Counterpunch ran a rant by John Steppling yesterday, titled The Magic Liberal.

As you can deduct from the title, the author takes aim at liberals, with focus on their public reaction to Comey's defenestration and their sudden love affair with institutions (law enforcement/intelligence agencies) that have proven time and time again to be an enemy of the public.

Check out this (admittedly rather long) snippet:

And so we return to the firing of James Comey. And this story has less to do with the Trump’s motivations and the fact that Comey probably needed to be fired (though not because of anything to do with Russia Gate) than it does with the sudden open embracing of throughly corrupt and compromised institutions.

I’ve had people tell me the integrity of the Judiciary in peril. One wonders how such sentences can be uttered with a straight face. I have read people writing of the attack on Democracy signaled by Comey’s firing. What can that possibly mean to anyone who says it? The anti democratic actions of Obama over 8 years seems to pass unnoticed. What was NDAA? Obama expanded surveillance, prosecuted whistleblowers and expanded military tribunals. And this just scratches the surface. What was TTP for that matter?

And yet, if you can find me a liberal willing to actually debate this, I will clean your house for a year, free.

No, the New Victorian, the american white educated liberal is in crises. He or she is in a panic over Trump not because they fear global conflagration or nuclear annihilation, but because their Yoga class might get cancelled. They are forever aggrieved over the violation of feelings — of selected vulnerable groups. This never includes the poor, Arabs, Communists or Africans. Well, ok, on occasion it does include Africans but only in very broad abstract ways (i.e. when George Clooney argues for saving South Sudan or whateverthefuckever it was he was on about).

The adoration of the White Helmets, a proven group of psychopathic jihadist mercenaries is a perfect example. The White Helmets fit the white paternalist narrative. It is a form of colonial logic. The subaltern needs rescue. And its just so wonderful that some clearly teachable Arabs can help themselves with the rescue. Lets give them an Oscar. The style codes are what matters here.

I think the point of the investigations is to discover if there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Every US intelligence agency agreeing with high confidence that the Russian state ran a propaganda and hacking campaign to get Trump elected is enough to people who have any trust in those agencies.

I mean, I don't have a lot of trust in them, but it seems unlikely that they would all agree, especially when the political party in power just wants them to shut up about it.

Sincere thanks for that, @enoch.

While I am too ignorant of the situation to be completely convinced by either side of this, I must admit that it does seem fishy for Assad to use such weapons now. AND, the CIA and other US agencies / forces have a really long track record of doing shady things to "protect US interests" with proxy wars, false flag operations, etc. etc.

The US funding Syrian "rebels" that are an offshoot of Al Qaeda doesn't shock me much considering that the roots of Al Qaeda itself pretty much come from the CIA funding the Mujahideen in Afganistan...


Anyway, I can see and understand your reasons for choosing to downvote the video. That being said, I don't personally regret upvoting this because it does seem to be a good introduction / refresher to the situation in Syria, at least with respect to the standard media take on it. For someone like me, it gets me the broad strokes in 6.5 minutes, which has some real value.

But your post here (and a PM from eric) are equally valuable to me for pointing out bits where that "broad strokes" intro is controversial or potentially misleading (if not flat out BS). So again, sincere thanks to both of you.

This looks like one overconfident sailor who had planned to bring friends with modest sailing experience out for a day on the water and refused to let high, gusting winds hold him back.

They couldn't control the boat enough to keep the mainsail up in gusty winds, and if they had the boat would likely be leaning and flagging soo far over in choppy seas that the passengers would be right to be scared of the boom taking one of them out. It doesn't look like there is an outboard motor, so I guess they somehow got out of the slip and away from docks on just the jib, then hit the real wind gusts.

And now the video starts with mainsail down and getting in the way, jib not fully up but providing some pull, and that pull being lost to waves and poor steering. The sailor is messing with lines up front while the tiller is manned by someone who is waaay out of their element, and who begins to just jack-knife the thing from 0:20 onwards, halting all forward momentum. I don't want to come down on that person too hard, because none of them should have been out there that day, and the sailor should have been manning the till or at least yelling very specific orders at the top of his lungs well before the situation got this bad. No idea why they don't have an outboard motor, maybe they lost it. If its a rental, that rental agency should not have let them go out there.

(grammar edits)

What transcript of what conversation?! Trump claimed to have been tapped, based on a Fox report, based on an Alex Jones theory. No evidence, like a transcript of any conversations Trump has had, has ever been produced....none. I have o idea what you're talking about.
And Faux news itself had to do a special report clearly stating that they never received the tips Napolitano claimed they had received in his commentary implicating the British, and they have NO evidence he was ever under surveillance....full stop.
Napolitano's commentary was pure bullshit, and they've apparently (astonishingly) taken him off the air for spreading it.
"The Russians did it" is from the FBI....Comey's the name, inserting himself into politics is his game....but he's backed up by the heads of no less than 17 intelligence agencies on the Russian involvement claim.

Not true.
The treasury borrows money from those with money to invest, other nations, and corporations by issuing and selling treasury bonds...interest bearing IOUs. That's why, when Trump suggests defaulting on them, it's a disastrous suggestion. If we even hint we won't pay on our debt, no one will buy bonds anymore (they aren't a great investment, but are considered "safe" as is, but not if we default) and our government grinds to a halt with no cash and no credit.

The federal reserve is not the only agency to lend money, the treasury prints more of it for the government, making every dollar worth less, but creating the numerical dollars needed to pay for our debts without actually collecting any. This is actually a flat tax, because it takes the same amount of every dollar that exists with no loopholes or escape for anyone with a dollar. If we want to stop this type of taxation, we need to return to the gold standard and stop playing fast and loose with the value of a dollar....imo.

He's only telling half the story.

Yes, American agencies won't spy on Americans without a warrant, BUT, all Western intelligence agencies have a nudge-nudge wink-wink relationship. "We won't spy on OUR citizens, so we'll just spy on yours, you spy on ours and we'll share intel at the end of the day."

It amounts to the same thing, just with a clever workaround to pretend to the public like you're not actually spying on them.

I don't think people generally find it okay to be spied on by anyone. But if i had to choose...

For me personally i fear the government would gather/use particular types of info to possibly fuck my life up in one of many ways, and for one of many reasons. Google on the other hand may be interested to gather info to try and sell me some shit. I don't want either to get up in my business, but it's a no brainier which i fear more.

I've known to many people getting screwed by government agency, not so many by Amazon

so i have been watching this argument over the "ban" all over my facebook.people really like their little "memes" that offer no real criticism,nor any context,they simply display that persons particular bias.the discussion over this "ban" was not my issue.my issue was with the utter lack of depth of understanding.the evident laziness of those who got up on their little soapbox and sanctimoniously,and self-righteously moralized over a situation that they maybe..maaaybe..spent a total of five minutes on.

until finally my head exploded,and i went into hulk-mode.this was my rant,that i now share with you all:

jesus fucking christ...am i reading these comments correctly?

ok,lets put a little clarity into the mix,shall we?

first of all its not actually a "ban" but an extension to vette refugees further.

sounds reasonable right?

but what is NOT mentioned is that the majority of these refugees have already BEEN vetted,and the process has taken up to two years already.

so stop wetting your pants over brown people who happen to be muslim.

secondly,
let us take a look at the countries whose refugees are being "banned".

notice anything?

each and every one of those countries the american military is deployed in.the CIA has been fighting a proxy war in syria for five fucking YEARS.obama expanded operations into:sudan,somolia,yemen,syria and jordan (another proxy war executed by our radical saudi arabia buddies,who just happen to hate america and promote the most radical of muslim interpretations:wahhabism.they spend BILLIONS of their oil money to open madrasas across the region to light the match of radical islam)

so we,along with russia,turkey and other nations,are bombing the SHIT out of these countries,therefore creating the refugee crisis in the first place,and then we turn around an slap a "ban" on them.

oh,i'm sorry,not really a ban,just an extension to vette them further,because god knows we need more than two years to find out if someone is radicalized.

hypocrisy much america?

thirdly,
and this should make us all VERY nervous,but corporate media has YET to address this little turd nugget.a federal court slapped an injunction on this "ban",because it was not done through the proper channels,but rather through executive order.

and DHS ignored the injunction.
IGNORED it,because who needs "checks and balances" right?
who needs an institution,which was put in place to uphold the law and to restrict a sitting president from over-stepping his authority?
right?

and the fact that the DHS,which is under the DoD,outright ignored a direct order from a federal judge to cease and desist,because trump had overstepped his authority by attempting to use executive orders to circumvent the law.,and this was just an injunction,which really just means "stop!until we further review"...the DHS ignored the injunction.

lets ignore the fact that trump gutted the very agency that would have been the first to challenge his executive order "banning" these refugees.trump literally gutted all the high ranking officials at the state dept.

his press secretary said,and this is fucking laughable..they resigned..ALL of them?
all of them just stood up and resigned?

so it came down to a judge to hold trump accountable,which he did by injunction and an entire dept ignored that federal judges ruling.

now let us look at the countries left off that list.

notice anything?

well well well...would you look at that.
not only do they all purchase large amounts of weapons and military apparatus from us.not only do have they have large reserves of oil that our american companies make a shit ton of money from,but lookie here..trump has business in every singly one of those countries.

coincidence?

oh,and lets not overlook the fact that by executive order trump opened the door to have steve bannon on the national security council!
an unqualified,and with zero experience white nationalist is now on the national security council.

this is unprecedented!

but who cares right?
who needs those protocols,or checks and balances right?

trump is slowly creating his own tiny cabal of extreme loyalists and you people are wetting your pants over some brown people who lost everything,and have spent TWO FUCKING YEARS to find refuge?

this isnt the behavior of a president.
this is the behavior of a king.

yes,other presidents have implemented bans.
this is not a new thing.
what IS new,and some of you nimrods are either willingly,or unwittingly ignoring,is that THOSE bans were in direct response to the US being threatened by a particular group,and THOSE bans had the approval of congress..not a fucking piece of paper that king trump signed.

does america need to reform it's immigration policies?
yes,most certainly.

do we need to have an system in place to help assimilate refugees from syria beyond vetting?

of course,all we have to do is look at germany and see what happens when you allow refugees into your country without proper preparation and a system in place to see just how horrible it can get.

does this mean that every muslim refugee is somehow a terrorist?

well,just look at dearborn michigan.the largest muslim community in america and tell me how many terrorist came from that city? how many muslims were radicalized in dearborn?

is radicalized islam a problem?
yes,of course,who would deny this?

but the causes of radicalization are well understood,and have been well documented,and it is NOT only muslims who engage in terrorism.

really folks,before you start making declarations of certitude without having even the most basic knowledge how our government functions,you need to shut the fuck up.

and for FUCK sakes pick up a book once in awhile,and stop being a gaggle of fucking bed wetters.
jesus...you little fags piss yourselves every time a muslim is even mentioned in conversation.

oh,and before one of you tough guys even think about talking shit to me.
1.i am ex military.so go fuck yourself.
2.my JOB is to debunk bullshit stories and research politics and offer analysis.

so you better think twice before you go off half cocked,because my comment hurt your wittle feewings.your comments are ignorant and they are so lacking in the basic understanding of how this government operates that the only feeling you should having right now is:SHAME.

*edit:this is not directed towards anyone in particular here,but this single focus on trumps ill-thought "ban",and how he did so in such a broad,and general wave of a pen stroke that affected even those HAD gone through the process to get their green cards,visas etc etc is simply buying into the corporate narrative.

and then NOT consider the implications of a gutted state department,the loss of the attorney general and the defiant,disobedience of the DHS in regards to a federal judges injunction.

is unforgivable in it's ignorance.

the implications ALONE should make us all worried.
very very worried.
because it appears trump is reshaping our government into his own little fiefdom of loyalists,willing to defy the everyday governmental operations of checks and balances.

trump is consolidating and concentrating his power by creating his own little cabal of loyalists.that motherfucker has ALREADY put his candidacy on the ballot for 2020.now accepting donations to the highest bidder! feel free to purchase your own piece of the american presidency!

on sale NOW! so act fast! positions are limited!
*prices may vary according to your status and where you reside on the class scale.poor people can simply fuck off.

i realize this speculation on my part,
and i could be wrong.
god..please let me be wrong.

Unheard of, yes, and no dissent, curious, but an indicator that it's a political ploy by the heads of those 17 agencies, not to me, because many of them (most famously the head of the FBI) are firmly and unapologetically Trump supporters. They would not produce or agree with such damming conclusions about their guy, imo, without clear evidence. It is more than unfortunate that we won't see that evidence, if it exists, during this administration. I expect it to stay classified by presidential order so he can deny it's existence.

I do agree, what we've seen in the redacted public report is far from proof, and the intelligence community as a whole has a terrible record of lies and misdirection. I think the recent need for public attention and political involvement has only made that worse. With such a horrendous reputation, it behooves them to make public their proof as quickly as possible.....leak it?

Nope, me neither.

Which is sort of the point. It's unheard of that all of these agencies came to the same conclusion on a specific matter. Some may take this as an indicator of how damning the evidence really is, others see this as an indicator that the "assessments" were made on hierarchical levels reserved for political appointees.

The absence of dissent supports the second point of view. No group of analysts in their right mind would create a report without also strongly pointing out contradictory facts, inconsistencies, and separating fact from interpretation. That's what Hersh is referring to. This is not an NIE, it's an opinion piece. This memo by the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (wierd name) goes down the same route:

As you will have gathered by now, we strongly suspect that the evidence your intelligence chiefs have of a joint Russian-hacking-WikiLeaks-publishing operation is no better than the “intelligence” evidence in 2002-2003 – expressed then with comparable flat-fact “certitude” – of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The CIA and NSA are not the friend of any left-wing worth having: they are innately anti-democratic, anti-privacy, and anti-rights. Secret agencies are anathema to any open government. At an existential level, intelligence agencies are at best a double edged sword, and by their nature, they always wind up serving the interests of the few, against the interests of the people.

This one's a bit dated (5 weeks), but still good stuff:
http://shout.lbo-talk.org/lbo/RadioArchive/2016/16_12_15.mp3

Mark Ames on "Putin-did-it", starting at around 25:40.

Edit: also, first episode of Intercepted is out, Jeremy Scahill's weekly podcast.

He's got Sy Hersh on this time, and Hersh had a lot to say about "Putin-did-it", including this bit:
"It’s high camp stuff. What does an assessment mean? It’s not a national intelligence estimate. If you had a real estimate, you would have five or six dissents. One time they said 17 agencies all agreed. Oh really? The Coast Guard and the Air Force — they all agreed on it? And it was outrageous and nobody did that story. An assessment is simply an opinion. If they had a fact, they’d give it to you. An assessment is just that. It’s a belief. And they’ve done it many times."

I found one thing extremely interesting in *2* separate interviews with Assange when he was asked whether or not there was any Russian involvement -- including the one with Hannity shown early in the video here:

Hannity: Did Russia give you this information? Or anyone associated with Russia?
Assange: Our source is not a state party.

Very close to verbatim that exchange appeared in a print interview a week or two ago. The resulting headlines: "Assange denies Russian Involvement in the Leaks", etc.

But look at that answer. It is very carefully worded, but it doesn't directly answer the question. "Our source is not a state party" doesn't rule out that the source is Russian. It sort of rules out a source with known associations with the government (of Russia or anywhere else), but it could be an independent / private individual at face value that got the information from state parties.

I find it odd that nobody (as far as I've seen) has brought up that carefully worded answer, when it stuck out like a sore thumb to me the first time I saw it in print.


That being said, I 100% agree with Greenwald when he suggests that accusations are not proof. And the CIA and other agencies have a massive track record of shady dealings done in the name of "national security", as defined by whoever is in charge. Taking them at their word seems pretty hopelessly naive at this point.


But beyond all of that, I honestly don't care who did the hacking and what their motivations were. The government seems happy to record and analyze everything we say and do, and to claim that people like Edward Snowden are traitors for simply telling us about it. Well, get used to some of your own goddamn medicine. If you are running for public office, you should expect that your rights to privacy are going to be challenged much more strongly than those of Joe Average. You're a person of interest -- for pretty legitimate reasons.

Assume that absolutely everything you've ever said on the record (and lots OFF the record) is going to be gone over with a fine-toothed comb. If you've got any skeletons in your closet, expect that there is a good chance they will get exposed. And probably at the worst possible time.

What should both parties take away from this? Gee, it might be a good idea to choose candidates that can stand up to at least a basic level of scrutiny. Backing slimy weasels that look great and charismatic after a quick once-over might come back to bite you in the ass.

No, I don't deny that intelligence reports have been misused repeatedly by dems and reps historically, and horrifically.

No sir...the Bush administration edited multiple reports to lie about what the intelligence community had reported.

I know little about the lies about Vietnam, but would not be surprised to find the same MO by different parties. Please keep in mind that the appointed leaders of these organizations are often at odds with the politically diverse communities they oversee, and often rewrite official reports to reflect their bias...which I gather is what is being implied with this report without seeing the full classified version that allegedly contains the missing proof. It's a bit odd to make that conclusion, though, considering how firmly right wing the head of the FBI has proven himself to be, you would think he would not sign off if it weren't undeniable.

Well, the public report was compiled from 17 different agencies without dissent, and made clear that there is classified evidence to back up their assertions. That sure sounds like "multiple intelligence sources".

What does "actively hacked our election" mean? Only hacking voting machines and counting machines? It seems they tried, but failed or decided against it. If hacking the DNC and Clinton counts, it's not certain beyond doubt, but is certain beyond reasonable doubt with zero evidence to the contrary, imo.

Yes, but have we seen such public statements from so many agencies combined without dissent? Governments lie, intelligence reports lie, news lies, pundits lie, but usually not en masse with such consistency.

Keep in mind, it's not JUST the CIA making these claims, it's an unprecedented combined report from (I think) 14 separate (EDIT: 17) intelligence agencies. Yes,they may be colluding but it's not likely.
Recall, the intelligence reports leading to the Iraq war were edited and misstated by the Bush cabinet and we've now seen that the full reports were not certain about evidence of WMDs.
Putin's own MO is evidence that, if there was Russian government involvement, it was at his direction. If it were done behind his back, there would be a number of computer scientists gone missing by now.

In short, don't blindly trust any agency, but don't distrust conclusions reached by all intelligence agencies combined, or pretend that the public report is all they have....most evidence possible would be classified (like a bug in Putin's office recording him ordering hacks, we would never hear about that proof).
Should we be skeptical, yes, should we dismiss the reports because we don't get to see classified proof, no. Should we find a way to declassify the proof, absolutely, the public's trust in the nation's intelligence community hangs in the balance.