Video links and Article Dump

    Just a name change to be more indicative of how I expect to use it. 

    There is a Canadian lawyer blogger on Youtube which I have started listening to since about a month ago. This afternoon, 6-5-20] at 5:00 Mountain time Viva Frei has a live feed program with a frequent guest, Robert Barnes. who is also a lawyer.  There is real time member feedback. Some of Barnes conclusions are certainly controversial but I think they are well represented in an informative and interesting format. Teaser: I heard a theory once suggesting that  OJ was innocent and offering a story as plausible as most crime novels. Barnes has said, I believe, that he believes OJ is innocent and is expected to talk about that as well as current news issues, Flynn and Floyd. It will remain available in full and probably short segments tomorrow.   

    Comments

    Thanks for the link.  I have heard of Frei on other live chats.  I quickly took a look and subscribed.  I liked the info that I peaked at.  They verified what I have found out about the Flynn case.  I haven't paid too much attention into the Floyd case.  When I get time today I will listen to it.  .  


    Nice to hear from you Momoe and glad you found the video blog worth listening to. Wish you were around more often. I remain confident that there are more than six or seven people who are probably longtime followers of dagblog and who still check it regularly but for whatever reason have chosen to quit participating. I once asked PP to check his available data and tell us how many discreet visitors there are on average. He said it was too much trouble and I accept that at face value since I do not know what effort would be involved. My own estimate based on watching hit numbers after a post or comment is about forty five, but it would be nice to know something more definite.

     Hope all is well with you and your family while being grateful that mine has faired so well so far. 


    I lurk here once a week or so.  I engage once in a blue moon. I normally don't log in when I lurk.  My family is doing fine.  Things are better for us now. 

    My food blog is keeping me busy and is doing well.  I have notice there is less comments on my blog in the last year but the views have gone way up.  People are less chatty. I listen to vlogs and other channels while I am on the computer doing housekeeping to my blog.  I have a second window open right now on you tube and listening. 

    This is a important historic period we are living through and there is going to be many books that will be written analyzing the paradigm shift. I realized that if I only paid attention to traditional news outlets I wasn't getting the complete story or true reporting. There is a lot going on. 

    What started me to look for information was because I have international followers on my food blog would email me to ask me my opinion on something I didn't know anything on.  People seem to know more outside of the US about us than we know living here. So I make it my business to pay attention outside the orange man bad memes.  There is where I find pieces of information that connects together. The channel you gave, linked together some of the pieces I found. 

    I just wanted to let you know I agreed with you that the channel was well worth watching. 


    There is something fascinating about the historic period that we are living in.  Something unique about it is the amazing range of information available. Seeing history unfold in real time from all over the world and from every point of view is a brand new possibility.  I agree whole heartedly that if we only pay attention to traditional news outlets we won't get the complete story or true reporting.     


    That's true but the opposite is even more true. If we only pay attention to the untraditional news outlets the outcome is even worse. Unfortunately most people aren't very smart, lack discernment, and use confirmation bias more often than rational analysis no matter what the news source.


    Interesting interview. The idea I recall hearing about OJ, whose case did not come up as I expected, was that his son did the deed and OJ took the rap for him. My first google search just now shows that there are in fact a number of article, none of which I have read, that cover this possibility. 


    I'm sticking with the Navarro gang revenge drug murder. I saw it on TV, must be true. Those people are baaaad.


    More YouTube
    Reviving the musical as an art form

     


    We all know the historical reference: Tell a lie [or an unverifiable assertion] two or three or ten times and and many will consider it an iron clad fact and consider it to be rock solid evidence.   


    So you think Russia did or didn't hack DNC & Podesta emails?

    PP, you ask: “So you think Russia did or didn't hack DNC & Podesta emails?”  That question does not lend itself to a simple yes-or-no answer but the short simplistic answer is 'Yes'. The Russians probably did hack the emails in question'. I believe that because I believe that if they could they would, but I do not believe that that answer addresses nearly everything which I believe you imply by asking it.  

     I have from early on thought that the electoral issues concerning Russian influence in our elections have been hyped to the extreme and almost entirely for purely political reasons regardless of the facts of the case. I acknowledge my strong cynicism regarding our law enforcement agencies and the various intelligence agencies within our national government. This cynicism affects my thinking regarding what I am told by any government agency or entity. I do not automatically believe anything they put out and I do not automatically give them any benefit of any reasonable doubt in a world where doubting or absolutely disbelieving what they have put out in the past has turned out to be justified over and over again as further information about an issue is released or is discovered or is leaked and it is proven that we were lied to. Have you seen any of the several videos of people who claimed on television to have inside information or were otherwise in a position to know that there was proof of their allegations of Russian guilt only to testify under oath later that they did not have any verifiable evidence of the claims they made. Cloudstrike is not the only one. As a term of art, what would you call the claiming of damning proof of a damning allegation against another country from a national podium when you had no such proof? I would call it chickenshit political propaganda. 

    There are multiple possible situations but the first point of departure on your question is whether those emails were in fact hacked or were they directly downloaded. You know the questions and allegations regarding the possibility that they were not hacked but were instead downloaded. I know you have vociferously rejected them. They include the analysis by the computer expert who had a major hand in setting up the NSA’s spy systems, the fact that the FBI never examined the computers involved, the fact that they accepted a compromised security firm’s preliminary report and never asked for or received a final report, that there was at best a sloppy incomplete investigation of the murdered DNC worker who had access to the computers involved. And the list goes on. These are all facts and/or open questions. These questions, when asked, lead many who have strong opinions that lead to one narrow answer that confirms their contrary bias on the subject. They then ridicule and dismiss these questions as the work of the fevered mind of a “conspiracy theorist”. A true conspiracy theorist, in the derogatory sense that the term is used, would stress these points but someone looking for honest answers would ask them too. 

     Multiple things can be true at the same time regarding hacking of emails. It is entirely possible that information on a computer can be both downloaded by one entity and hacked by another.  It is also possible that a computer can be hacked by multiple entities. In this case it is likely, IMO.  Can you imagine an ethically challenged operative of the Republican party who was capable of hacking those computers, or hiring someone who could hack them, doing so. Would there be a safer place to secretly and anonymously release those rightfully damaging emails then to Wikileaks? The link I posted says that under oath a representative of Cloudstrike testifies that Cloudstrike cannot prove whether the emails were in fact hacked and so it follows by simple logic that they cannot prove who or what agency hacked them. So, if they cannot prove the emails were hacked but believe that they were, can they prove  that they were not hacked by multiple entities? I have from early on thought that the electoral issues concerning Russian influence in our elections have been hyped in one direction only and to the extreme for purely political reasons regardless of the facts of the case. I acknowledge my strong cynicism regarding our law enforcement agencies and the various intelligence agencies within our national government. I do not automatically believe everything they put out and I do not automatically give them any benefit of doubt when reasonable doubt exists in a world where doubting or absolutely disbelieving what they have put out in the past has turned out to be justified over and over again as further information is released or is discovered or is leaked.

    That said, Let’s assume for the sake of thinking through my answer, that the Russians did in fact hack the emails. [This would not be proof at all that they gave them to Wikileaks, maybe they hacked and then did so or maybe they hacked but didn’t]  An important thing we can know is that if the Russians did in fact hack the emails it proves that Hillary’s computer, supposedly protected by Cloudstrike, could be hacked. It does not require a fevered mind to conclude that there are other entities who could also have done so including the intelligence agencies of quite a few countries and probably some private firms and probably by some individuals working in their mother’s basement.  Do you believe that Russians being the leaker for the purpose of affecting our national politics, even if they did successfully hack, is the only possibility?  Netanyahu, as only one alternative possibility, comes to mind as a clear example of the leader of a foreign country who is very powerful and influential in the United States, who has openly interfered in our politics, and who favored Trump for President,   Do you doubt that Israel has the capability to hack anything the Russians can hack? Can you imagine any other country besides Russia having motive of disrupting our political system if it only requires clickbate to do so? Do you think that various of our allies do not spy on us as we spy on them? And, do you doubt that Netanyahu, as an example of only one of many political actors all over the world, is a person who is apparently completely comfortable with using scumbaggery to take whatever action favors his or his country’s situation as he sees it?  Can you imagine that such a person might even exist in the Democratic Party?

    My biggest concern is the propagandistic way that news about this and many other important issues is reported. If we stipulate for the purpose of pursuing a point, that Russia is proven to be the guilty party in the release of the actual real but embarrassing emails, should we then condemn them as being uniquely evil?  Does that do any real good?

     Following is your opening to indict me as a Trump apologist even though I have consistently opposed almost everything he has done as President and most everything I know regarding what he has done as a human being. I am not in this case apologizing for Trump, I am being critical of some of the many stories used to demonize him.  The following is a list of significant geopolitical actions taken by Trump in the first year and a half or so of his administration. This was a time when he was being demonized  in ways that obstructed positive diplomacy with a country which could be pushed to join the self-serving international bullies or outright war mongers in this country in escalating differences which mostly amount to who will have unrestricted access to the worlds resources on their own terms and otherwise for only cynical political reasons by many and done so to the detriment of both our internal and international politics. Trump was and still is being characterized as a compromised lapdog boot licking toady tool of Putin. I was, and remain, against most of the actions listed below and I would expect that you, or any fair minded person, would agree that Putin was against every one of them and would have prevented them if he could have, but why would an opponent of Trump interfere with an affective narrative.

    “Trump has evicted Russian diplomats, sanctioned Russian officials, put missiles practically on Russia’s border, sent weapons into Ukraine, lobbied European nations to drop Russian energy deals, left the Iran agreement, torn up the INF Treaty, rejected Russia’s offers on banning weapons in space and banning cyberwar, expanded NATO eastward, added a NATO partner in Colombia, proposed adding Brazil, demanded and successfully moved most NATO members to buy significantly more weapons, splurged on more nukes, bombed Russians in Syria, overseen the largest war rehearsals in Europe in half a century, condemned all proposals for a European military and insisted that Europe stick with NATO.” 

     


    A pretty clear "No" posing as a long qualified "Yes".

    BTW, Hillary's email server Is not the DNC server. The DNC "server" was/is a virtual cloud computer, i.e. replicas of storage and computing spun up on different hardware all ať once. AFAIK the FBI has an image of what was hacked, but considering Rudy Giuliani was openly bragging on TV about his rogue agent friends who wanted to send Hillary to jail, it's certainly a question whether giving the FBI an image containing say all your campaign activity, planned campaigns, donors, etc. along with millions of email conversations would be a wise thing to do.

    No, i wont get dragged in - read the Mueller Reports. But NATO? Really? And he was impeached for withholding advanced military aid from Ukraine fór Protection from Russia - how big of a wet sloppy kiss can you give?


    "expanded NATO eastward"

    Explain that part with Trump moving troops out of Germany and the defunding of NATO from the US side. The Russians took Crimea and are chewing upon the rest of Ukraine.

    Or are those just stories to validate imperial designs?


    You must have missed this part of my comment:

    The following is a list of significant geopolitical actions taken by Trump in the first year and a half or so of his administration. 

    So, that was a year and a half ago. Everything significant about Ukraine happened before Trump took office except for his decision to supply Ukraine with significant offensive weapons which had been denied by Obama.  The announcement of intent to move troops out of Germany is very recent and so also irrelevant to my point. 


    Russia taking the Sea of Azov was before Trump? You're such an apologist.


    LULU, it's refreshing to read a serious thinking skeptic here.  

    There is one thing that needs clarifying in your comment. Cloudstrike testified that they had evidence that someone from Russia had hacked into the DNC server but they had zero evidence that any data was downloaded during that hack.These are two separate operations that many people missed. This confusion allows the propagandist to conflate a hack into with a download out of a server.


    Chaos Monkey approves skepticism, News at 11. Get stuffed.


    The American Press Is Destroying Itself by Matt Taibbi.


    Any new stand alone comments on this Taiibi thread can be posted from here. Next bellow is a new subject.


    Huh? Taibbi's article Is what I responded to.

    I quite liked his long-firm Rollung Stones stuff a few years ago before he decided to become a full time Russian shill And all the deceptive cukture wars (sp, but like it) that that involves. And again, the cancelling of Fang was a drag, quite wrong, but that doesnt justify Taibbi throwing all the other dubious stuff on the pile to creat his "alarming trend" piece. I'd even like a serious piece on whats wrong with journalism these days - esp. now with the Russian-influenced death blow to US government broadcasting - but this Is not it.


    The first of the two posts I put up together was intended to mark a place to reply with any new stand-alone comments on that Taibbi thread and in that way separate them from any that might be posted to the next link. My first fell in the wrong place a couple notches high for some reason.  My bad. I'll work on on it.

     


    I had the options of deleting the mistake or kinda snidely, a bit humorously using it to respond to the first. I chose the latter. It's on-topic, obviously So. Thought it strange that you just got around to your border marking comment today, placing my comment in the irrelevant zone.


    How would you recognize that a critique of journalism these days was a serious one? Would it be by seeing it in the NYT, the subject of many serious critiques?  Have you heard of "Manufacturing Consent"?  If not I recommend it as an introduction to the subject. 


    Mistake removed

     


    You mean publishing Taibbi's stupid article? Oh wait, it's still there (twice?).

    To run it down quick, 1) Fang's dismissal was completely wrong, a bad overreaction for reporting someone else's (Black, btw) view, 2) the Fury over Cotton was giving another unhinged rightwing dickhead call to arms  *unchallenged* & unbalanced access prominently on the editorial page in time of great crisis as Trump/Barr overhyping his Antifa scare (with made up incidents) and military attacks on peaceful demonstrators, 3) some clueless White privileged Bon Apetit foodies whod been marginalizing their colored help (including denying pay) for a decade,  and 4) some more obligatory stupid shit about Glenn Fucking Greenwald's Russian ass-kissing. Oh yeah, 5) some woke college kids had woke reactions that dont seem so woke, & 6) a bit of Hillary hate/I told you so for good measure.

    Is *that* what signals the demise of journalism? I have my problems with modern journalism, but Taibbi's abandonment if serious journalism some time back Is part if the partisan hackdom that plagues, as well as coroirate control And the public's inability to support string verified News over quick tabloid excess.


    From Roxane Gay via Twitter 06/03/20

    As a NYT writer I absolutely stand in opposition to that Tom Cotton “editorial.” We are well served by robust and ideologically diverse public discourse that includes radical, liberal, and conservative voices.

    This is not that. His piece was inflammatory and endorsing military occupation as if the constitution doesn’t exist.

     


    I was working in inner-city Detroit when the 67 Riot became an armed insurrection. The 101st and 82nd Airborne were sent in because the police and guard couldn't stop the mayhem. I learned years later they patrolled with only bayonets and were not issued ammo Snipers shot many of them along with many cops, guardsmen and firemen and some died. 

    Listening to this NYT POS lecture about the constitution is like listening to Castro lecture about liberty and democracy. 


    So you're saying the military or the city covered up Airborne deaths?
     

    82nd Airborne Division:
    5 wounded
    101st Airborne Division:
    3 wounded
    Michigan Army National Guard:
    1 killed
    55 wounded
    Michigan State Police:
    67 wounded
    Detroit Police Department:
    1 killed
    214 wounded
    Detroit Fire Department:
    2 killed
    134 wounded


    Listening to to you is actually listening to a liar


    Dumb Jocks.  Bill Russell wrote an editorial published in the Boston Globe. It is behind a firewall and I have not read it. I have though listened to a 'dumb jock' talk about it. Worth a listen, IMO.


    There is a shifting quality of agency that undercuts the contrast Levine hopes to elicit. Take the following for example:

    Should we shame young people who strongly believed in the ideas of Bernie Sanders but didn’t come out in large numbers for him in 2020? Or should we ask them if they were deflated when Bernie told them in 2016 to vote for the lesser-of-two-evils Hillary Clinton, and then further de-energized when Bernie pledged his support to whoever the Democrats nominated in 2020?

    When you remove the "should" of "shaming" versus the downer of voting for a status quo, there is the fact that these young people did not vote. That comparison doubles down on the idea that they need to be influenced and guided by political leaders to make good choices. Both sides of Levine's argument argues away the responsibility of citizens to influence their environment.

    Instead of framing the matter as a Hobson's choice, the absence of participation points more to a complacency that ignores the fragile nature of our polity. We can permit the shrinking of the public space to continue until a good program is put in place because nothing can threaten the very possibility to act when "we" want something badly enough.

    The choice here is whether you have that power to act at all, not deciding between two items on a menu.


     "We can permit the shrinking of the public space to continue until a good program is put in place because nothing can threaten the very possibility to act when "we" want something badly enough'.

     I have tried to compose a cogent response but I do not understand what you are saying in that statement nor in much of the rest of you comment so I cannot agree  with or debate it. I will say though what I think, which is that both Greenwald's position and Chomsky's are presented well and Levine comes down on the side of asking and trying to understand why young people did not turn out as opposed to just shaming them for not doing what we might believe they should have done and what we fear they will do again. I personally am very empathetic to Greenwald's position but have decided to vote pragmatically, this time, for the reasons Chomsky warns we must.  


    What you quoted from my remark relates to your choice to follow Chomsky's advice. There are limits to holding out for a better polity in the face of developments that put the whole set up into existential peril.

    Talking that way, is, of course, a language often used in propaganda. The complacency I referred to is necessary to the manufacture of consent. I object to the idea that a group of passive citizens can wait for better items to appear on the menu because they are assuming the consumer role of unhappy customers is adequate to the challenges of the day.

    And was not that Chomsky's point back in the day when he argued with the likes of William Buckley?


     

    I sure don't mean to suggest my choice is an obvious choice. I voted for Sanders who, compared to Biden, was, IMO, an obvious choice if lesser-evil voting can hope to get us out of the mess we are in. Is a 'right' choice possible? Is the best choice a good enough choice to turn us to a good direction? Damned if I know, but I am sorry to say that I have my doubts based on the choices before us. 

    Cliff notes version of a concisely worded view expressed between two world wars.:

     Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;

    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

    The best lack all conviction, while the worst

    Are full of passionate intensity.

    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

     its hour come round at last,

    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.

                                                             Yeats

     


    If Sanders cared about the policy ideas he talked about and wasn't a selfish narcissist he wouldn't have run. He would have put all his support behind Warren. To top it off the god damn idiot had a massive heart attack that put him in the emergency ward and then the hospital for a few days and got a couple of stents put in. As someone who had a heart attack, didn't go to the emergency ward, got one single stent put in and spent half a day in the hospital I have some idea of what that means. He was too narcissistic to even drop out then. Such a supreme lack of judgement is clear evidence to me that he wasn't fit to be president.


    Maybe your experience convinced you that your useful life was over after what must have been a very mild attack and so you think nobody else could come back and function well either, that's too bad, but many people have many good years after a heart attack. My heart story is what the cardiologist called a "sudden death event" I experienced while playing tennis. That was over twenty years ago but after CPR kick started me I was hauled off and an artificial aortic valve was installed and I got another fifteen years in the game. Sanders and Biden are both too old IMO but I think you need a better excuse than a heart attack of the severity that Sanders experienced, [I do not think it was ever described as massive but maybe you can correct my thinking with a link] to use that as an reason to choose Biden over him or even to judge him as a narcissist though there may arguably be other reasons to come to those conclusions.

     

     


    It wasn't described. There was much more detail in Hillary's fainting/flu than a heart attack that was initially denied. Of course that prolly makes Sanders more suitable these days, when a President can be rushed to the hospital and no explanation ever comes out.


    first, I did give other reasons. Second it was a major cardiac event. He was put on the emergency list. He immediately got 2, or more?, stents. He had to stay in the hospital for a couple of days after. I went to a cardiologist and he told me I had a heart attack and needed 1 or more stents. He scheduled the surgery for about a week later. I could have left the hospital the same day if I got someone to pick me up. My cardiac event was milder than Sanders but the heart attack and surgery still affected my strength and stamina significantly. It's not like my life is over and I'll probably have 20 or more years left but it took some time to come back. I'm still not fully recovered and likely never will be. There was irreparable heart damage and loss of heart function. There always is when you have a heart attack. And my heart was probably stronger than Sanders. The cardiologist told me I probably would have died if I wasn't hiking in the mountains every day. Sanders was lying when he said he was fine, better than ever. I'm sure the cardiologist told him something different and also didn't reveal the full story to the public.

    I didn't choose Biden over Sanders. Neither should have run. Sanders is physically too old and Biden is mentally too old to be president.


    I'm guessing this isn't from our Bruce.

    "but Greenwald is no inferior" - please, Greenwald is distinctly inferior
    “Failure to vote for Biden in this election in the swing states amounts to voting for Trump" - bad math. A vote for Biden is a vote from Trump - a difference of 2. A vote for a 3rd party is still a vote from Trump - a difference of 1.
    " For Chomsky, lesser of two evils is not the right way to frame this issue—it’s about preventing a devastating catastrophe." - he shoots, he scores!
    "Greenwald points out that Biden, an Iraq war hawk, is more likely to start foreign wars and kill innocent people" - total Glenn FUD - he doesn't seem to mind Putin killing innocent people, nor MbS, and he played that card already with Hillary. Hang it up, Glenn

    "How about voting for Biden as an antidote to global warming? Sorry, but he is not exactly going to prevent environmental catastrophe." - misleading - battery-powered cars, solar/wind power, liquid nuclear & new aviation tech will do the heaviest lifting towards mitigating catastrophe. Biden's no Al Gore, but most of the work is from private initiatives & simply showing a bit of support for Global Warming conferences - what Trump obstructs.

    "Reagan Tax Cuts" - let's do the Time Warp again...

    During the first year of Reagan's presidency, federal income tax rates were lowered significantly with the signing of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, which lowered the top marginal tax bracket from 70% to 50% and the lowest bracket from 14% to 11%. ... The 1982 tax increase undid a third of the initial tax cut.

    Okay, boys & girls - do you really think 70% is an optimum tax rate to encourage innovation & productivity? if we could get anyone to pay 50%, don't you think that would be sufficient? and then there's the NAFTA & Glass-Steagall nonsense. Puh-leeze.

    "in 1980, when there was a clearer difference between the Democrats and the Republicans" - oh shoot me - seriously, you can't tell the difference between Obama & Trump, AOC & Matt Gaetz, Nancy Pelosi & Mitch McConnell, Corey Booker & Rand Paul, George Soros/Tom Steyer/Andrew Yang vs the Koch Brothers/Mercer père et fille/Peter Thiel/the Adelson couple, Elizabeth Warren vs Mnuchin, David Axelrod/David Plouffe vs Karl Rove/Brad Parscale, Alyssa Milano & Ann Coulter? Get your "kick me, I'm stupid" sticker over there.

    "Greenwald reminds us that after the 1990s, Bill Clinton" - Glenn's senile before his time, forgets Clinton was in office just 1 year after the 1990s - some of Glenn's forebears favored Bill Bradley over Gore & couldn't "hold their nose", giving us the grouchy pampered tee-totaller from Texas that people would "like to have a beer with" who trashed the balanced budget, gave tax cuts to the rich, and then launched a ten-year war into Iraq just to avenge daddy. Clinton was the one who raised taxes, balanced the budget, pushed for black home ownership & government jobs, a decrease to the debilitating crime problem, and yes, with his VP helped launch the internet (as we know it, 2.0) & warned about global warming. Oh, but that VP was "too robotic" and held a fundraiser at a Buddhist Temple, which made it okay to turn over government to a war-crazed neocons because they're all the same.

    "it’s still our duty at the end of the day to pledge our unconditional support to them." - lessee, we just had a primary of 18 candidates, including 5 black, Asian, Hispanic, gay, part-Samoan Hindu, a Course in Miracles instructor, 5 females, an independent socialist, 3 billionaires, lawyers, attorney general, media businessman, IT guy, and a rock musician.. Seems to me the Democratic Party is offering quite a few options to its voters. Yeah, the DNC isn't supporting any Libertarian or Republican or Green Party candidates, duh.

    "The Left didn’t appear." - uh, the Left appeared - young people didn't appear *as much* - as usual. And much of the Left that did supported Hillary, who won the popular vote by 3 million votes, since the woman who championed Universal Health Care & women in government is pretty damn left wing. “now to tell those same people it’s time to get behind the very establishment who you thought you were launching a revolution against" - uh, same thing we told the Confederates, right? is this controversial? You lose, you assimilate. Put down the bong.

    "The corporatist-friendly Bill Clinton created the conditions for Bush-Cheney" - okay, you can go ahead and just fuck off now. I know you're an eternal freshman liberal arts student who thinks getting a job and not "sticking it to the man" is unforgivable, but the US is the most successful business environment in the world, and that's just simply one of our baselines to deal with & support as part of our "special sauce", our success,, including the now demonied Silicon Valley that paid for balancing the budget and our recent success, so can we cut the juvenile bullshit now? And yeah, global business since the fall of the Wall (bringing China & ex-Soviet/Iron Curtain & African countries into world trade) has decreased extreme poverty from 30% to 8% and made Bill Gates a 2nd career as health & poverty advocate, so unless you're going to pull that money out of someone's butt, just STFU. Finito, this is ridiculous.


    Always interesting to hear your decree of what is wrong with someone's thinking, which is absolutely everything when you don't like their conclusion or viewpoint on a topic, and that decree along with giving your absolute and unarguable proclamation on the right way to view the subject with no questions respected. The details change with different topics but one concluding edict never changes: If someone has ideas that you don't agree with they should just STFU. You are very often ridiculous in your own arrogantly pompous way, acting truly offended by the revelation that  ideas you don't totally agree with even exist, much less are exhibited in the online plain of existence where you strut, but you are an affective screamer and so many former Dagers have followed your order and have in fact STFU. Nice work if that's the result you want. 


    Argue against me, youre over 21 - i laid out what, 8-9 paragraphs rebutting an article you mentioned, and youre going to whine because i said "STFU" once? (Note - that "you" in the thread was rhetorical, referring to the author, in case ambiguous). 

    Now, have any actual thoughts to what i said, or just came here to bitch about my style?


    IMO you put up articles that make weak or bad arguments to support the points they try to make. Those still left here come here to discuss/debate. What do you want when you post an article? Should we just read it without commentary? You apparently don't want to discuss them. PP made what I thought were some very good criticisms. I had some of the same criticisms and several others but I decided to not post them because I didn't expect to have a rational dialog with you on my criticism. Is that what you're looking for when you post an article? 

    Frankly I think your anger and rmrd's diversion tactics come when someone makes good arguments that you can't make a good response to. When someone attacks my ideas with rational criticisms that I can't make a good argument against I don't get angry, I re-evaluate my thinking on the subject.

     

    For many real life reasons I didn't come here when most of the dagbloggers did. When Wolraich announced it on TPM and many left with him to come here I was moving to AZ to a ghost town without internet or electricity. The vast majority of dagbloggers left before I started posting here and that was before PP was put on the masthead. When I started posting PP was just one of the lowly posters like you or me. Not being here reading or posting I can't begin to guess why the site didn't thrive and over time lost posters. But what I do know is it wasn't because PP was put on the masthead.


    It's possibly similar long-winded, counter-productive threads with Wattree, Hal, Resistance as 3 that heavily dominated the site in their time. We tend to default to debating 1 or 2 people and their specific pigeon-holed prism of an issue politic, rather than say spread out, more entertaining current/political events.
    Also, I stopped writing original pieces when Trump wore me out with his daily news blather, and pretty much no one else writes original diaries very often, so we're discussing news-of-the-day only & still frequently going round and round on retread topics & personal gripes, so hard to imagine a newcomer wanting to stick around.

    That said, I do think we keep the newsfeed well-stocked for those into a somewhat broad but politically-active & germane topics. And if Barefooted can revive that Creative Corner...!!!


    Well you know, people post to disagree and rarely to agree. It's human nature I guess. I play World of Warcraft and post a lot on that forum. It's the same there and every forum I've ever been on. We go along reading and thinking, yes, and that too, good point, until we disagree with something. Then we reply. There's not group think here but we do share a large and broad set of knowledge that leads us to independently come to similar conclusions. Anyone who diverges from that is going to get a lot of arguments from many sides. One against the many. That's a tough thing to deal with. I happen to love it the few times it's happened to me. I love a challenge whether it's an intellectual debate, playing a video game, or even in the music I listen to.

    Wattree really was a special case in that he didn't want any response or debate. He made it quite clear he was posting on as many sites as possible to insure his words were preserved for posterity. He attacked any response that even slightly disagreed with anger and insults. 


    Iranian Tankers & the Age of Interdiction

    Two forms of interdiction — the steady expansion of U.S. sanctions and our stunning drift toward  unmasked censorship — have begun to intersect. 

     


    Odd - complain about heavy handed US rightwing government threatening opponents abroad, while complaining we shut down heavy handed rightwing military actions on civilians at home.

    BTW - "Pivot to Peace" appears to be an undercover Chinese apologist/lobbying site - what do you think about 1 million Uighurs locked up in concentration camps in Xinjiang - for or against?


    What is odd? Is it odd that some people thinks that our government has different rights and obligations within it own country boundaries towards its own citizens from those regarding its dealings with other countries all over the world?  Lawrence points out the obvious which is that we try through sanctions to starve enough people and cause enough other troubles that they will carry out regime change without us even having to bomb. We are running out of new sanctions to apply, and support by aligned countries for so many of those sanctions appears to be slipping. 

    Is there anything in the article that you agree with? As to your question, I do not like what is happening to the Uighurs. I am against it and do not think I have ever expressed anything which should make someone suspect I would be for it. What action do you think the U.S. should take to help the UIqhurs? Are all options on the table?  What do you think about the U.S. helping the Saudis starve the Yeminis? For it or against it? 


    1) US should invoke sanctions on China re: the Uighurs, US should place sanctions on Saudis re: killing a US-based journalist, and should stop supplying weapons until some standards of conduct for the war in Yemen.Simple eh?
    2) Fucktard Cotton - the dumbass rightwinger has tons of stage opportunities where he's not challenged on Fox News, RealClearPolitics, Twitter, Facebook, etc. It is not the NY Times' job to give people with radical ideas an unchallenged soapox, even as the White House/Barr are launching tear gas at peaceful protesters. Perhaps let him speak with a dissenting view or just report on the stupid ideas he's promoting as a newsblip. I didn't see the NY Times in a hurry to give dissenters a voice in countering Judith Miller either in her career publishing Karl Rove faxes to rush us into war. If Cotton "represents a fair amount of America" yet his ideas are crazy, how about doing the sane thing and putting an adult on his ass to explain to that "fair amount" where Mr. Cotton has gone off the rails, instead of creating a Goebbels stage to mass create a fake narrative?
    3) "Censor the President"? fuck yeah - if he's going to straight out lie to reporters, and then threaten their access, just shut him down. If what he says has some ounce of validity, sure, publish it with explanatory asterisks. But is there something in the 1st Amendment that says every liar should get a big space on the Op-Ed page, on the nightly news, on wherever he wants to lie, over and over and over again? Trump at ICC? again, he's a nasty man - don't support pretty much anything he does.
    4) Brian Becker - who the fuck is he, what are the reasons that Twitter said they shut him down (I'm shut down right now too, so it's not like I'm not sensitive to the issue), and why does he seem like a shill for every nasty Chinese attitude and policy?
    5) Iran? well, I've been against Netanyahu, don't trust US opinion on anything to do with Iran, don't believe Iran is reconstituting its nuclear program but obviously no access to confidential evidence, do think the mullahs are backwards creeps in general, and think a better foreign policy would be to push Iran (& more of the Mideast) into the arms of the EU. That said, I do understand concerns about Iran providing support for Shia in Iraq, as well as arming Hezbollah.
    6) Morales - what an idiot. Chavez had some skill, some integrity. Not spotless, but some talent. Shame he died.
    7) yes, I agree that Pompeo is a criminal idiot.


    1) Sanctions on China to what degree? As tough as those on Iran and Venezuela? Does the United States want, and could it stand, the results? I don't think so. What about our crucial support for criminal war on the Yemenis ? I know that some justify our support or believe that pulling it would not change anything. I disagree and have presented my reasons before which boil down largely to being that our policies are long term counter-productive. I also weigh morality of projecting politics with military action. I wasn't bullshitting, I think the Uighurs are probably getting a real bad deal which is certainly being played as political fodder by some. I don't know how we can stop it or have any effect on that other than moral suasion which our country is rapidly losing the power to exert. On the other hand, I do know how we could radically effect the lives of many more Yemenis who are in a horrible situation.  

    2) We disagree whether the "Paper of Record" should print the opinion of a U.S. Senator when he spouts the views of a high percentage of Americans. We agree, I think, that an analysis and criticism Should be given the same prominence.

    3) See number two. 

    4) Brian Becker - who the fuck is he?  He is new on the scene to me, I have no opinion on him as of now . Maybe he should have been shut down. Maybe you should have been shut down, I don't know but Where I come down on free speech I would probably allow both of you to stay open even if you called each other fucktards. 

    5)Looks like we mostly agree. 

    6) You are quite generous in your judgment of Chavez. He had some skill, some integrity, some tallent.  I agree it is a shame he died. I wonder if Morales has nay of those qualities at all.  The situation for him as the elected leader of Venezuela has changed greatly from what it was for Chavez.  Overt direct pressure from the United States intended to remove him from office has increased exponentially at a time when other factors align to hurt his country.  Whet idiotic or unjustified things has he done? I am not suggesting there are none?

    7) Gee, let's have a coke. 


    1) Think u missed "and should stop supplying weapons until some standards of conduct for the war in Yemen."

    1 million Uighurs reportérky in concentration camps.


    We should stop supplying weapons and we should impose some standards of conduct of war in Yemen. Fair enough as far as it goes but it does not go anywhere. I do not expect that either Trump or Biden will impose standards on Saudi Arabia. Do you?  

    In October 2018, the United Nations warned that 13 million people face starvation in what could be "the worst famine in the world in 100 years."[29] The following month, a report by Save the Children estimated that 85,000 children under the age of five have died from starvation.[30] The famine has been compared by some commentators to the holodomor in Soviet Ukraine.[31][32] 

    Yeah, it's Wikipedia which seems to be getting greatly corrupted in some areas but I am guessing that they are correct about what the U,N. reported. 

     


    Hey, i voted Hillary.

    When She wants someone dead, they end up dead.

    Regime change? Check

    Women make lists.

    Elections have consequences.


    "When She wants someone dead, they end up dead".  Yeah, and I can hear her hyena-like cackle to brutal death now as she uses the 'royal we' to describe her reaction to a death that she wanted to claim some credit for. What a card. 

     


    You take her very personally, dont you?

    Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sits down for six consecutive television interviews in Kabul, Afghanistan October 20, 2011
    Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shared a laugh with a television news reporter moments after hearing deposed Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi had been killed.

    "We came, we saw, he died," she joked when told of news reports of Qaddafi's death by an aide in between formal interviews.

    Clinton was in Tripoli earlier this week for talks with leaders of Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC).

    How many TV interviews do you think Mike Pompeo gives? Rex Tillerson? Even John Kerry? Interviews while travelling in "shithole countries" with awaiting press detail?

    The "Royal we" might refer to the 5-country European coalition she built or the group she traveled into Libya with - presumably it wasn't a 1st Class ticket on Libyan Airlines, but some combination of troop transport and helicopter. 

    Here's the clip - tried to find a longer one with more context, nope - they really cranked up her volume here, but tell me if She sounds really "cackling" vs how Obama or anyone else laughs?

    Also please tell me how many people Qaddafi killed during the 2011 Arab Spring uprising, how many he killed & tortured during his career. There have been lots of kids and civilians killed in Syria - should She have waited for Qaddafi's threatened levelling of Benghazí? (Republicans did 10 investigations for 4 diplomats - imagine 5-10,000 died)

    https://youtu.be/mlz3-OzcExI

    (I do hope you accept this was before exact disturbing details of Qaddafi's death arrived 

    And here's a video where she doesnt cackle at all, giving an idea what she had to put up with

    https://youtu.be/v5DEROUA568

    And here's an interesting detailed breakdown of players in the Libya uprising & transition (i'm sure shirt-sleeves Jim Jordan hasnt read anything this complex)

    http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1062/who-drove-the-libyan-uprising

     


    "You take her very personally, dont you?"  No, but I take her actions very seriously.You are the one who takes personally any objection to her actions.  


    Explain, please. I find "cackles" a recurring sexist trope. Listen to Rudy Giuliani, even when not dressed in drag.

    Which of her actions did i take personally rather than politically? Which of your objections did i ignore or not counter effectively, rationally, or accept as fair??


    LU, did you know that 25% of farmland in Yemen is reserved for growing dope/Kat and they have had food shortages/famine for decades before this war? Ansar Allah taking control of Yemen won't change this or the fact they are running out of oil to sell and buy food they will probably always lack.

    The Houthis control the flow of food aid in much of the country and they eat before civilians and children. The KSA is trapped in this proxy war with Iran and can't allow a Hezbollah/Hamas style terror rocket storm to grow in Yemen.


    I'll point out the same thing I did last time you wanted to discuss Yemen. It's all about the Bab al-Mandab strait. Iran already controls the Strait of Hormuz and wants to control the Bab al-Mandab strait too so Saudi Arabia is land locked. No country would ever allow that to happen and especially not Saudi Arabia that ships so much oil by tankers. Dozens of tankers go through the strait every day. SA will do what ever it takes to make sure no hostile power controls the Bab al-Mandab strait and it's done some terrible things. But the provocateur is Iran and the cause is Iran's bid for power over SA. Saudi Arabia absolutely must have a friendly government in Yemen to protect the strait. There will never ever be peace until SA or a friendly or neutral government controls that strait. And who is it that is unwilling to accept that? Iran 

    Just look at a map of Yemen. It's so obvious you don't need an expert in middle east power dynamics to see it. I've been reading about it for years so I did a quick search. 

    Bab-El-Mandeb, Gateway to the Red Sea: the World’s Most Dangerous Strait

    Here's another

    Bab al-Mandab: Hard Times at the Gate of Tears

    Ask someone to name the most critical maritime passages in the world, and you’ll generally get a pretty standard list: Hormuz, Suez, Panama, Gibraltar, maybe even Malacca. More rarely will you hear the words Bab al-Mandab. This is a strange thing, for a simple look at a map should indicate that the narrows connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden (and so, in turn, connecting the Mediterranean to the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean) are as likely as any in the world to be both heavily trafficked and vulnerable to targeting by those wishing to disrupt that traffic.

     


    Yes, I remember that exchange well. I never argued that the Saudis had no good reason by their lights. I argued the obvious truth that we could stop the air attacks on Yemen by Saudi Arabia with a phone call.  SA could not continue to bomb Yemen unless we continued to support them with aircraft, ammunition, trained technicians, etc.  You argued that SA could simply switch to other suppliers and keep on keepin’ on which is ridiculous. It would take years and many billions of dollars and a great shifting of alliances to do so. SA had their geopolitical situation in which Yemen was/is a problem. They chose to solve that problem with a cruel stand off bombardment and we chose to support them for our own reasons. These are objective facts that can be easily seen and checked. The subjective answers to what we should do apply to very different questions.   Your argument morphed from saying that we could not stop SA’s bombing, so why make an issue of it, to why SA could be expected to protect their right of way through the Bab al-Mandab strait. Anyone wishing to review our actual disagreement and our actual arguments can go to the original here where they begin at about the middle of the long thread of comments.


    Ansar Allah has broken the covid truce and attacked Riyadh with missiles and drones. There are no good options when dealing with Theocrats and their minions who reject negotiation.


    Nothing morphed. In my very first reply to you the first sentence was, "Have you ever looked at a map of Saudi Arabia and Yemen?" In the second paragraph, "While you're looking at that map of Yemen, probably for the first time, see if you can figure out why control of this poor weak little country is so important" My reply was all about geography. I look at maps all the time when I'm reading the news and I'd guess you rarely do. You really should. I disagree with your distorted story line of the dialog but I'm not going to relitigate it. Believe what you want.


    The Smart Money Is on Val Demings.

    This long analysis is by a professional gambler who bets on political outcomes for a living. 


    Ive no idea what that article means to say.


    What it means to say is, as I read it, quite well summarized in the title and quite well supported in the article.


    The Caesar Act never passed. What did was sanctions on Russian companies and individuals, and conditions to lift them,  delineated in the NDA 2020:

    Six requirements to lift U.S. sanctions on individuals and businesses who provide funding or assistance to the president of Syria. Iranian and Russian entities are addressed for their governments' support of Assad:

    1. End to Syrian and Russian aircraft bombing civilians.
    2. Iranian, Syrian and Russian forces, as well as entities connected to them, no longer restrict humanitarian access to besieged areas, and allow for civilians to leave freely.
    3. All political prisoners are released, and the appropriate international human rights organizations are given full access to Syria’s prisons and detention facilities.
    4. Bombing of “medical facilities, schools, residential areas, and community gathering places, including markets” by Syrian, Russian, Iranian forces, as well as entities connected to them, ceases.
    5. The possibility for the “safe, voluntary, and dignified return of Syrians displaced by the conflict” is achieved.
    6. Accountability for “perpetrators of war crimes in Syria and justice for victims of war crimes committed by the Assad regime, including by participation in a credible and independent truth and reconciliation process.”

    There is some confusion alright. Maybe the name "Caesar Sanctions" has just become an umbrella term for whatever sanctions do get implemented. Here is what Wapo says as of June 17, this year.

    BEIRUT — New U.S. sanctions on Syria take effect Wednesday, targeting anyone who aids the government of ­President Bashar al-Assad or provides assistance to certain industries operating inside ­government-held territory.

    The set of measures, known as the Caesar Act and included in the U.S. defense policy bill passed in December, aims to force the government to stop the bombardment carried out during ­Syria’s nine-year civil war and halt widely documented human rights abuses.

    Even before the sanctions kicked in, they had already contributed to the collapse of Syria’s long-troubled economy.


    The Russians care about the Syrian economy? You care about Syrians? You csre about the Russians. As usual. Russians can meet the 6 conditions. #1 has - Stop  their bombing of hospitals and refugees. 

    "The sanctions apply to Syrians and non-Syrians alike. In the context of Syria’s war, this means in particular that Russians and Iranians allied with Assad could be the focus."


    Yes, I do care about the Syrians in the semi-abstract way that I care about any individual or any group of humans that I do not know personally but are suffering and dying by the hundreds of thousands as victims of unjust, unaccountable power. Tell me, do you really care about Jamal Khashoggi? Or  Eric Garner? or George Floyd ?  I am not accusing you, just asking. 


    Don't believe you. You have never once seriously criticized Putin on anything, or Russians bombing Syrian refugees. The main things we can do to help Syrians are the points above in the legislation. Stop the Russian bombing, and push a cease fire and peace talks.  


    So, you don’t believe that I care anything about the Syrians. That’s what you think. OK. Truth is though, I actually find it impossible not to have some level of care when masses of people are suffering.  I gave you an honest answer whether you believe it or not, so how about you answering the same question you asked me and I will probably believe you.  Do you care if the Syrian people suffer more, as opposed to suffering less, as a result of Trump trying to starve them? And a bonus question if you will: What good will all that extra misery be expected to accomplish?

     


    "Truth is though, I actually find it impossible not to have some level of care when masses of people are suffering." - wow, that's some kind of carefully constructed nonfeeling feeling. Ever read "The Stranger"? you might feel at home.


    Strongest  feeling expressed so far. How about you? Do you give a shit that Trump is trying to starve Syrians or is it the first thing Trump has ordered that you approve of?


    Wow, Ive worried about Syrians since Assad's dad, perhaps because of my love for Sufis & Arabic food & Syrians/Lebanese who ran restaurants, but before during the Lebanese civil war (including Syria's backing) Concern about Hezbollah & treatment plus exploitation of civilians. I was hopeful with the Arab Spring, seemed Syrians would bond together & maybe the Son would be easier than the father, but soon marches turned to bloodshed, then mass slaughter and exodus if millions. Since i'm in Europe, i see refugees and am affected by them. Sad for their plight, loss of culture, chemical bombings, and difficulties getting accepted in the EU. Am still happy ISIS was largely destroyed as a worse option to Assad/Putin, but small consolation to guys who gave us whirling dervishes.


    Your improvisational version of the Whirling Dervishes you admire is a dizzyingly quick pirouette to point in a new direction that suits your rhetorical point of the moment.   I am sure that starving Syrians will understand and be comforted by your sadness if you miss your favorite Sufi dish at a comfortable place far from the mayhem even as you support the policies that are starving the Syrians at home not already killed by traumatic injuries or treatable medical conditions.


    Shittily nastily said. No, my hummus and pita Is not my concern. jR will appreciate my thoughts on Sufi mystics, but even that pales with the sight of millions of uproooted refugees and hundreds of thousands of civilians killed through indiscriminate or even targeted bombings (including hospitals)

    I start to think youre one of jerkier Putin apologists.


    You start to think that?  What a joke. You have been specifically accusing me of that for several years now. It is your default come-back. 


    No, the jerk part is new.


    But amidst all your deflection you still strenuously avoid answering whether or not you support trump's attempt at starving the remaining Syrian people right now. Today. Why so shy?   


    Because I've no idea what you're talking about, and you don't give a reference, so you probably want a gotcha "well, sanctions starve people, so if you support sanctions you're trying to murder Syrians". Is that it? We had all the Lancet exaggerations of the death toll from Iraq sanctions from fucktards who wanted to support Hussein and couldn't stand that a no-flight zone actually worked much better than full-on war. So really, tell me your ultimate agenda with the question, not just a vague question. There has to be a Putin Pony in there somewhere. "Do anything to contain Assad, and you're killing innocent people". Try an options analysis.


    No reference? Follow this thread to the top and you will come to this: How a US and Qatari regime change deception produced ‘Caesar’ sanctions driving Syria towards famine.

     


    Except where NCD noted:

    The Caesar Act never passed. What did was sanctions on Russian companies and individuals, and conditions to lift them,  delineated in the NDA 2020:

    So did those target Syrians civilians or just Russians?

    And if Russians, how did it caused a Syrians famine?

    As i said, i didnt understand what the article wanted to say - Guess i have too many degrees.


    Reply is below for wider margins.


     

    I think what NCD did was race to Wikipedia looking for a retort but wiki had not caught up with recent news. As I pointed out in my response to NCD which is there for you to read, the Caesar Sanctions bill did pass in June. From the article:

    "Finally, this June, Congress passed the most crushing round of sanctions on Syria in history, ... ..."

    So did those target Syrians civilians or just Russians? you ask. Continuing the sentence above from the article which probably would need to be actually read to be understood even with a PHD in everything:

    ... ... imposing penalties on anyone conducting sovereign economic relations with any entity overseen by the Syrian government. “Anyone doing business with the Assad regime, no matter where in the world they are, is potentially exposed to travel restrictions and financial sanctions,” said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.



    "A December 2019 offensive by Syrian and Russian troops seized control of the southern part of the province and displaced almost 1 million civilians. Many of the displaced lack adequate shelter, food, water, and sanitation...The Syrian government has restricted international humanitarian access to opposition-controlled areas of Syria as part of its efforts to regain control of the entire country....

    The Syrian government has often taken a skeptical attitude toward international humanitarian relief operations in rebel areas, seeing such efforts as entrenching enemy forces and sustaining the rebellion. The government’s preferred strategy—employed in Homs, Aleppo, Eastern Ghouta, and elsewhere—is to control the supply of resources from Damascus and make life in besieged areas so unlivable that populations either surrender or flee.4 But for populations in the northwest, there is nowhere else to flee. The government intends death or surrender to be the only options...".  link

     Did you blog on the Russian offensive, and it's impact on Syrian refugees? No, not surprised. Those refugees f!ed for their lives.  Assad, a torturer and murderer, is Putin's puppet. They are both ruthless killers.The Security Council must renew UN aid access for NW Syria from Turkey in July, or it will be cut off. If sanctions pressure Assad in his territory, so what? Sauce for the goose etc


    On “White Fragility”    A core principle of the academic movement that shot through elite schools in America since the early nineties was the view that individual rights, humanism, and the democratic process are all just stalking-horses for white supremacy.


     

    This will be my last addition to this blog post. The linked short video gives a useful, and I think important, analysis of the allegations that Russia is paying to have American soldiers targeted. The way that this news is presented to the American public by the corporate owned media factories is shown to be misleading and cui bono is indicated as to why.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itOdsk5Rkg0&list=TLPQMjkwNjIwMjCEaGcpvo7ZEA&index=7


    Enjeti: "I have no doubt that this story is true in some form"

    The "they do this all the time" argument requires more than the blithe assumption made here.

     


    Enjeti"s comment when parsed says his opinion, of which he has no doubt, is that what the Russians are accused of is true. The other possibility, if he is wrong which seems extremely unlikely to me but which none of us can prove one way or the other, is that Russia is completely innocent of the charges in question. Regardless, I disagree completely that Enjeti's comment you quote was made with cheerful indifference as the definition of blithe suggests. He and Grimm continue the discussion assuming what the as-usual, not-identified, "intelligent source" says is correct in some form. I assume that same thing. 

     

     

     


    He said that this sort of thing has been going on without much note being made of it. It is the basis of the claim that there is a motive ulterior to the purported reason of revealing an act of war. The "blithe" quality of this assumption is that such a claim should be accepted as a common occurrence. This should be demonstrated, not assumed.


    Most any activity is done through a corporation.  You can have a corporation size 1. This "corporate'backed media" stuff Is nonsense til we know which TV, corporate structure.


    Lulu defends Russia, "has doubts and video" ..... add it to the list. Polonium poisoning, Malaysian Air shoot down, Crimea invasion, murder of journalists, aiding Trump's election, bombing hospitals, refugees in Syria ......


    NCD, you have demonstrated clearly and unequivocally in this very comment thread that you lack the basic intellectual integrity to answer the exact same question you asked of me.   Wank on.

     


    Lulu distracts ...you have never criticized any Russian crime. You have the integrity of RT.


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