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By Hindsite
#15095013
CrowdStrike President Under Oath: No Proof of Russia DNC Hack
May 13, 2020

CrowdStrike, the cyber-security firm that first accused Russia of hacking Democratic Party emails and served as a critical source for U.S. intelligence officials in the years-long Trump-Russia probe, privately acknowledged more than two years ago that it had no evidence that Russian hackers stole emails from the Democratic National Committee’s server.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2020/ ... 10974.html

Huge: Crowdstrike CEO Has NO Direct Evidence Russia Stole/Exfiltrated DNC Emails
May 8, 2020

One of the Russia investigation transcripts (reluctantly) released by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Thursday was the testimony of CrowdStrike’s CEO Shaun Henry. CrowdStrike is the American computer security company that performed a forensic examination on the DNC’s server after they claimed they’d been hacked in 2016. CrowdStrike determined that the server had been hacked by the Russians and issued a report stating their conclusions.

Oddly, the DNC had refused to allow the FBI or the Department of Homeland Security to conduct their own analysis of the server. The FBI was forced to accept the report from CrowdStrike.

Whenever this issue is raised, Democrats assert that this issue has been settled. The Russians hacked the DNC’s servers to help Trump win the election. Case closed. Anyone who questions this conclusion is labeled as a conspiracy theorist.

Both FBI Director James Comey and Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson testified before Congress about the DNC’s refusal to allow their forensic teams anywhere near their server.

At that time, a senior FBI official told The Hill: “The FBI repeatedly stressed to DNC officials the necessity of obtaining direct access to servers and data, only to be rebuffed until well after the initial compromise . . . This left the FBI no choice but to rely upon a third party for information.”

Because the entire Trump/Russia hoax begins with the hacking of the DNC server, we cannot afford to take their word for it.

Here is a brief summary of the story.

1. The DNC’s server was hacked.

2. WikiLeaks announced they had obtained and planned to release emails that were damaging to Clinton.

3. The DNC hired a private contractor, CrowdStrike, to examine their server. They concluded that the Russians were responsible.

4. The DNC refused to allow the FBI or Homeland Security anywhere near their server. The FBI accepted CrowdStrike’s unverified and redacted report, even passing it on to the Mueller team.

5. The New York Times wrote an article supporting the DNC’s version of the story. The FBI leaked information to bolster this narrative and the Times ran a second story.

6. The DNC version of events was repeated so frequently and with such conviction that ultimately, it became accepted as the truth.

7. The DNC not only deflected criticism of the content of the emails, but they managed to put out the narrative that the Russians were trying to help Trump win the election. This planted the first seeds of the Trump/Russian collusion narrative. The DNC had turned a negative into a positive.

Podcast Host and political writer Aaron Maté has followed this story closely. He read Henry’s transcript and discovered some interesting information. Here’s what he found (Scroll down for actual tweets.):

Interesting admission in Crowdstrike CEO Shaun Henry’s testimony. Henry is asked when “the Russians” exfiltrated the data from DNC. Henry: “We did not have concrete evidence that the data was exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have indicators that it was exfiltrated.”

More from Crowdstrike’s Shaun Henry: “There are times when we can see data exfiltrated, and we can say conclusively. But in this case it appears it was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don’t have the evidence that says it actually left.”

This takes me back to the qualified, ambiguous Mueller language I highlighted in my @RCInvestigates report “Crowdstrikeout.” The attribution of DNC hacking to Russia is tentative & appears at least partly based on inference, not hard evidence.

Recall that the Mueller report, in recounting the alleged Russian theft of emails, added the qualifier that the GRU “officers *appear* to have stolen thousands of emails and attachments.” Perhaps they weren’t sure, because Crowdstrike wasn’t either.

Henry: “Sir, I was just trying to be factually accurate, that we didn’t see the data leave, but we believe it left, based on what we saw.”

There’s a quote from Assange — maybe someone can find it, I can’t rn — saying that it’s possible that many different actors, including state actors, got inside the DNC system, but that doesn’t mean they actually stole (aka exfiltrated) the emails Wikileaks later released.

To be clear, Crowdstrike says it believes Russians hacked into DNC. But it admits to not having direct evidence that Russians actually exfiltrated the emails from DNC. This would track w/ what Assange has said: Russia may have hacked DNC, but they didn’t provide stolen emails.

I want to stress what a pretty big revelation this is. Crowdstrike, the firm behind the accusation that Russia hacked & stole DNC emails, admitted to Congress that it has no direct evidence Russia actually stole/exfiltrated the emails.

https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaug ... ssia-stole

New House Documents Sow Further Doubt That Russia Hacked the DNC

May 11, 2020

House Intelligence Committee documents released Thursday reveal that the committee was told two and half years ago that the FBI had no concrete evidence that Russia hacked Democratic National Committee computers to filch the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks in July 2016.

The until-now-buried, closed-door testimony came on Dec. 5, 2017 from Shawn Henry, a protege of former FBI Director Robert Mueller (from 2001 to 2012), for whom Henry served as head of the Bureau’s cyber crime investigations unit.

Henry retired in 2012 and took a senior position at CrowdStrike, the cyber security firm hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign to investigate the cyber intrusions that occurred before the 2016 presidential election.

The following excerpts from Henry’s testimony speak for themselves. The dialogue is not a paragon of clarity; but if read carefully, even cyber neophytes can understand:

Ranking Member Mr. [Adam] Schiff: Do you know the date on which the Russians exfiltrated the data from the DNC? … when would that have been?

Mr. Henry: Counsel just reminded me that, as it relates to the DNC, we have indicators that data was exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have no indicators that it was exfiltrated (sic). … There are times when we can see data exfiltrated, and we can say conclusively. But in this case, it appears it was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don’t have the evidence that says it actually left.

Mr. [Chris] Stewart of Utah: Okay. What about the emails that everyone is so, you know, knowledgeable of? Were there also indicators that they were prepared but not evidence that they actually were exfiltrated?

Mr. Henry: There’s not evidence that they were actually exfiltrated. There’s circumstantial evidence … but no evidence that they were actually exfiltrated. …

Mr. Stewart: But you have a much lower degree of confidence that this data actually left than you do, for example, that the Russians were the ones who breached the security?

Mr. Henry: There is circumstantial evidence that that data was exfiltrated off the network.

Mr. Stewart: And circumstantial is less sure than the other evidence you’ve indicated. …

Mr. Henry: “We didn’t have a sensor in place that saw data leave. We said that the data left based on the circumstantial evidence. That was the conclusion that we made.

In answer to a follow-up query on this line of questioning, Henry delivered this classic: “Sir, I was just trying to be factually accurate, that we didn’t see the data leave, but we believe it left, based on what we saw.”

Inadvertently highlighting the tenuous underpinning for CrowdStrike’s “belief” that Russia hacked the DNC emails, Henry added: “There are other nation-states that collect this type of intelligence for sure, but the — what we would call the tactics and techniques were consistent with what we’d seen associated with the Russian state.”

Try as one may, some of the testimony remains opaque. Part of the problem is ambiguity in the word “exfiltration.”

The word can denote (1) transferring data from a computer via the Internet (hacking) or (2) copying data physically to an external storage device with intent to leak it.

As the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity has been reporting for more than three years, metadata and other hard forensic evidence indicate that the DNC emails were not hacked — by Russia or anyone else.

Rather, they were copied onto an external storage device (probably a thumb drive) by someone with access to DNC computers. Besides, any hack over the Internet would almost certainly have been discovered by the dragnet coverage of the National Security Agency and its cooperating foreign intelligence services.

Henry testifies that “it appears it [the theft of DNC emails] was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don’t have the evidence that says it actually left.”

This, in VIPS view, suggests that someone with access to DNC computers “set up” selected emails for transfer to an external storage device — a thumb drive, for example. The Internet is not needed for such a transfer. Use of the Internet would have been detected, enabling Henry to pinpoint any “exfiltration” over that network.

Bill Binney, a former NSA technical director and a VIPS member, filed a sworn affidavit in the Roger Stone case. Binney said: “WikiLeaks did not receive stolen data from the Russian government. Intrinsic metadata in the publicly available files on WikiLeaks demonstrates that the files acquired by WikiLeaks were delivered in a medium such as a thumb drive.”

Obama saw fit to use lawyerly language on the key issue of how the DNC emails got to WikiLeaks, in an apparent effort to cover his own derriere.

Obama: “The conclusions of the intelligence community with respect to the Russian hacking were not conclusive as to whether WikiLeaks was witting or not in being the conduit through which we heard about the DNC e-mails that were leaked.”

So we ended up with “inconclusive conclusions” on that admittedly crucial point. What Obama was saying is that U.S. intelligence did not know—or professed not to know—exactly how the alleged Russian transfer to WikiLeaks was supposedly made, whether through a third party, or cutout, and he muddied the waters by first saying it was a hack, and then a leak.

CrowdStrike already had a tarnished reputation for credibility when the DNC and Clinton campaign chose it to do work the FBI should have been doing to investigate how the DNC emails got to WikiLeaks. It had asserted that Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery app, resulting in heavy losses of howitzers in Ukraine’s struggle with separatists supported by Russia. A Voice of America report explained why CrowdStrike was forced to retract that claim.

Why did FBI Director James Comey not simply insist on access to the DNC computers? Surely he could have gotten the appropriate authorization. In early January 2017, reacting to media reports that the FBI never asked for access, Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee there were “multiple requests at different levels” for access to the DNC servers.

“Ultimately what was agreed to is the private company would share with us what they saw,” he said. Comey described CrowdStrike as a “highly respected” cybersecurity company.

In June last year it was revealed that CrowdStrike never produced an un-redacted or final forensic report for the government because the FBI never required it to, according to the Justice Department.

By any normal standard, former FBI Director Comey would now be in serious legal trouble, as should Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan, et al. Additional evidence of FBI misconduct under Comey seems to surface every week — whether the abuses of FISA, misconduct in the case against Gen. Michael Flynn, or misleading everyone about Russian hacking of the DNC.

Thursday’s disclosure of testimony before the House Intelligence Committee shows Chairman Adam Schiff lied not only about Trump-Putin “collusion,” [which the Mueller report failed to prove and whose allegations were based on DNC and Clinton-financed opposition research] but also about the even more basic issue of “Russian hacking” of the DNC.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/ ... acked-dnc/
#15095023
The first dictionary definition states that socialism is a "theory" and not fact or even reality. That is proof of my statement that your ''definition'' of Socialism is just ''propaganda and not reality.'' I don't want to live in a system like that even if were not just a theory.


Doesn't say it wasn't reality, even if based on an economic theory. Capitalism is an economic theory that has been actualized too. All theories are never fully actualized and reality is imperfect in this fallen world. I do not worship economic theories, but apparently you do. A Christian can live under any economic system, regardless if one is thought ''better'' than another... Better for whom, by the way?

According to the number 2 definition, it would take away my private property rights and turn every thing over to an authoritarian government. I am not for that.


Even in America, Private Property rights are not absolute; zoning laws, police power, and eminent domain all exist to limit those rights and also make your enjoyment of those rights possible. In other words, those rights are limited by the government in the first place to begin with. Nor does it say anything about an ''Authoritarian Government''.

The number 3 stated definition in that dictionary says the following:
a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done.


You do realize that in Capitalism you have ''unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done'' as well, right? Hardly seems right to make that a bad thing for Socialism too.

I identify Bernie Sanders "Democratic Socialism" as one way of transitioning to the socialism in that dictionary definition.


You identify wrongly. Welfarism destroys work, and workers, creating a class of useless drones who only consume goods and services and do not provide them. Socialism expects people to work, and to work for the common good. The one would never lead to the other, which is why it's being pushed.


Our government already controls too much of our lives under the capitalism that we have.


How so? How do you think we're being controlled too much?


I am not for giving the government even more control of my life by transitioning toward socialism and communism.


But you're all for private individuals ability to control your life at workplaces, and they do so by keeping government weak and unable to help working people.


However, if that is what you want then go for it.


As I said, as a Christian I can live under any man-made system under the sun, as a faithful citizen. And if it happens to be better in some respects then that's great. If it isn't as good as I'd wish, I can bear it.
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By Hindsite
#15095028
@annatar1914 This thread is not about socialism. I don't really want to discuss socialism anymore. If you like socialism, then that is your choice, not mine. I prefer to get back on topic.

BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Crowdstrike and Their PR Firm Now Distance Themselves from Russia’s Link to Wikileaks — HUGE DEVELOPMENT
March 6, 2020

For more than three years of the mainstream media (MSM) promoted the biggest fraud in US history – that the Russians hacked the DNC’s emails and gave the emails they hacked to WikiLeaks who then leaked the emails before the 2016 election.

Now, suddenly the firm at the center of this fraud, Crowdstrike, is taking a step back from their previous actions related to the entire sham.

For years now the FBI and Mueller investigation claimed that Russia hacked the DNC during the lead up to the 2016 election. This is central to the Russia-Collusion narrative. Roger Stone tried to obtain information in his trial that the Mueller team had evidence that Russia gave the emails they hacked from the DNC to WikiLeaks but corrupt Obama Appointed DC judge, Amy Berman Jackson, wouldn’t let him bring this up in his case, even though his charges were based on the entire scam.

President Trump indicated that he knew Crowdstrike was at the center of the Russia collusion scam when he made his infamous phone call with the Ukraine’s new President Zelinsky.

The President was interested in Crowdstrike, not the Bidens. The Bidens only came up after the President had the discussion above, and the Bidens were brought up by Ukrainian leader Zelinsky.

It was also uncovered in the Roger Stone case that CrowdStrike gave the US government three “draft reports” on the so-called hack by Russia which were full of redactions and the FBI just took their word for it. It was also reported that the DOJ never received the unredacted copies of Crowdstrike’s reports.

Former NSA whistleblower Bill Binney previously reported he has evidence the DNC emails were not hacked but copied most likely on to a flashdrive or something similar.

Binney has proof for his assertion but Crowdstrike and the DNC to date have provided no support that it was Russia who hacked the DNC.

Binney also claims that the Mueller gang wouldn’t even look at his data because they knew it would show something different than what they presented in their final bogus report.

Most importantly, we know that WikiLeaks has stated numerous times that Russia did not provide them with the emails they leaked in 2016 and Julian Assange has stated that WikiLeaks had nothing to do with Russia.

But of course the Mueller gang never interviewed WikiLeaks or Julian Assange in an effort to determine how they received the Clinton emails. Of course the Mueller team could not risk WikiLeaks saying the emails were not received from Russia which would destroy their Russia hacked the DNC fairy tale.

Yesterday we discovered that Crowdstrike has reportedly obtained a PR firm to help backtrack their bogus claims.

Now after three and a half years of the fraudulent Russia collusion scam being repeated so often that half of America believes that Russia hacked the DNC and gave their emails to WikiLeaks, Crowdstrike announces that it had nothing to do with assessing that Russians gave the emails to WikiLeaks.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/0 ... velopment/
#15095251
Hindsite wrote:@annatar1914 This thread is not about socialism. I don't really want to discuss socialism anymore. If you like socialism, then that is your choice, not mine. I prefer to get back on topic.



I mention it because you bring it up in an incorrect manner and an irresponsible one at that. It does no good to complain about others who are different on the political end of the spectrum from you, about the incorrect and misleading things they call Right-Wingers (calling them Fascists, Nazis, White Supremacists, etc...), when you incorrectly and misleadingly label their Ideology as ''Socialism''.
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By Hindsite
#15095346
annatar1914 wrote:I mention it because you bring it up in an incorrect manner and an irresponsible one at that. It does no good to complain about others who are different on the political end of the spectrum from you, about the incorrect and misleading things they call Right-Wingers (calling them Fascists, Nazis, White Supremacists, etc...), when you incorrectly and misleadingly label their Ideology as ''Socialism''.

As a conservative, I don't claim Fascists, Nazis, White Supremacists, etc. as my ideology, whereas, most of those on the left claim Socialism or Communism as their ideology. Bernie Sanders, as you well know, calls himself a Democratic Socialist. When his proposed policy seem very much either socialist or communist, I am not going to dispute him. But if you wish to dispute his claim then you should open another thread with that subject as the topic, since that is not the topic of this thread and the moderators wish for us to keep on topic.
#15095598
As a conservative, I don't claim Fascists, Nazis, White Supremacists, etc. as my ideology, whereas, most of those on the left claim Socialism or Communism as their ideology.


That is not true. Most Liberals resent being called related to Leftists ideologically, and Leftists generally likewise resent being confounded with Liberals.


Bernie Sanders, as you well know, calls himself a Democratic Socialist.


No, he doesn't, show where he has called himself that. Nor is he a ''Democratic Socialist'', either, as he does not advocate for the collective ownership of the means of economic production in society via electoral means. He is a Big-Government Capitalist Liberal, period.



When his proposed policy seem very much either socialist or communist, I am not going to dispute him.


Since he does not propose either socialism or communism, your comment is untruthful nonsense.

But if you wish to dispute his claim then you should open another thread with that subject as the topic, since that is not the topic of this thread and the moderators wish for us to keep on topic.


It is not ''his claim'', but rather it is your claim which you have failed to back up with any evidence.

And I'm going to relate it to the topic of this thread directly; the Cold War. This hysterical nonsense about President Trump, and Bernie Sanders, and Russia and so forth, is a direct consequence of the failure of America to get past the Cold War/20th century era ideologically, even though the ideological terms used (like ''Socialist'' or ''Communist'' or ''Fascist'') in American political discourse have been misused and twisted well beyond their original meanings, becoming essentially meaningless. And Russia is treated like It is the Soviet Union, when it most emphatically is not.

This ''Trump Derangement Syndrome'' Right-Wingers rightfully castigate is insane, it's true. But also insane is the continued paranoia about Communist and/or Socialist subversion on the Right, echoes of which delusion still exist today and effect political life. This is a real delusion, because the reality of the situation is that President Trump and the Republican Party (''Conservatives'') and people like Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders (''Liberals'') are actually alike on most of the issues, more than they are un-alike, especially the economic issues.

But the fringes are politically motivated by fears of subversion and destruction coming from the Left or the Right, and can by the use of certain dogwhistles to work against whomever is being attacked as the latest ''threat to the American way of life'' .

The Cold War is over. Communism and Socialism are apparently dead as political ideologies. And Trump is more politically alike to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton than unalike, along with their voter bases. Few Americans truly question basic American political principles enough to be a significant threat to the status quo, rightfully or wrongfully. This ''Trump and Russiagate'' is all mainly bullshit, a tempest in a teapot worked into a hysteria by Elites for financial reasons, because the Elites have factions based on financial motivations. It's all about the money, support of Trump, opposition to Trump. The End...
By Patrickov
#15095726
annatar1914 wrote:The Cold War is over. Communism and Socialism are apparently dead as political ideologies. And Trump is more politically alike to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton than unalike, along with their voter bases. Few Americans truly question basic American political principles enough to be a significant threat to the status quo, rightfully or wrongfully. This ''Trump and Russiagate'' is all mainly bullshit, a tempest in a teapot worked into a hysteria by Elites for financial reasons, because the Elites have factions based on financial motivations. It's all about the money, support of Trump, opposition to Trump. The End...


It can be argued that whatever the small un-alikes between Trump, ordinary Republican, Clinton and Sanders (I see them as four factions) matter a lot to those who support each of them. I agree with the quoted statement in that money is possibly the most important factor, but I also wonder if there's a significant number of ordinary people having their economic stability affected by which faction is in power.
Last edited by Patrickov on 31 May 2020 11:14, edited 1 time in total.
#15095743
The last hope for Russiagaters appears to be a judge who has hired his own lawyer. I just wish the Trump administration had moved faster on this than they have. IMHO full declassification as soon as Mueller's thing was done.
#15095958
Patrickov wrote:It can be argued that whatever the small un-alikes between Trump, ordinary Republican, Clinton and Sanders (I see them as four factions) matter a lot to those who support each of them. I agree with the quoted statement in that money is possibly the most important factor, but I also wonder if there's a significant number of ordinary people having their economic stability affected by which faction is in power.


Yes, there always is a ''significant number of ordinary people having their economic stability affected by which faction is in power''

President Trump has successfully tapped into that pool of persons effected, to the chagrin of his clueless peers.
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By Hindsite
#15096179
annatar1914 wrote:No, he doesn't, show where he has called himself that. Nor is he a ''Democratic Socialist'', either, as he does not advocate for the collective ownership of the means of economic production in society via electoral means. He is a Big-Government Capitalist Liberal, period.

Sanders brands himself a Democratic socialist
Feb 16, 2016


Bernie Sanders fires back at Trump over socialism
Feb 25, 2019


Bernie Sanders, Mike Bloomberg, Joe Biden Spar Over Democratic Socialism | NBC News
Feb 19, 2020


What is Democratic Socialism? (Democratic Socialism / Fabian Socialism / Social Democracy)
Apr 4, 2016
#15096180
Hindsite wrote:Sanders brands himself a Democratic socialist
Feb 16, 2016


Bernie Sanders fires back at Trump over socialism
Feb 25, 2019


Bernie Sanders, Mike Bloomberg, Joe Biden Spar Over Democratic Socialism | NBC News
Feb 19, 2020


What is Democratic Socialism? (Democratic Socialism / Fabian Socialism / Social Democracy)
Apr 4, 2016


''Democratic Socialism'' according to what Sanders says, means redistribution of some wealth from the upper classes to the poorer people for allegedly better health care, unemployment, etc... via higher taxes on the wealthy. Only a moron thinks that is ''Socialism'', or a liar only pretending to think that this is ''Socialism''. This is why I've said that Sanders is a shill and a con-man for the Elites, he's an establishment liberal democrat conning stupid collage kids into thinking he's some kind of visionary Socialist, when he's about as ''Socialist'' as Presidents Roosevelt or Johnson...

It's like idiots who say Hitler was a ''Socialist'', just because the name of his party, as he was one of the biggest privatizers and cronies with German big business there ever was.

Are you some kind of Libertarian or Anarcho-Capitalist @Hindsite ?
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By Wellsy
#15096253
annatar1914 wrote:''Democratic Socialism'' according to what Sanders says, means redistribution of some wealth from the upper classes to the poorer people for allegedly better health care, unemployment, etc... via higher taxes on the wealthy. Only a moron thinks that is ''Socialism'', or a liar only pretending to think that this is ''Socialism''. This is why I've said that Sanders is a shill and a con-man for the Elites, he's an establishment liberal democrat conning stupid collage kids into thinking he's some kind of visionary Socialist, when he's about as ''Socialist'' as Presidents Roosevelt or Johnson...

It's like idiots who say Hitler was a ''Socialist'', just because the name of his party, as he was one of the biggest privatizers and cronies with German big business there ever was.

Are you some kind of Libertarian or Anarcho-Capitalist @Hindsite ?

And I think Marx makes the best point of how social democracy isn’t socialism on the very point that to focus on distribution as if independent production is to fall into the hands of bourgeois thought.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm
Quite apart from the analysis so far given, it was in general a mistake to make a fuss about so-called distribution and put the principal stress on it.
Any distribution whatever of the means of consumption is only a consequence of the distribution of the conditions of production themselves. The latter distribution, however, is a feature of the mode of production itself. The capitalist mode of production, for example, rests on the fact that the material conditions of production are in the hands of nonworkers in the form of property in capital and land, while the masses are only owners of the personal condition of production, of labor power. If the elements of production are so distributed, then the present-day distribution of the means of consumption results automatically. If the material conditions of production are the co-operative property of the workers themselves, then there likewise results a distribution of the means of consumption different from the present one. Vulgar socialism (and from it in turn a section of the democrats) has taken over from the bourgeois economists the consideration and treatment of distribution as independent of the mode of production and hence the presentation of socialism as turning principally on distribution. After the real relation has long been made clear, why retrogress again?

And is the not the entire basis of the modern liberal “left”.
#15096445
Wellsy wrote:And I think Marx makes the best point of how social democracy isn’t socialism on the very point that to focus on distribution as if independent production is to fall into the hands of bourgeois thought.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm

And is the not the entire basis of the modern liberal “left”.


Exactly so. Interesting thing is that while Communism and Socialism do not exist anymore, anywhere in the world, the Elites are deathly afraid of the very Idea, making the Spectre of Communism and Socialism a very lively Ghost indeed.

In fact, ''Socialism'' is invoked as a Bugbear when some social program is on the block to be cut, that program is frequently called ''Socialism'' by certain Ideologues as they push for it's destruction... Then magically high taxes on the wealthy is ''Socialism'', affordable health care is ''Socialism'', a welfare social safety net is ''Socialism'', etc...

So again, this very thread is really all about the Cold War and it's aftermath, and the struggling ideologies of the 20th century.
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By jimjam
#15097127
Russian trolls recognized the power of these voters. “No single group” was targeted more than African-Americans, according to a Senate Intelligence Committee report on interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The Russians wanted to drive down black enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton. But they also worked to deepen the black-white divide to increase white turnout for the Republican Party.

Their bots and trolls depicted black Americans as synonymous with the loudest activists in the Black Lives Matter movement. They amplified Mr. Trump’s tactic of appealing to “forgotten” white voters by demonizing blacks and Latinos, suggesting they bring crime and bad schools into white neighborhoods and contribute to the flight of American jobs.

The strategy seems to have succeeded. In 2016, while white turnout went up, “the black voter turnout rate declined for the first time in 20 years in a presidential election,” according to the Pew Research Center.
User avatar
By jimjam
#15103201
The question this time around certainly is not, "Will trump try to cheat ?" The question is, "How will trump try to cheat?"

Special Counsel Robert Mueller identified 272 contacts between Trump’s 2016 campaign team and Russia-linked operatives, including at least 38 meetings. Last year, asked by ABC News if he would take dirt on an opponent from a foreign source, the president said candidly: “I think I’d take it.”
User avatar
By jimjam
#15105940
In September 2008, at the ‘Bridging U.S. and Emerging Markets Real Estate’ conference in New York, the president’s eldest son, Donald Jr., said: ‘In terms of high-end product influx into the United States, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. Say, in Dubai, and certainly with our project in SoHo, and anywhere in New York. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.’

Your tax returns Donald, your tax returns ……. we want to see 'em
#15106261
jimjam wrote:In September 2008, at the ‘Bridging U.S. and Emerging Markets Real Estate’ conference in New York, the president’s eldest son, Donald Jr., said: ‘In terms of high-end product influx into the United States, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. Say, in Dubai, and certainly with our project in SoHo, and anywhere in New York. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.’

Your tax returns Donald, your tax returns ……. we want to see 'em

Why? Do you think Russians are intrinsically bad people? There were tons of Russians in Dubai when I was there. So it's pretty consistent with what I saw over in Dubai 12 years later.

Anyway, you seem to have lost interest in other aspects of Russiagate:

Is Strzok Memo The Rosetta Stone Of Obamagate?
Well, the Washington Post reports that “Strzok’s lawyer told The Fact Checker that Strzok did not attend the meeting,” and then suggests that probably means “the notes may recount what someone else - perhaps Comey - told him about the meeting.” Yes, maybe so, but there is good reason not to skate over the possibility that, as Pentchoukov puts it, Strzok “listened in” on the conversation.

This is indeed heady stuff, as it is beyond reason to think that Strzok was an invited participant. The last thing anyone at that meeting would want is an independent account of what was said as they planned how to entrap one of the incoming president’s closest aides. Yet that does not eliminate the chance that Strzok benefited from some kind of surveillance technique to eavesdrop on the conversation, either with the knowledge of one person in the room or possibly with none. Of course it is scary to think that the FBI was wiretapping the White House, but they did it to Trump Tower, so who knows?

It is the nature of the notes themselves that lends credence to this speculation. If they were written after the fact to memorialize a conversation Strzok had with Comey or someone else, there is no way to account for the brevity and choppiness of the account. Rather than just put “Logan Act” next to VP, an after-the-fact recitation would have been more likely to specify, “The Vice President brought up the Logan Act as one statute that could be used to prosecute Flynn’s dangerous dealings with the Russian ambassador.” And most suspiciously, there is no explanation for why Strzok would have cut off the end of Biden’s other contribution to the conversation. “I’ve been on the Intel Committee for 10 years and I never,” the transcript goes. “Never what?” the reader wants to know.

Of course we can add the words ourselves: “Never heard of anyone being prosecuted for talking to a foreign leader, especially not if they had a legitimate interest in establishing relations with their counterpart prior to a new president taking office.” If Strzok were making leisurely notes while talking to his boss, or especially if he had gone back to his own office and thought it worthwhile to record what he had been told, would it make any sense for him to stop in mid-sentence?

No, it wouldn’t. It only makes sense if, as Pentchoukov describes it, the notes were written “on the fly.” Certainly not with a tape recorder running, where one could establish an exact transcript, but hurriedly, sloppily, furtively. That would also explain why the handwriting is not exactly consistent with other known samples of Strzok’s script. Presumably, the FBI has validated the handwriting as Strzok’s, but does the FBI have any reason to lie about that? Hmm.

What if there's an FBI recording of the conversation in the White House? Is that why you don't want Biden to debate Trump? Think Trump might have a trap to spring on him during the debate?
By Patrickov
#15106531
blackjack21 wrote:Why? Do you think Russians are intrinsically bad people?


Since this is just a question about opinion and feeling, I think it's nothing wrong to answer "Yes".

Or at least I believe "most politically influential Russians at the present time" are intrinsically bad people. Of course, I am free to swap the word "Russian" with words like "Chinese", "British" or "American", should the situation calls it.
User avatar
By jimjam
#15106545
blackjack21 wrote:There were tons of Russians in Dubai when I was there


therefore, according to @blackjack21 , trump is squeaky clean with Russian mobs, Russian mob $, and treasonous behavior. :lol: Superb use of Trumpian fantasy logic of the sort spewed by Rush Limberg & associates.

blackjack21 wrote:Anyway, you seem to have lost interest in other aspects of Russiagate:

:lol: to your rather limited perspective perhaps but Obese Donald's entanglement and eventual entrapment by Russia's very effective professionals is not limited to election fraud by any means.

I'm suure that even this is way to complex for Donald's Red Beanie Brigade to comprehend:

Image
User avatar
By jimjam
#15106681
Don the Con commuted the sentence of Roger Stone on a Friday night, thinking no one would notice.

Stone, a longtime trump friend, lied to Congress and threatened a witness to cover it up. Stone was convicted on 7 counts of obstruction, false statements and witness tampering by a jury of his peers.

Stone’s lies were for one purpose – to protect Trump from exposure of the Trump campaign’s efforts to communicate with Wikileaks and exploit the release of Russian-hacked emails targeting Hillary Clinton.

With this commutation, Trump is paying back that favor.
What's that term again? Oh yeah, quid pro quo.
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