who feeds it to Trump?
Breitbart and friends
Loki Liesmith
(4,602 posts)The trump campaign regards Sputnik as a credible news source.
But this story was only up for a few hours. How did the campaign know when to check the website for it?
Leaning toward collusion.
Chiyo-chichi
(3,591 posts)Maybe with an 80s era dot matrix printer?
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)Scam,that someone does not want exposed. Can you imagine the German Bankers nervousness when this stuff comes along. Noticed Saturday this Bank and our DOJ settlement talks broke down. 14Billion Dollar fine for Illegal Banking and Money Laundering. FBI investigation into Trump Foundation funds activity.
Response to Wellstone ruled (Reply #5)
Kathy M This message was self-deleted by its author.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)The Trump Campaign will trip themselves up and then ka-boom. Couple of stories today about how segments showed up at wiki under Sid Blumenthal's name when it was someone else wrote the story.
Response to Wellstone ruled (Reply #13)
Kathy M This message was self-deleted by its author.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)looking at this as we speak.
So all the hearings on Trump's illegal activities are going to start AFTER the election. On the off chance he wins, will he be immediately be impeached and thrown out of office?
Dan
(3,585 posts)They. Own. Trump,
Pachamama
(16,887 posts)Wow...the idea of the efforts of propaganda and misinformation that are being manufactured and placed by foreign interests (in this case Russia), it's being used then by Trump who is hungrily fed by Wikileaks and Breitbart and that even in a live debate that Trump is using that false info against Hillary as he voices support for Russia (especially in regards to Syria and what the Russians are doing there).....it's chilling. Then tie in the money trail....
herding cats
(19,569 posts)I want every American to know about this. This blatant propaganda directly from Putin's very own Sputnik news is being spread by the Republican presidential candidate as a fact.
Just when I think the Republican Party has finally hit rock bottom, they prove me wrong again.
Response to kpete (Original post)
Kathy M This message was self-deleted by its author.
fleabiscuit
(4,542 posts)I can imagine hearing HRC promising to crack down on state (read Russian) sponsored hacking and jailing those involved in the US. Let's bunch some panties.
Hekate
(90,978 posts)...cease getting these classified briefings. She can live without them, really, until November. He is a loose cannon and a danger to the Republic.
Frank Cannon
(7,570 posts)and salted them, Tyrion Lannister style, with bullshit intelligence to identify the source of any leaks. Trump is an idiot.
Hekate
(90,978 posts)Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)One issue is that the accurate information published by Wikileaks was distorted by Trump, who quoted it out of context. Blumenthal did use those words, but he was reporting to Podesta about what Eichenwald had written. Trump made it sound as if Blumenthal was stating his own opinion. That's not the fault of Wikileaks, which published correct information including the actual context (Blumenthal's attribution to Eichenwald).
Another issue is that Trump jumped on the release so quickly, and in such conformity with the (misleading) tack taken by Sputnik (controlled by the Russian government), that it constitutes circumstantial evidence of Russian aid to Trump. As Eichenwald says, Trump has some explaining to do. Wikileaks does not.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)will always refuse to see what's in plain sight.
TomVilmer
(1,832 posts)... is the Washington Post comment on this. And from that article, Eichenwald seems a bit carried away by his own story. So I agree, this does not prove tampered emails with a direct Russian connecting, but just more Sputnik and Trump idiocy.
Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)As I said, the evidence wasn't direct but rather circumstantial, supporting but not compelling the inference. The Post article gives additional evidence that supports an alternative inference.
As the Post notes, however, the open question is merely how the subject came to Trump's attention initially. There's no question that, at the time he made his false charge against a Clinton aide, the truth was readily available to anyone with an internet connection, who could go back to the accurate Wikileaks report. Trump and his staffers didn't do that. Either they cared so little about accuracy that they didn't bother confirming the accusation with the readily available source, or they went to the Wikileaks site, saw that the charge was false, and cynically went with it anyway.
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)kpete
(72,038 posts)KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)That is where Trump and his minions are getting this.
-Just summarizing what I read at the link.
Other explanations are Trump is getting direct aid or has a mole helping the Russians.
Josh opts for Neo-Nazi/Russian explanation as the simplest.
randome
(34,845 posts)Made to ridicule. Way to go, Putin. You've proved that you're as much of a clown as Donald Trump. No easy feat.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"If you're bored then you're boring." -Harvey Danger[/center][/font][hr]
salin
(48,955 posts)It needs to pierce the media bubble - and if anyone covering the election will get noticed Eichenwald, with his extensive and in depth coverage so far, will get noticed.
Bravo Mr. Eichenwald!
icymist
(15,888 posts)From the article:
exboyfil
(17,865 posts)or by Clinton if necessary.
MisterFred
(525 posts)Of course wikileaks is working with Putin. As long as it puts out information that is true, it's still a fantastic resource.
For matters much larger and less temporary than the election in particular.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)Sick of Wikileaks/Assange stooges.
MisterFred
(525 posts)From their coverage of the Labor battle to revealing the bullshit right-wing stuff we were up to when it revealed diplomatic cables, wikileaks has provided an amazing insight into the world of power. It has an excellent record for producing non-fabricated evidence.
And yes, of course the people it releases stuff about don't like that.
But that you'd willingly throw this under the bus because of one tiny part of wikileaks might affect the election? Ridiculous.
And I know Assange is an ass. He and wikileaks are not identical.
We ignore truth at our peril. Even in election years. People here go on and on and on about how Americans refuse to see Trump for who he is. And then they attack one of our few good sources of information. Hypocrites.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)MisterFred
(525 posts)Edit: your seemingly nonsensical post actually makes sense if one assumes you only read my header, not the body itself. Well, that was foolish of you. End edit.
There ARE variations of bad. Trump's sexual assault isn't as bad as sexual slavery justified by religion. We can admit that without discarding the fact that Trump has committed sex crimes. I wouldn't be surprised to find out Trump is a rapist. That still wouldn't make him as bad as ISIS.
What point were you trying to make, again?
LenaBaby61
(6,979 posts)I personally don't trust anything coming from rapist Assange, not anything from any Wickileaks document and I especially don't trust anything coming out of Russia, where tRump's "boyfriend" Putin lives and runs his dictatorship.
underpants
(182,988 posts)Thanks
asiliveandbreathe
(8,203 posts)content of WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED...are you shitting me - Mom was right - don't believe anything you hear, and only 1/2 of what you see..mom worked for the signal corp during WW2...lot's of stories growing up,
We had an air raid structure, looked like a rocket - went past it everyday coming and going to school..we would have drills at times and we would get under our desks..like that was supposed to save us - as I look back on it now...
I do not fear the Russians, I fear our politicians in congress - and in many of our red state legislatures...oh well, I still have 1 vote..and I intend to use it....
Congratulations Madam President..
Stonepounder
(4,033 posts)I've read it several times and it just doesn't make sense. He says 'they quoted this' but doesn't provide the 'this'. He says here is 'what they said' but doesn't provide how it differs from what he said, or how it was taken out of context.
I'm a pretty good at reading comprehension. I believe that the email was leaked directly to Trump. But the actual article really needs to be reedited, if not rewritten.
Nevernose
(13,081 posts)Blumental emailed the entire Newsweek story to Podesta. The Newsweek story had what appears to be damning comments about Benghazi.
Still following?
The damning comments, though, are in a story written by an editorialist whose point was that Republicans were on a baseless witch hunt and that there wasn't anything actually to the Benghazi story.
So the Russians hack this email and give it to Wikileaks. The part that's released to the public, though, isn't the whole email: it's just that one quote, taken out of context from an article, which was ITSELF taken out of context from a hacked email.
The first place any of this appeared was in Sputnik, a Russian-government news agency. Literal propaganda, not even quasi-propaganda like RT.
At best Trump is scouring Russian propaganda for anti-Clinton news. It looks like his team is actually being fed the propaganda, based on the quickness of timing.
I hope that's both clear and accurate
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)superpatriotman
(6,254 posts)I just read his piece on The Intercept but I won't link to it because I'm not sure it won't be alerted.
Is Greenwald verboten here?
If so, he didn't used to be.
cpwm17
(3,829 posts)Kurt Eichenwald seems to be making a mountain out of a molehill in an effort to promote a CT. I guess if Kurt Eichenwald says what people want to hear, they will believe it.
xocet
(3,874 posts)By Kurt Eichenwald On 10/10/16
Updated | I am Sidney Blumenthal. At least, that is what Vladimir Putinand, somehow, Donald Trumpseem to believe. And that should raise concerns about not only Moscows attempts to manipulate this election but also how Trump came to push Russian disinformation to American voters.
An email from Blumenthala confidant of Hillary Clinton and a man, second only to George Soros, at the center of conservative conspiracy theoriesturned up in the recent document dump by WikiLeaks. At a time when American intelligence believes Russian hackers are trying to interfere with the presidential election, records have been fed recently to WikiLeaks out of multiple organizations of the Democratic Party, raising concerns that the self-proclaimed whistleblower group has become a tool of Putins government. But now that I have been brought into the whole messand transformed into Blumenthalthere is even more proof that the Russians are not only orchestrating this act of cyberwar but also really, really dumb.
...
http://www.newsweek.com/vladimir-putin-sidney-blumenthal-hillary-clinton-donald-trump-benghazi-sputnik-508635
The "Russian hackers" link in the above article links to this following article:
By Jeff Stein On 10/9/16
...
The best disinformation closely hews to widespread suspicions about its target. Wikileakss exposure of Hillary Clintons private speeches to Wall Street bankers, apparently in concert with Russian hackers, seems tailored to further alienate the partys left wing, which is to say on-the-fence followers of Bernie Sanders.
But some of the purported excerpts from her speeches are obvious fabrications, says Nance.
One quote has her saying, Muslim Immigration and Multicultural Madness have left a trail of misery and mayhem across Germanywith far worse to come because of demographics. She supposedly goes on to say that Muslims make up only 9% of Berlins population but account for 70% of young repeat criminals
...
http://www.newsweek.com/russian-hacks-democrats-ghost-soviet-past-508094
The quote is ostensibly from a Clinton speech and is ostensibly from the Wikileaks release of Podesta's emails. If one searches for this amongst the Podesta emails, one finds:
[hr]
From: orca100@upcmail.nl
To: podesta@law.georgetown.edu
Date: 2016-02-21 00:51
Subject: Multikultistan: A house of horrors for ordinary Germans
Britain is something of the odd man out in immigration-devastated Europe,
having also received large numbers of successful non-Western immigrants such
as Hindus/Sikhs and Chinese. By sharp contrast, the UK's Muslims, blacks,
Roma and other problem immigrant groups do no better than those on the
Continent, as I will show with statistics at a later date.
Muslim Immigration and Multicultural Madness have left a trail of misery and
mayhem across Germany - with far worse to come because of demographics
· Muslims make up only 9% of Berlin's population, yet account for 70% of young repeat criminals, revealed Berlin public prosecutor Roman Reusch http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-51448987.html. To be more precise, 46% of Berlin's juvenile serial criminals are of Arab descent, while 33% of them have Turkish ancestry http://www.bz-berlin.de/archiv/jugendkriminalitaet-article961342.html. In an un-German display of harsh-truth telling, Reusch said in Der Spiegel that "in parts [of Berlin], the population consist almost exclusively of problem cases." As he tells it, immigrant children as young as six or seven years old turn to crime and grow up to see honest hard-working people as targets - walking sources of easy money. German society is completely powerless in the face of growing ruthless violence and crime. To describe the German police and criminal-justice system as a big joke would be unfair to big jokes. You won't be surprised to hear that the outspoken public prosecutor has meanwhile been sacked from his job and banned from talking to the media.
...
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/295
One may continue reading that highly irregular email, but it does not claim to be an excerpt from one of Sec. Clinton's speeches. According to its own links, it seems to be (at least initially) based on the following two articles from 2007 and 2010, respectively:
SPIEGEL-STREITGESPRÄCH
Das Problem explodiert
Verständnisvoll zuhören oder knallhart durchgreifen? Der Berliner Oberstaatsanwalt Roman Reusch und der Hamburger Strafrechtsprofessor Bernd-Rüdeger Sonnen diskutieren über den richtigen Umgang mit gewalttätigen Jugendlichen.
Reusch, 53, ist Oberstaatsanwalt in Berlin und leitet dort die Abteilung für junge Intensivtäter. Der Hamburger Strafrechtsprofessor Sonnen, 66, ist Vorsitzender der Deutschen Vereinigung für Jugendgerichte und Jugendgerichtshilfen.
SPIEGEL: Herr Reusch, Herr Sonnen, wann sind Sie das letzte Mal von Jugendlichen verprügelt worden?
Reusch: Das letzte Mal habe ich als Kind Prügel kassiert, aber das war etwas anderes. Früher haben wir Cowboy und Indianer gespielt. Wir wären nie auf die Idee gekommen, uns Killerboys zu nennen und Handys oder Turnschuhe zu rauben. Wir waren harmlos, heute beobachte ich die totale Verrohung.
...
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-51448987.html
and
28. August 2010 16:10
"In Berlin werden 20 Prozent aller Gewalttaten von nur 1000 türkischen und arabischen jugendlichen Tätern begangen, eine Bevölkerungsgruppe, die 0,3 Promille der gesamten Berliner Bevölkerung stellt."
Für diese Zahlen gab es gestern keinerlei offizielle Bestätigung.Allerdings schrieb Jugendrichterin Kirsten Heisig bereits 2008: Bei Delikten der Gewaltkriminalität ist auf der Täterseite die Anzahl junger Männer nicht deutscher Herkunft es muss hier vorrangig von türkischstämmigen, aber noch deutlicher von arabischen Tätern die Rede sein dreimal höher als bei deutschen Jugendlichen und Heranwachsenden.In seinem Papier Migration ohne Integration verwies der damalige Berliner Oberstaatsanwalt Roman Reusch schon 2007 darauf, dass insgesamt 80 Prozent aller eingetragenen Intensivtäter einen Migrationshintergrund haben. Davon entfielen 46 Prozent auf Araber und 33 Prozent auf Türken.Und das Berliner Forum Gewaltprävention der Senatsverwaltung für Inneres verwies 2008 in einem Papier darauf, dass Jugendliche mit Migrationshintergrund die Population der 14- bis 18-jährigen Inhaftierten zahlenmäßig dominieren.
http://www.bz-berlin.de/artikel-archiv/jugendkriminalitaet
Clearly, these articles have nothing to do with Sec. Clinton and have nothing to do with any speeches she may have given.
So, the previously noted remarks also seem not to be attributed to Sec. Clinton by Wikileaks.
3 November 2015
WikiLeaks is a multi-national media organization and associated library. It was founded by its publisher Julian Assange in 2006.
WikiLeaks specializes in the analysis and publication of large datasets of censored or otherwise restricted official materials involving war, spying and corruption. It has so far published more than 10 million documents and associated analyses.
WikiLeaks is a giant library of the worlds most persecuted documents. We give asylum to these documents, we analyze them, we promote them and we obtain more. - Julian Assange, Der Spiegel Interview
WikiLeaks has contractual relationships and secure communications paths to more than 100 major media organizations from around the world. This gives WikiLeaks sources negotiating power, impact and technical protections that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to achieve.
...
https://wikileaks.org/What-is-Wikileaks.html
Making up stories regarding Wikileaks is not useful analysis. It appears as if just that is what has been done.
There is a story at The Intercept regarding this:
Glenn Greenwald
Oct. 11 2016
Donald Trump, for reasons Ive repeatedly pointed out, is an extremist, despicable, and dangerous candidate, and his almost-certain humiliating defeat is less than a month away. So I realize there is little appetite in certain circles for critiques of any of the tawdry and sometimes fraudulent journalistic claims and tactics being deployed to further that goal. In the face of an abusive, misogynistic, bigoted, scary, lawless authoritarian, whats a little journalistic fraud or constant fearmongering about subversive Kremlin agents between friends if it helps to stop him?
But come January, Democrats will continue to be the dominant political faction in the U.S. more so than ever and the tactics they are now embracing will endure past the election, making them worthy of scrutiny. Those tactics now most prominently include dismissing away any facts or documents that reflect negatively on their leaders as fake, and strongly insinuating that anyone who questions or opposes those leaders is a stooge or agent of the Kremlin, tasked with a subversive and dangerously un-American mission on behalf of hostile actors in Moscow.
To see how extreme and damaging this behavior has become, lets just quickly examine two utterly false claims that Democrats over the past four days led by party-loyal journalists have disseminated and induced thousands of people, if not more, to believe. On Friday, WikiLeaks published its first installment of emails obtained from the account of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta. Despite WikiLeaks perfect, long-standing record of only publishing authentic documents, MSNBCs favorite ex-intelligence official, Malcolm Nance, within hours of the archives release, posted a tweet claiming with zero evidence and without citation to a single document in the WikiLeaks archive that it was compromised with fakes:
...
https://theintercept.com/2016/10/11/in-the-democratic-echo-chamber-inconvenient-truths-are-recast-as-putin-plots/
Its_About_Us
(3 posts)must be great news for the Democratic leaders of the House and the Senate. Hold on a minute and newsflash: Democrats haven't held a majority in both chambers since 2010. And "more so than ever" is a damn long time. (Think 1964.) I guess I just don't understand the meaning of "dominant." I do, however, understand that Greenwald is a pompous ass.
xocet
(3,874 posts)To understand what is being discussed, one must first ask the following question: What "factions" are there?
Political "Factions" (from least to greatest approximately):
Greens
Libertarians
Independents
"Establishment" Republicans
Teabaggers/Teaparty Republicans
Trump Republicans/ Trump Supporters
Democrats
There is an important schism in the Republican Party - it is split between Trump supporters, Teabaggers (there is some overlap here though) and "establishment" Republicans. That schism is what will hopefully be in full effect during the upcoming election. On the other hand, if one considers elected members of the Democratic Party, they are generally unified in approximate policy goals. That unification seems to be what the meaning of "dominant faction" is. The confusion arises from conflating holding a majority in Congress with being politically unified.
As to your remark on Greenwald, maybe it is true - maybe it is not true. It is beside the point. Can you address the substance of what he has written or do you have nothing to say on that topic?
Welcome to DU.
Mc Mike
(9,115 posts)Made things a bit tough for Poland, iirc.
maryellen99
(3,790 posts)Nitram
(22,945 posts)Echenwald's last comment was something like, "the Republican candidate for president is spouting Russian propaganda at his rallies.
davidn3600
(6,342 posts)I'm not so sure I am comfortable going down this route of automatically attacking critics and whistleblowers. I've long been a critic with the way the Obama administration has handled them.
wishstar
(5,272 posts)This has nothing to do with accusing everyone who criticizes Clinton with having Russian connections, but about clear evidence of real Russian connections between the Trump Campaign and either Wikileaks or Russian hackers or both
davidn3600
(6,342 posts)Anyone who criticizes anything is being pegged to the opposition or some conspiracy involving foreign governments.
Listening to some, there is this sense that everything WikiLeaks puts out there is now fabricated. And should be ignored and thrown aside. Are we going to have that mentality against any person or organization that is critical of the president? That's what happens in dictatorships. When someone is critical of the government, the government destroys that person's credibility. They are publicly humiliated to divert attention....then they are executed.