Lol.
You really have no clue at all, do you?

“Turd like me”….a compliment from you, and hilariously lacking in self awareness.

Actively trolling old videos…me…yeah, that’s it bobby. I’m constantly checking every video ever posted to see if you said something, not just surfing the comments page and correcting your hyperbole and lies and constant hypocrisy. You didn’t look up a 1 1/2 year old video to attempt to advance a far right narrative and gloat, no, that didn’t happen, never.

Q: Are you saying that if this uncorroborated WaPo article based on anonymous sources was critical of Gaetz or Trump you would give it the same credence? I think not. You are so transparent that it’s not even fun…you’re the first person I’ve ever known that makes a better window than you do a door. 😂

Asinine whining.

As was written in the obituary being referenced, he was once an austere religious scholar. The quickly changed headline was a cut and paste mistake, which was immediately replaced with "extremist leader". Get over it idiot snowflakes. No matter what the WaPo does, these morons will twist it to try to make it seem negative.

Now, @bobknight33, please explain why Trump notified the Russians ahead of the operation but ignored his lawful obligation to notify Congress. The answer is obvious, he believes he works for Putin/ the Russians and not America. His moronic excuse, that congress would have leaked it so he couldn't tell them, is not only just dumb, it's wrong and illegal, and doesn't make a whit of sense since he did tell our enemies-Russia and Syria. If congress had leaked anything about the secret operation before it was declassified, he could and would have insisted the DOJ prosecute them for releasing top secret info....and exposing top secret information is something Trump has done repeatedly, once directly telling Russian ambassadors top secret information that did irreparable harm to ongoing intelligence gathering against Daesh, then declassifying it after the fact.

Which mistake makes zero difference, and which is an intentional attack against American law, our government, and the constitution?

Can you cite your sources, please? I have not heard this information. What I had heard matches some of what you said.

The information I read on several news sites (CNN, WaPo, and I forget the thrid) all said similar things to what you said, except that the 2 were waiting for a friend to arrive, who happened to arrive just as they were being led out.

They were not customers, yet. Why buy anything before your friend arrives, if he is buying the drinks?

I am white and I have never once been hassled at a Starbucks for showing up and hanging out with my laptop, going to the bathroom, or doing anything for any amount of time.

I don't think we can ignore that they were black, and it sounds like they were getting grief pretty early on in their stay.

What kind of balance are you speaking of? For the sake of argument, I'll assume that you mean spending somewhat equal time and effort on different sides of an argument.

That kind of balance can be expected from a news outlet. Many of them, especially American ones, overcook is massively by refusing to make judgements on the validity of opposing arguments. If argument A is backed by empirical evidence and argument B is smoke and mirrors, argument B should receive ridicule, not the same kind of respect that A receives.

Now, applying this kind of balance to individuals strikes me as wierd. They are not obliged to give a balanced view: they are obliged, as journalists, to present facts, and offer interpretations. The issues we're talking about here are not disputes between neighbours. We are talking about the war on terror, macroeconomics, propaganda, things of the utmost importance. And the media is doing a woeful job at presenting any dissenting view.

Thing is, you can get the major consensus narrative from countless news outlets out there. Want to here about the supposed benefits of multinational trade agreements? The NYT and the WaPo have dozens upon dozens of articles with praise of TTIP and TPP. If, however, you would like to hear about the consequences of previous trade agreements, or just some hard math on the numbers they like to throw in there, you won't find any. You'll have to go to Dean Baker at the CEPR, to Yves Smith at NakedCapitalism, you'll read Rick Wolff's take on it.

These people do everything in their power to restore the balance that the media drowned in buckets of party-line puff pieces. People recognise RT for propaganda, but somehow think propaganda stops when ownership is private.

Try to find proper articles about the global assassination program (drone warfare) and its effect on sovereign people abroad -- won't find anything in the media, you'll have to go to Jeremy Scahill.

Try to find proper articles about the desolation brought to communities in the developed world by (the current form of) capitalism, the epidemic of loniliness, the breaking apart of the social fabric, the monetarisation of every aspect of life -- silence. What about the slavery-like conditions it creates through indebtedness? The absurd inequality? Nothing.

What about the massive atrocities in Jemen? There was plenty about the atrocities committed by Russia in Syria, but when Saudis use US weapons to destroy an entire country, mum's word.

There is no balance in the media. They are the gatekeepers of knowledge, and anything outside the establishment's agreed upon consensus is ignored, marginalised, ridiculed, or straight up demonized.

CJ Hopkins had a great piece at Counterpunch the other day, titled Why Ridiculous Official Propaganda Still Works. He puts it more succinctly than I ever could. Reality doesn't matter, not for the mainstream media. The narrative matters.

And that's why I listen to dissenting voices like Chris Hedges, Abby Martin or Thom Hartmann, even when they are employed by a state propaganda outlet.

29 comments, most of them rather long and more-or-less well reasoned, yet none about the content.

I get if you don't trust RT. It's a propaganda outlet of a foreign government, after all. But RT is not Chemical Ali style of propaganda: it is solid, well-researched reporting on many topics, subtly slanted on others, and completely balls-to-the-wall denial of reality on others again.

You want to take that as a reason to ignore it entirely? Knock yourself out.

I won't. Which isn't saying much, because I prefer text over video.

Anyway, they regularly offer a valuably "Korrektiv" with regards to reporting in the mainstream media. Of course I would prefer if I could get that from a less-dubious outlet like, maybe, the Indepedant, or the NZZ, but I can't.

Let's talk about the content of this clip, shall we.

Hedges references the Prop-or-Not pieces run by the WaPo. Does anyone here disagree that those were a total and utter smear job? Painting Truthout, Truthdig, Counterpunch, Alternet, BlackAgendaReport, NakedCapitalism and others as stooges of the Kremlin is such an obvious attempt to discredit dissenting voices that it's, quite frankly, rather offensive. Yves Smith and Glen Ford as mouthpieces of the Kremlin... my ass cheeks.

On the other hand, quite a lot of journalists in the US seem to have embraced the Red Scare with open arms, seeing as it gives an excuse as to why their previous HRC lost against the orange-skinned buffoon. Kyle illustrated it nicely with Rachel Maddow.

Second point: they had James Clapper present the report. Seriously? The fucker was caught lying under oath during the initial stages of the NSA revelations. Wasn't the fuckface also in charge of the satellite reconnaisence prior to the Iraq war, who could have presented imagery that debunked the claims of WMD "factories", and decided not to? He is just as trustworthy as Chemical Ali, but less entertaining.

Third: half the report was about RT. Why? I thought it was meant to outline how they "hacked" the election? What does their propaganda outlet have to do with that? And the critique they presented... has anyone read the passage about the "alleged Wall Street greed"? They are having a laugh, and people take it seriously.

Fourth: it distracts from the aspects of HRC's loss they don't want to be a subject of public discussion: class issues. They offered nothing for the working class, who got a shoddy deal over the last decades, and tried to focus entirely on identity politics, completely denying even the existence of class issues. Which is also why it's now the "white, male worker" who is to blame. Nevermind that >50% of white, female workers also voted Trump. Nevermind that significant portions of non-white working class folks also voted Trump. Can't be. According to the narrative, these people are minorities first, working-class second, and identity politics always trumps class politics. Except it didn't.

All this rage at the "deplorables", the "less educated"... it just reeks massively of class bigotry. Those plebs decided to vote for someone other than our beloved Queen HRC? How dare they...

And finally, RT's own part of this segment, about the credibility of the intelligence community's claims. Any disagreement on this? Anyone? Anyone think the torturers at the CIA are trustworthy enough to take their word without hard evidence?

Two days ago, there was a forum/panel about freedom & democracy, where the lineup included: Jeremy Scahill, Edward Snowden, Paul Jay (of TRN), Rick Wolff, and others.

Now, I know I'm biased when it comes to the topics of surveillance, the war on terror, capitalism, etc, but that does sound like a panel worth reporting on, doesn't it? It's not frontpage stuff, sure, but a column/comment online...

Nothing, last I checked. Not a peep.

Who did report on it? RT Germany.

As far as I am concerned, RT is a valid source, as long as you remain aware of their (pro-Russia) angle. It's actually a great source for stuff on the US or the UK, most of the time. Just like I've seen good stuff on Russia in the Swiss media, unlike the red-baiting so prevelant in the WaPo these days.

Uh, you are aware this is reporting from RT, yes ? WaPo may have egg on their face, but RT is an omelette by comparison.

Decent write-up of the current hacking hysteria:
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-01-02/u-s-intelligence-got-the-wrong-cyber-bear

And the WaPo was caught in even more lies with regards to their shoddy reporting on the supposed hack of Burlington Electric:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2017/01/02/how-the-washington-posts-defense-of-its-russian-hacking-story-unraveled-through-web-archiving

http://www.9news.com/entertainment/television/programs/next-with-kyle-clark/jeremy-jojola-statement-on-fake-news-clarification/370786213

Took them only a couple of hours after running a shoddy segment on fake news that incorrectly trashed NC. WaPo on the other hand is still standing by its defamatory claims...

This OpEd by the WaPo really is something else. Calling for the prosecution of your own source is seriously fucked up.

And here you have it: "'Why exactly are all the main characters in ‘Frozen’ white?' my husband asked a white friend recently. She responded thoughtfully: 'Well, the movie is set in a Nordic, cold place — you know, it makes sense, right?' Annoyed, my husband countered, 'The movie has a talking snowman.' It’s funny, and sad, where we draw the lines for what’s acceptable in fantasy movies. Somehow a talking snowman makes more sense than, say, a black Norwegian."
"Fortunately, as children so often do, my son rose to the occasion. He bought his parents’ awkward explanation of how 'Harry Potter is a made-up character, and he could be any color.' Yes, for a moment, he quietly resisted; he knew that Harry wasn’t just any color in the movie. But then his enormous childhood imagination took over, and he decided he could be Harry for Halloween after all. I’m not sure I want to know whether my son imagined away Harry Potter’s whiteness or his own blackness."

Link to full article here.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has canceled the Washington Redskins trademark registration, calling the football team’s name “disparaging to Native Americans.”
http://wapo.st/1qd3bki

Actually, the proof that something did not end up in the hands of the Chinese, the Russians, or myself for that matter, is quite difficult, given that evidence of absence is impossible to obtain. However, the absence of evidence to the claim that they have gained access to information through Snowden himself is reason enough for me.

You want proof that nothing was transfered to them? Might as well try to prove the non-existance of the famous tea pot in orbit.

So the basic argument boils down to motivation as well as credibility of claims.

His motivation to keep access to his material restricted to the selected group of journalists is apparent from his own interviews. They are supposed to be the check on the government, they lack the information to fullfil the role, they need access to correct (what he perceived to be) a wrong, namely a grave breach of your consitution on a previously unheard of scale.
Providing access to Russia or China would instantly negate all hope of ever not drawing the short straw in this mess, as the US is the only country on the planet who can provide him with amnesty and therefore safety.

So why would he do it? For a shot at asylum? You know as well as I do that (permanent) asylum in China/Russia is worthless if the US is after you. Europe could guarantee one's safety, but given the lack of sovereignty vis-a-vis the US, it would not be an option.

That leaves credibility of claims. And that's where my first reason comes into play, the one you put down as "naive". His opponents, those in positions of power, be it inside government or the press, have a track record of being... let's not mince words here, lying sacks of shit. James Clapper's act of perjury on front of Congress is just the most prominent manifestation of it. The entire bunch lied their asses off during the preparation of the invasion of Iraq, they lied their asses off during the revelations triggered by Chelsea Manning and they lied their asses off about the total und unrelenting surveillance of American citizens in violation of their constitutional rights.

If you think supervision of the NSA by the Select Committee on Intelligence is actually working, I suggest you take a look at statements by Senator Wyden. The NSA even plays them for fools. Hell, Bruce Schneier was recently approached by members of Congress to explain to them what the NSA was doing, because the NSA refused to. Great oversight, works like a charm. By the way, it's the same fucking deal with GCHQ and the BND.

So yes, the fella who "stole" data is actually a trustworthy figure, because a) his claims were true and b) his actions pulled off the veil that covered the fact that 320 million Americans had their private data stolen and were sold out by agencies of their own government in conjunction with private intelligence contractors.

What else...

Ah, yeah. "Sloppy" and "stupid". Again, if he was sloppy and stupid, what does that say about the internal control structure of the intelligence industry? They didn't notice shit, they still claim to be unaware of what precisely he took with him. Great security, fellas.

"He could have allowed the press to do it's job without disclosing a much of what has been released."

He disclosed nothing. He is not an experienced journalist and therefore, by his own admission, not qualified to make the call what to publish and how. That's why he handed it over to Barton Gellman at the WaPo, Glenn Greenwald at the Guardian and Laura Poitras, who worked closely with Der Spiegel.

If Spiegel, WaPo and Guardian are not reputable institutions of journalism, none are. So he did precisely what you claim he should have done: he allowed the press to do its bloody job and released fuck all himself.

As for the cheap shot at not being an American: seventy years ago, your folks liberated us from the plague of fascism, brought us freedom. Am I supposed to just sit here and watch my brothers and sisters in the US become the subjects of total surveillance, the kind my country suffered from during two dictatorships in the last century?

Ironically, that would be un-American, at least the way I understand it.

And there's nothing gleeful about my concerns. I am deeply furious about this shit and even more so about the apathy of people all around the world. You think I want Americans to suffer from the same shit we went through as a petty form of payback?

Fuck that. It's the intelligence industry that I'm gunning for. Your nationality doesn't mean squat, some intelligence agency has its crosshairs on you wherever you live. It just happens to be an American citizen who had the balls to provide us with the info to finally try and protect citizens in all countries from the overreaching abuse by the intelligence industry.

In fact, I'd rather worry about our own massive problems within Europe (rise of fascism in Greece, 60% youth unemployment, unelected governments, etc). So can we please just dismantle all these spy agencies and get on with our lives?

Sorry if this is incoherent, but it's late and I'm even more pissed off than usual.

By the way, it seems the folks over at either the Guardian or the WaPo have now started sharing some material with other newspapers. Previously undisclosed information was published by Der Spiegel, giving credit to Laura Poitras, amongst others.

According to statistics from the FBI and Arizona police agencies, crime in Arizona border towns has been “essentially flat for the past decade.” For example, “In 2000, there were 23 rapes, robberies and murders in Nogales, Ariz. Last year, despite nearly a decade of population growth, there were 19 such crimes.” The Pima County sheriff reported that “the border has never been more secure.”

FBI statistics show violent crime rates in all of the border states are lower than they were a decade ago — yet Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) reports that the violence is “the worst I have ever seen.” President Obama justifiably asserted last week that “the southern border is more secure today than any time in the past 20 years,” yet Rush Limbaugh judged the president to be “fit for the psycho ward” on the basis of that remark.

Next, there’s Brewer’s claim that “the majority” of people immigrating illegally “are coming here and they’re bringing drugs, and they’re doing drop houses and they’re extorting people and they’re terrorizing the families. That is the truth.”

No, it isn’t. The Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector has apprehended more than 170,000 undocumented immigrants since Oct. 1, but only about 1,100 drug prosecutions have been filed in Arizona in that time.

The claim that illegal immigrants are behind most killings of law-enforcement personnel is also bunk. Arizona state Sen. Sylvia Allen claimed that “in the last few years 80 percent of our law enforcement that have been killed or wounded have been by an illegal.” A Phoenix police spokesman told the Arizona Republic’s E.J. Montini that the real figure for killings is less than 25 percent, and that there are no statistics on wounded officers.

So what is this “terrible border security crisis” that Brewer says has only “gotten worse”? She complained recently to Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren about the Obama administration’s handling of the border: “They haven’t did [sic] their job.”

[via Dana Millbank @ WaPo]