The Putin Summit - God help us.

The longer Trump is President the less facts matter.

Of course Kelly Ann says there are facts and "alternative facts".

For example:

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/02/donald-trump-steve-stivers-endorsement-760464

paulsurovell said:

nohero said:

paulsurovell said:
 Facts Matter.

 If you think Facts Matter, you should pay attention to them.

 Please cite examples of where you think I haven't.

 As Pierre Fermat wrote in the margin of a book, regarding his famous theorem, "I have discovered a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition that this margin is too narrow to contain."

I say the same thing about your disregard for facts.

ouch

paulsurovell said:

nohero said:

paulsurovell said:
 Facts Matter.

 If you think Facts Matter, you should pay attention to them.

 Please cite examples of where you think I haven't.

 You can subscribe to our gold-embossed bound compendium of MOL, a 20-volume set, where nohero has pointed facts out for years (updated annually). Printed on vellum and inked by Jesuit brothers of the San Alfonso Retreat House, this collector's edition will soon become a family heirloom.  Yours for $26,000, inclusive of sales tax (then $1,000 per year ongoing subscription).  Order today!  

dave said:

paulsurovell said:

nohero said:

paulsurovell said:
 Facts Matter.

 If you think Facts Matter, you should pay attention to them.

 Please cite examples of where you think I haven't.

 You can subscribe to our gold-embossed bound compendium of MOL, a 20-volume set, where nohero has pointed facts out for years (updated annually). Printed on vellum and inked by Jesuit brothers of the San Alfonso Retreat House, this collector's edition will soon become a family heirloom.  Yours for $26,000, inclusive of sales tax (then $1,000 per year ongoing subscription).  Order today!  

 dave wins 

nohero said:

paulsurovell said:

nohero said:

paulsurovell said:
 Facts Matter.

 If you think Facts Matter, you should pay attention to them.

 Please cite examples of where you think I haven't.

 As Pierre Fermat wrote in the margin of a book, regarding his famous theorem, "I have discovered a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition that this margin is too narrow to contain."
I say the same thing about your disregard for facts.
 

Let's try it this way -- what evidence can you provide to support your statement?

wendy said:

dave said:

paulsurovell said:

nohero said:

paulsurovell said:
 Facts Matter.

 If you think Facts Matter, you should pay attention to them.

 Please cite examples of where you think I haven't.

 You can subscribe to our gold-embossed bound compendium of MOL, a 20-volume set, where nohero has pointed facts out for years (updated annually). Printed on vellum and inked by Jesuit brothers of the San Alfonso Retreat House, this collector's edition will soon become a family heirloom.  Yours for $26,000, inclusive of sales tax (then $1,000 per year ongoing subscription).  Order today!  

 dave wins 

 dave wins because he owns the message board and allows trolls and bullies to disrupt any serious discussion where he does not agree.  So much winning.  

nan said:

wendy said:

dave said:

paulsurovell said:

nohero said:

paulsurovell said:
 Facts Matter.

 If you think Facts Matter, you should pay attention to them.

 Please cite examples of where you think I haven't.

 You can subscribe to our gold-embossed bound compendium of MOL, a 20-volume set, where nohero has pointed facts out for years (updated annually). Printed on vellum and inked by Jesuit brothers of the San Alfonso Retreat House, this collector's edition will soon become a family heirloom.  Yours for $26,000, inclusive of sales tax (then $1,000 per year ongoing subscription).  Order today!  

 dave wins 

 dave wins because he owns the message board and allows trolls and bullies to disrupt any serious discussion where he does not agree.  So much winning.  

 And so much bullying! 

Facts matter. Here is one.

Dave has not allowed "trolls and bullies" to disrupt serious discussions or even non-serious discussions.

Whether a discussion is serious or not is a matter of opinion. Whether a discussion has been disrupted is a matter of fact.

I'm under no illusion that the world's problems will be solved on MOL.  Some people have higher expectations, I guess.

paulsurovell said:

nan said:

DaveSchmidt said:

nan said:

 Right, don't use facts when hysteria is so much better.

Don’t attribute to wendy a comment that dave23 made:

nan said:

wendy said:

dave23 said:  It's a very small minority, but it is there. It's where Paul, Nan, Greenwald, etc. meet the alt right.

 Bingo. I was away from the political threads for a while, getting my fill from some excellent podcasts like Pod Save America and a few other Crooked Media productions as well as On the Media but I must say I was saddened to see the Who Colluded More Thread still going strong by Paul. Very sad and so not productive.

 Really nice, Wendy, accusing your neighbors of being like the alt right just because they don't agree with you.

 Wendy endorsed it.  They both should be called out for this.  Basically saying we are Nazis.  Really?  That's OK? 

Wendy and dave23 correctly point out that many critics of Russiagate are right-wing, but it's also true that many supporters of Russiagate are right-wing, Senator Richard Burr, for instance, or Shepard Smith of Fox News. And as I've pointed out before, many of the leading proponents of Russiagate are the worst warmongers in America, whose motivation is to promote US-Russian military confrontation in Europe and the Middle East. The entire cast of the Project for the New American Century is solidly behind Russiagate.

More later.
[continued Aug 3]

I'm proud to be associated with three VIPS members who have spoken at Maplewood antiwar meetings who are now leading critics of Russiagate: Scott Ritter, Ray McGovern and Matthew Hoh. All three are American heroes -- Scott Ritter, a former Marine and UN WMD inspector who warned Americans about the WMD lies of the Bush administration [FBI director Robert Mueller]. Scott and Mueller are again on opposite sides -- Scott recently challenged Mueller's indictment of Russian GRU officers as a political act designed to manipulate American public opinion against Russia.

Ray McGovern has evolved from CIA Soviet division chief, who delivered the Presidential briefing during the Reagan administration, to a fully committed antiwar activist, challenging the entire war machine.

Matthew Hoh was a Marine officer in Iraq who worked for the Foreign Service in Afghanistan and publicly resigned because of the futility of the war and its cost in lives and treasure. Like Ray, Matthew is a full-time peace advocate.

There is nothing alt-right or right-wing about Scott, Ray or Matt's positions on Russiagate, which like mine -- and I think I can speak for Nan as well -- are based on its absence of evidence, flawed arguments, hysteria and the poisoning of US-Russian relations that constitutes the greatest threat to peace that we face.

 bump

The article Paul cites offers insight:

Indictment of 12 Russians: Under the Shiny Wrapping, a Political Act

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/indictment-of-12-russians-under-the-shiny-wrapping-a-political-act/

There is one major problem with the indictment, however: It doesn’t prove that which it asserts. True, it provides a compelling narrative that reads like a spy novel, and there is no doubt in my mind that many of the technical details related to the timing and functioning of the malware described within are accurate. But the leap of logic that takes the reader from the inner workings of the servers of the Democratic Party to the offices of Russian intelligence officers in Moscow is not backed up by anything that demonstrates how these connections were made.

That’s the point of an indictment, however—it doesn’t exist to provide evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, but rather to provide only enough information to demonstrate probable cause. No one would, or could, be convicted at trial from the information contained in the indictment alone. For that to happen, the government would have to produce the specific evidence linking the hacks to the named Russians, and provide details on how this evidence was collected, and by whom. In short, the government would have to be willing to reveal some of the most sensitive sources and methods of intelligence collection by the U.S. intelligence community and expose, and therefore ruin, the careers of those who collected this information. This is something the government has never been willing to do, and there is much doubt that if, for some odd reason, the Russians agreed to send one or more of these named intelligence officers to the United States to answer the indictment, this indictment would ever go to trial. It simply couldn’t survive the discovery to which any competent defense would subject the government’s assertions.

Robert Mueller knew this when he drafted the indictment, and Rob Rosenstein knew this when he presented it to the public. The assertions set forth in the indictment, while cloaked in the trappings of American justice, have nothing to do with actual justice or the rule of law; they cannot, and will never, be proved in a court of law. However, by releasing them in a manner that suggests that the government is willing to proceed to trial, a perception is created that implies that they can withstand the scrutiny necessary to prevail at trial.

And as we know, perception is its own reality.

So, it has not been proven that Russia hacked the DNC, and yet this is commonly stated in the news media as fact.  I've been listening to the Wilderness podcast Wendy recommended to understand the 2016 election and what needs to be done going forward.  The podcast  flatly states that the Russians influenced the election and that they hacked the DNC.  They ignore all economic factors affecting the country and focus on people not liking Hillary's personality and the Russians (with a mention of Comey).  So, the conclusion you are encouraged to believe is to be to focus on evil Russian and to stop thinking qualified women can't be president.  They do mention damage to the "Democratic Brand" and conclude the solution is to run more women candidates.  Really.  

Nan, 

I've asked you and Paul multiple times to provide plausible alternatives to the Russians having hacked the DNC, Podesta's account, managing Twitter farms, and managing fake FB accounts. The latter two also happened in other the UK for Brexit and elections (or targeting prominent leaders) in Belarus, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and the Ukraine.

You can ignore the long list of countries. But you must have alternative explanations to to Podesta, the DNC and the Twitter and FB accounts, right?

dave23 said:
Nan, 
I've asked you and Paul multiple times to provide plausible alternatives to the Russians having hacked the DNC, Podesta's account, managing Twitter farms, and managing fake FB accounts. The latter two also happened in other the UK for Brexit and elections (or targeting prominent leaders) in Belarus, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and the Ukraine.
You can ignore the long list of countries. But you must have alternative explanations to to Podesta, the DNC and the Twitter and FB accounts, right?

 fat guy on bed in basement

dave23 said:
Nan, 
I've asked you and Paul multiple times to provide plausible alternatives to the Russians having hacked the DNC, Podesta's account, managing Twitter farms, and managing fake FB accounts. The latter two also happened in other the UK for Brexit and elections (or targeting prominent leaders) in Belarus, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, and the Ukraine.
You can ignore the long list of countries. But you must have alternative explanations to to Podesta, the DNC and the Twitter and FB accounts, right?

There are hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of hackers and trolls around the world, including many who work for governments, including the US government. The examples of Russian govt trolling claimed by Intel/Corporate Media/Political Leadership are a joke, apart from the lack of evidence. Mueller's indictment against Concord Management has turned into a farce.

Julian Assange has said repeatedly the Russian govt did not provide Wikileaks with the emails. His associate, former British Ambassador Craig Murray has said the emails were leaked by an insider.

Pro Tip: Do not take corporate media reports, allegations by the Intel Community, or indictments by prosecutors, if not supported by evidence, as facts.

I think the point Nan and Paul constantly make is - we all hack each other - it's all normal.  We shouldn't be hypocrites because the US does much worse then everyone else.  So Russia - if you're listening - carry on, it's ok.

paulsurovell said:

Pro Tip: Do not take corporate media reports, allegations by the Intel Community, or indictments by prosecutors, if not supported by evidence, as facts. 

What evidence does Binney have that it was a leak. 

paulsurovell said:
Pro Tip: Do not take corporate media reports, allegations by the Intel Community, or indictments by prosecutors, if not supported by evidence, as facts. 

If it’s any comfort, your “are a joke” link to an MSNBC segment with a New Yorker writer who was discussing a matter “of my personal belief” — I didn’t take it as a fact.

paulsurovell said:

There are hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of hackers and trolls around the world, including many who work for governments, including the US government. The examples of Russian govt trolling claimed by Intel/Corporate Media/Political Leadership are a joke, apart from the lack of evidence. Mueller's indictment against Concord Management has turned into a farce.
Julian Assange has said repeatedly the Russian govt did not provide Wikileaks with the emails. His associate, former British Ambassador Craig Murray has said the emails were leaked by an insider.
Pro Tip: Do not take corporate media reports, allegations by the Intel Community, or indictments by prosecutors, if not supported by evidence, as facts.

So you believe Assange--who has been caught saying he wanted the GOP to win--but not FB or Twitter's own investigations into who ran those farms? Or are you saying that the nearly 3000 fake Twitter accounts were just an uncoordinated coincidence? Or are you finally admitting that there was a troll farm but that it was ineffective (the joke link suggests)? (They didn't do it and it didn't work is a curious argument, but not a new one from you.) And perhaps you can shed light on why Podesta would leak his own emails.

jamie said:
I think the point Nan and Paul constantly make is - we all hack each other - it's all normal.  We shouldn't be hypocrites because the US does much worse then everyone else.  So Russia - if you're listening - carry on, it's ok.

 No. The point is that if there is a hack, one should not assume it was Russia.

dave23 said:

paulsurovell said:

There are hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of hackers and trolls around the world, including many who work for governments, including the US government. The examples of Russian govt trolling claimed by Intel/Corporate Media/Political Leadership are a joke, apart from the lack of evidence. Mueller's indictment against Concord Management has turned into a farce.
Julian Assange has said repeatedly the Russian govt did not provide Wikileaks with the emails. His associate, former British Ambassador Craig Murray has said the emails were leaked by an insider.
Pro Tip: Do not take corporate media reports, allegations by the Intel Community, or indictments by prosecutors, if not supported by evidence, as facts.

So you believe Assange--who has been caught saying he wanted the GOP to win--but not FB or Twitter's own investigations into who ran those farms? Or are you saying that the nearly 3000 fake Twitter accounts were just an uncoordinated coincidence? Or are you finally admitting that there was a troll farm but that it was ineffective (the joke link suggests)? (They didn't do it and it didn't work is a curious argument, but not a new one from you.) And perhaps you can shed light on why Podesta would leak his own emails.

 Two parts to the argument: (1) No evidence that Russian government (emphasis on "government") involved in those accounts or farms. (2) Those who claim it was Russian government are not presenting anything of consequence with regard to the elections.

DaveSchmidt said:

paulsurovell said:
Pro Tip: Do not take corporate media reports, allegations by the Intel Community, or indictments by prosecutors, if not supported by evidence, as facts. 

If it’s any comfort, your “are a joke” link to an MSNBC segment with a New Yorker writer who was discussing a matter “of my personal belief” — I didn’t take it as a fact.

 Good. But "his personal belief" was heresy on MSNBC and -- correct me if I'm wrong -- he's persona non grata on MSNBC.

Here's another "joke" link: https://twitter.com/AdrianChen/status/965962680161980417

paulsurovell said:

 Two parts to the argument: (1) No evidence that Russian government (emphasis on "government") involved in those accounts or farms. (2) Those who claim it was Russian government are not presenting anything of consequence with regard to the elections.

We won't go back into the Crowdstrike and Motherboard stuff or your belief that it was leaked via floppy disk or something, but there is a simple question: Do you think Podesta leaked his own emails?

paulsurovell said:

Here's another "joke" link: https://twitter.com/AdrianChen/status/965962680161980417

In light of all the reminders of Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction,” the reply tweet that asked if anyone remembered the term “a low-level break-in” did get a grin.

paulsurovell said:

Here's another "joke" link: https://twitter.com/AdrianChen/status/965962680161980417

That link highlights the conversation we should be having which is not whether or not Russia is fishing but why they are having some success.  But to answer that question, we would have to ask if it is OK that our own media - or large segments of it - and our own politicians spend so much time creating and exacerbating divisions among us.  Absent this fostering of divisions by our own media and politicians, these Russian fishing expeditions would be rather less successful.

dave23 said:

paulsurovell said:

 Two parts to the argument: (1) No evidence that Russian government (emphasis on "government") involved in those accounts or farms. (2) Those who claim it was Russian government are not presenting anything of consequence with regard to the elections.

We won't go back into the Crowdstrike and Motherboard stuff or your belief that it was leaked via floppy disk or something, but there is a simple question: Do you think Podesta leaked his own emails?

 I find Assange associate, former British ambassador Craig Murray's explanation plausible.

paulsurovell said:

dave23 said:

paulsurovell said:

 Two parts to the argument: (1) No evidence that Russian government (emphasis on "government") involved in those accounts or farms. (2) Those who claim it was Russian government are not presenting anything of consequence with regard to the elections.

We won't go back into the Crowdstrike and Motherboard stuff or your belief that it was leaked via floppy disk or something, but there is a simple question: Do you think Podesta leaked his own emails?

 I find Assange associate, former British ambassador Craig Murray's explanation plausible.

I find Trump's theory - the fat kid in his bedroom in New Jersey  - to be very convincing.

I tend to discount people with motive like Russian hackers or Sanders moles.

LOST said:
The longer Trump is President the less facts matter.
Of course Kelly Ann says there are facts and "alternative facts".

 ....

LOST said:
For example:
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/02/donald-trump-steve-stivers-endorsement-760464

 The concept of time is flexible:

https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-claims-queen-elizabeth-kept-him-waiting-uk-us-media/

paulsurovell said:

dave23 said:

paulsurovell said:

 Two parts to the argument: (1) No evidence that Russian government (emphasis on "government") involved in those accounts or farms. (2) Those who claim it was Russian government are not presenting anything of consequence with regard to the elections.

We won't go back into the Crowdstrike and Motherboard stuff or your belief that it was leaked via floppy disk or something, but there is a simple question: Do you think Podesta leaked his own emails?

 I find Assange associate, former British ambassador Craig Murray's explanation plausible.

"Murray’s interview is well worth the listen, as he has nowhere near the same personal stakes in this story as Assange and — as he makes clear in the interview — because he seems to have had a role in handing over the second batch of emails. Ultimately, his description is unconvincing. But it is an important indication of what he claims to believe (which must reflect what Assange has told him, whether Assange believes it or not). Importantly, Murray admits that “It’s perfectly possible that WikiLeaks themselves don’t know what is going on,” which admits one possibility I’ve always suspected: that whoever dealt the documents did so in a way that credibly obscured their source.

Murray explained that the two sets of documents handed over to Wikileaks came via two different American sources, both of whom had legal access to them.

He describes a lot more about the Podesta emails, of which he said he had “first hand knowledge,” because of something he did or learned on a trip to DC in September. In this interview, he says “The material was already, I think, safely with WikiLeaks before I got there in September,” though other outlets have suggested (with maps included!) that’s when the hand-off happened. In that account, Murray admits he did not meet with the person with legal access; he instead met with an intermediary. That means the intermediary may have made false claims about the provenance.

And even the claims about the provenance don’t make sense. Murray claimed the documents came from someone in the national security establishment, and implied they had come from legal monitoring of John Podesta because he (meaning John) is a lobbyist for Saudi Arabia.

Again, the key point to remember, in answering that question, is that the DNC leak and the Podesta leak are two different things and the answer is very probably not going to be the same in both cases. I also want you to consider that John Podesta was a paid lobbyist for the Saudi government — that’s open and declared, it’s not secret or a leak in a sense. John Podesta was paid a very substantial sum every month by the Saudi government to lobby for their interests in Washington. And if the American security services were not watching the communications of the Saudi government paid lobbyist then the American intelligence services would not be doing their job. Of course it’s also true that the Saudis’ man, the Saudis’ lobbyist in Washington, his communications are going to be of interest to a great many other intelligence services as well.

As a threshold matter, no national security agency is going to monitor an American registered to work as an agent for the Saudis. That’s all the more true if the agent has the last name Podesta.

But that brings us to another problem. John Podesta isn’t the lobbyist here. His brother Tony is. So even assuming the FBI was collecting all the emails of registered agent for the Saudis, Tony Podesta, even assuming someone in national security wanted to blow that collection by revealing it via Wikileaks, they would pick up just a tiny fraction of John Podesta’s emails. So this doesn’t explain the source of the emails at all."

Update: Now Assange is saying his source wasn’t Guccifer. He also snipes about Murray’s comments.

“Craig Murray is not authorized to talk on behalf of WikiLeaks,” Assange said sternly.

https://www.emptywheel.net/2016/12/15/craig-murrays-description-of-wikileaks-sources/