Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

PERHAPS THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS UNDERSTANDING

You know your friends who just doesn't seem to get it? The ones who, even if they won't come out and say they support Trump, say stuff like "at least he's better than Clinton/Pelosi/AOC/Biden" or whoever the most recent Two Minute Hate has been directed towards in the media they consume? Do you find yourself struggling to understand how they got that way? 

Adopting a position of dismissive skepticism towards every single expert proclamation, yet infinitely gullible to the obvious lies and utterly transparent frauds of grifters, madmen, and bad faith radicalizers? 

Willing to believe any absurdity as long as it dovetails with their pre-existing beliefs? 

Absolutely inoculated against the truth, reason, and plain common sense? 

Well, maybe it's time you pinched your nose, held your breath, and exposed yourself to the media they consume. Even if only for a few short minutes. It may well be the first step towards understanding the five years we've just gone through together*...


*The whole story of the rise of the New Fascist International(e) is actually a LOT longer than that, but I've recently realized it's going to take a far better person than me to help bring that story to a mass audience.

Sunday, December 10, 2017

MIRROR: SETH ABRAMSON'S INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT TWEET-STORM RE: TRUMP TREASON

If we are fortunate enough to come through the current civilizational crisis unscathed and with our faculties intact, and future historians take it upon themselves to try and piece together precisely how the interlocking network of treasonous conspirators that I have dubbed the New Fascist International could so swiftly and easily hijack the commanding heights of American power, I believe they will find the contributions of Twitter All-Star Seth Abramson to be of paramount importance to their work. I humbly beg you all to read every word of Seth's recent research, to really try and grapple with the full implications of it, even if that means re-considering some of your previous beliefs. I also urge you to share this information with your friends and family. - Jerky
***

(THREAD) It's time to tell the biggest untold story of the 2016 election: how a cadre of pro-Trump FBI agents and intel officers—some active, some retired—conspired to swing the election to Trump. The story involves Flynn, Prince, Giuliani, and others. Hope you'll read and share.



1/ True Pundit is a pro-Trump fake news site that began publishing on June 9, 2016—the day that Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort met with Kremlin agents in Trump Tower to discuss the Kremlin's provision to the Trump campaign of incriminating material on Clinton.

2/ True Pundit would quickly reveal itself as having the same agenda Trump Jr. had when he met with Kremlin agents on the day True Pundit launched: its mission would be to destroy Clinton's candidacy by uncovering incriminating material about her—particularly via her emails.

3/ All articles on True Pundit are published anonymously. The only person publicly associated with the website operates under a pseudonym—"Thomas Paine." (Thomas Paine, a Founding Father of the United States, was instrumental in convincing the colonies to rebel against Britain.)

4/ From June 9, 2016 to June 12, 2016, it seemed clear True Pundit had been started up in a hurry—it published dozens of stories but no original reporting. More than 95% of stories were simply links to other sources, while True Pundit "originals" were two-sentence news summaries.

5/ Many of True Pundit's early news sources were predictable: Breitbart, The Daily Caller, InfoWars, The New York Post, The Washington Examiner, The Washington Free Beacon, Fox News, and The Daily Beast. Breitbart was far and away the most commonly linked-to website at the time.

6/ But True Pundit also, in its first three days, occasionally linked to mainstream news sources like The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, NBC, ESPN, Reuters, The Guardian (UK), The Telegraph (UK), and The Independent (UK).

7/ That said, in its first 72 hours True Pundit also linked to two Russian news sources—RT and Sputnik—an intelligence-oriented site called "Intel News," and several fringe-right publications. A typical link assured readers Clinton would destroy America:

link

8/ Then, on June 12th, 2016, the Orlando nightclub shooting occurred—and it seemed a switch had been turned on. True Pundit had its story. The site meticulously covered Omar Mateen, the 29 year-old from a moderate Muslim family who killed 49 people at an LGBT club called "Pulse."

9/ It's important to know that of the site's first several dozen stories pre-June 12, only one was both a) not a link to another source, and b) more than two sentences. This story—about the July DNC—claimed True Pundit (just 3 days old) had "police" and "security expert" sources.


10/ It must've seemed odd to any readers of True Pundit in those first 72 hours of operation to read that the Philly publication already had *multiple* sources in the Philadelphia Police Department and *multiple* Philly-based "recognized security expert" sources—but so they said.

11/ But Mateen changed everything. Suddenly True Pundit was publishing what it said were original ("exclusive") stories, all of which relied—or claimed to—on FBI sources. Not just one source, but multiple—and not just random sources, but sources close to the Pulse investigation.


12/ The mystery of this was dispelled almost immediately, when True Pundit wrote the following in an "exclusive" on Mateen after the shooting: "True Pundit has folks who worked for the FBI and other agencies on staff." It then claimed to have "unique insight" into FBI operations.


13/ Whether or not True Pundit really had ex-FBI staff, no reader could possibly know. But what was clear was that True Pundit was obsessed with the FBI, had—at a minimum—some basic knowledge of criminal investigation, and was very, very, angry at the current state of the Bureau:


14/ Two things must be noted here: first, that the complaint True Pundit has about the FBI—that it radically underestimates the threat of Islamist terrorism and values HUMINT too little in fighting terrorism—are exactly the anti-terror complaints Mike Flynn has widely publicized.

15/ Second, if True Pundit had told the truth about itself, it meant (a) the very purpose of the website was to give ex-FBI agents an opportunity to complain about the Bureau, and (b) the site's M.O. in doing so would be to use as sources current FBI agents upset with the Bureau.

16/ Keep in mind that, by June 2016, the FBI had already been investigating Hillary Clinton's emails for eleven months—since July of 2015. Indeed, the FBI's investigation into Clinton's emails had begun at almost exactly the same time Donald Trump announced his presidential run.

17/ Keep in mind, too, that True Pundit was launched less than a month before then-FBI Director James Comey announced—on July 5, 2016—that the Bureau was not going to bring charges against Clinton. By mid-June, current FBI agents would've just learned no charges were forthcoming.

18/ Rudy Giuliani would later describe the anti-Clinton elements at the FBI as being, during Summer/Fall 2016, not just "angry" but "boiling," and not just "boiling" but on the brink of "revolution."

True Pundit appears to have been an outgrowth of that.


19/ So this is where I point out that there was one *other* story—besides the Omar Mateen story—that True Pundit was positively obsessed with (and doing "exclusive" reporting on, using FBI sources) during its first week: Hillary Clinton's emails and the FBI investigation thereof.

20/ Just 96 hours into its existence, True Pundit was running a *multi-part* "exclusive" on an FBI probe the site's authors' friends in the Bureau were conducting. The reports cited "intelligence sources" with extensive knowledge of the FBI investigation.


22/ You have to understand the level of access to current FBI agents True Pundit was then claiming to have: the site, which had started up *less than 100 hours prior*, was claiming to have *exclusive* knowledge of *prior FBI contacts* with the nation's then-most infamous killer.


23/ By June 13, 2016, it was clear that True Pundit was a political outfit: it had quoted from and linked to a Trump press release, and had mercilessly attacked the Democratic candidate for president. Any active FBI agent speaking to True Pundit was—already—a Hatch Act violation.

24/ Here's all the info you need on the Hatch Act.

It applies to the FBI and—while not a criminal statute—a violation of the Hatch Act is a violation of federal law and would get you fired from federal employment immediately (assuming a serious breach).

25/ So here's where things get complicated. Beginning in mid-June 2016, True Pundit switches to all original "reporting" and begins publishing longer stories. It is relentlessly right-wing: anti-immigration, pro-Second Amendment, pro-Trump, virulently anti-Clinton and anti-Obama.

26/ It also takes a hard turn into anti-Clinton fake news within its first week—as the story below demonstrates.

27/ But here's what you *really* need to understand: the FBI quickly became aware of this website—at the highest levels—and *acknowledged*, internally, that the people behind True Pundit had access to intel from *current* FBI agents.

Even *James Comey* was aware of True Pundit.

28/ And it *matters* that James Comey was (a) aware of True Pundit, and (b) believed they had sources within the FBI.

Moreover, it *matters* that he knew—and he did—that True Pundit was angling for sources *inside* the Clinton probe, and that Comey's deputy thought he had them.

29/ Documents acquired via FOIA requests by (of all organizations) Judicial Watch reveal that Andrew McCabe, Comey's deputy, believed that True Pundit had "heavyweight" sources within the FBI. While Comey was skeptical, he *acknowledged* the sources were *definitely* FBI sources.

30/ When McCabe forwarded a True Pundit story to Comey on October 24, 2016, calling its source on Clinton "heavyweight," Comey demurred, saying "This still reads to me like someone not involved in the investigation at all, maybe somebody who heard rumors."

31/ The date here matters, as does Comey's response. This was the week Comey ultimately decided to go to Congress with his decision to reopen the Clinton case—and in using the word "still," we hear Comey's anxiety about the possibility details of the Clinton FBI probe would leak.

32/ It's clear from this email that True Pundit was a source McCabe thought active FBI agents on the Clinton case might consider leaking to, and Comey by no means dismissed that possibility. Why does it matter? Because it was *this* fear of a leak that *led* to The Comey Letter.

33/ The New York Times has written that Comey reopened the Clinton investigation—which decision FiveThirtyEight polling appears to confirm cost Clinton the election—because he felt news of "new" Clinton emails (from Anthony Wiener's PC) was "sure to leak."

34/ So, to recap: on October 24, 2016, Andrew McCabe warns his boss Jim Comey that True Pundit has access to "heavyweight" FBI sources—clearly implying *sources within the Clinton probe*. 72 hours later, Comey writes the "Comey Letter" because he's "sure" probe details will leak.

35/ Things are about to get confusing, so let me just step back and say that from mid-June 2016 to October 2016 True Pundit had become a big deal—they were getting regularly retweeted and discussed by right-wing media outlets. Including—by the way—WikiLeaks. (More on that later.)

36/ So while the fact that True Pundit had routinely published fake news was widely known by October 2016, so was the fact that it was run by men who purported to be ex-FBI and who credibly claimed to have FBI sources. The few times they were *right* were when they had FBI intel.

37/ But understand something else: within 60 days of its creation, True Pundit had become a "darling" of the 600 Russian Twitter accounts that routinely pushed anti-Clinton propaganda as part of the Kremlin's interference campaign. And True Pundit knew it.

38/ USA Today: "[Thomas Paine] did not deny playing a part in the Russian network's information operation....'we are flattered to be accused of participating in disinformation campaigns for government because as a startup that's the exact time-tested model we've been emulating.'"

39/ While USA Today wouldn't write about True Pundit until August 2017, the time-period of True Pundit's influence they're discussing—Summer/Fall 2016—is when Paine was proudly "participating in a [Russian] disinformation campaign" but *also* causing the FBI real fear over leaks.

40/ So I think this is a good time for you to hear Thomas Paine's voice. Here's a lengthy interview he gave (of course not giving his name or allowing his likeness to be visible, as he knew—and we'll discuss this more shortly—his operations were illicit).



41/ Paine: "We started True Pundit as a way of doing something—instead of sitting around and complaining—when Clinton was running for president. We figured we would get some of the guys from the old band together—[unintelligible]-type guys and some intel guys we all worked with."

42/ So what these ex-FBI and intel guys did is libel Clinton for the 150 days leading up to the 2016 election. What they specialized in was falsely accusing her of crimes. On October 2, 2016, it was that Clinton had tried to order Julian Assange's murder.

43/ On September 29, 2016, True Pundit's false claim—immediately echoed, like many True Pundit stories, by RT, the Kremlin-backed TV station—was that there was a criminal conspiracy between Clinton and Facebook (ironic now, I know) to steal the election.

44/ In early September 2016, True Pundit claimed, falsely citing NYPD sources—as it often would (and this fact will become important)—that Clinton was wearing an invisible earpiece during a live "town hall" on NBC.
link

45/ As the election approached, the fake news coming from True Pundit often focused on false claims that Clinton had a major medical condition she was hiding. Again, these claims got spread from True Pundit to Russian media—and True Pundit *knew* about it.
link

46/ The same day True Pundit launched its fake news about a Clinton-ordered drone strike on the founder of WikiLeaks, the New York field office of the FBI took possession of Anthony Wiener's computer from NYPD—this was October 2, 2016. Comey knew the FBI was getting the computer.

47/ Unfortunately, the same FBI field office that had been occasionally leaking to True Pundit about the Clinton email investigation over the summer was the one now in possession of Wiener's computer—so when Comey instructed them to see if it had any new emails, they ignored him.

48/ Here's where I have to incorporate the entirety of an article I wrote last December for The Huffington Post about what the pro-Trump agents in "Trumplandia" (the New York field office of the FBI) did when Comey told them to work on the Wiener computer.

link

49/ We now know that Wiener's computer had only duplicate Clinton emails on it. But at the time Comey didn't know that. In fact, that's what he wanted his agents to find out—and IT experts will tell you that it wouldn't have taken long to get a sense that that was the situation.

50/ Instead, Comey's agents *sat* on the computer, doing no meaningful work on it—certainly nothing that would confirm or deny whether it had any *new* (let alone inculpatory) evidence on it. Comey didn't find out his agents had done nothing he'd asked them to until late October.

51/ What the New York field office of the FBI *did* do during that period, along with NYPD, was issue threats—via True Pundit—that it would "leak" the *content* of the emails on Wiener's computer (which content wasn't known, of course, as they had no search warrant to search it).

52/ Comey assumed his agents would do one of the following:

(1) Get metadata from the PC to confirm the emails were duplicates;
(2) ask Abedin or Wiener—both cooperating witnesses—if the FBI could view the emails; or
(3) get a warrant for the emails.

They did *none of these*.

53/ The result was neither NYPD nor the FBI had read the emails on Wiener's PC, but were—according to True Pundit, at least—simultaneously leaking false information to True Pundit about what the content was. They wanted Comey to fear such leaks of false information—and it worked.

54/ On November 2, 2016—a week before the 2016 presidential election—True Pundit published the article below, which is the biggest pile of steaming bullshit dropped on America at any point during the 2016 election season. Every single word of it was false.
link

55/ Immediately—*same day*—Trump's top national security advisor, Mike Flynn, retweeted the article.

Recall that Flynn was receiving undisclosed—*illegally* undisclosed—monies from Russia while advising Trump in the fall of 2015, and dined with Putin in Moscow in December 2015.


56/ Within 48 hours (in other words, as quickly as he could schedule a radio interview) Erik Prince, another Trump national security advisor—who's since admitted to having contact with Mike Flynn during the presidential campaign—spread the fake news via Steve Bannon's Breitbart.

57/ Prince is friends with Bannon—who was then the CEO of Trump's campaign—and just told Congress under oath Bannon was his contact with the campaign before and after the election. Here's audio of Prince spreading the Trumplandia-via-True Pundit fake news:



58/ But the reason you have to *read* the article itself—as odious as it is—is that it contains *explicit threats against Comey* should he not *immediately* indict Clinton:


59/ If you've been following along, you'll see there are two problems here—one, the article was published 6 days after Comey wrote the "Comey Letter"; two, the damaging emails True Pundit and/or NYPD and/or pro-Trump elements at the FBI were threatening to release *didn't exist*.

60/ As to the latter point, it's easily addressed: Jim Comey had *no idea* what was in the emails—on October 27, 2016 *or* November 2, 2016—because the very agents then threatening him via True Pundit *hadn't acquired a search warrant or gotten permission to search the computer*.

61/ The better question is how Comey would've *known* to be afraid of disclosures about the emails being published in True Pundit before the election. And the answer is (a) the McCabe email Judicial Watch uncovered, and (b) statements made by Trump advisors—particularly Giuliani.

62/ But first, understand that that True Pundit article is *exactly*—I mean *exactly*—what Comey was afraid of. Not knowing the content of the emails—because his men had deliberately not done the work to find it—*anyone* could claim NYPD/FBI sources and then lie about the emails.

63/ Comey believed such lies would (a) spread over right-wing media (they did); (b) be amplified by Trump aides (they were); and (c) appear in venues with enough credible connection to the FBI people would believe them and—worse still—he wouldn't know the truth to correct them.

64/ And (d) those lies would then swing a U.S. presidential election, and he'd be blamed for it. And if the FBI "leaks" turned out to be lies—which they were—the FBI would be disgraced and would be blamed for throwing the election to Trump.

So he did the only thing he could do.

65/ The only option pro-Trump traitors within the FBI had left Comey was to (a) re-open the investigate publicly, then (b) promise to get to the truth of the emails on Wiener's PC so swiftly that no one would have time to leak or publish or disseminate *lies* about those emails.

66/ Reports at the time said Comey probably wouldn't be able to check all the new emails before the election—in part because of their number, in part because he had to go through the warrant process—which is why True Pundit, Flynn and Prince all felt clear to go public with lies.

67/ And it's why the CEO of the Trump campaign, Steve Bannon, felt clear to publish those lies via Breitbart.

Then Comey surprised them all by doing the work in one week he'd earlier given an entire team of his agents three and a half weeks (from October 2 to October 27) to do.

68/ Okay, now watch this (especially the last few seconds) and check the date:


69/ 2 days *before* the Comey Letter was sent (so, October 26) Giuliani knew something big was coming—after spending the preceding days saying he had access to *active* FBI agents *and* retired FBI agents (like True Pundit's) who were incensed at Clinton.



70/ First Giuliani said he had access to "active" agents, then he denied it; he said a "big surprise" was coming, then he claimed he was only talking about a new ad campaign. No one believed it—especially given he kept referencing the FBI's anger at Comey.




71/ But now that we know all Trump's most nefarious men—Bannon, Flynn, and Prince, who were all meeting with one another during the campaign—were reading True Pundit, Giuliani's "I heard it from active agents" while *also* claiming "I heard it from retired agents" makes sense.

72/ It makes sense because True Pundit was made up of retired FBI agents speaking to—or claiming to have spoken to—active FBI agents, and the big surprise Giuliani predicted was likely the "news" True Pundit posted and that Giuliani's compatriots then spread throughout the media.

73/ Keep in mind, Giuliani hadn't seen the emails either—no one had, including the NYPD and FBI agents claiming to have seen them—so all he needed to know was that True Pundit, a site he followed and which likely included some retired FBI agents he knew, would be running a story.

74/ And given that *both* McCabe and Comey were aware of TruePundit—who it was comprised of, who they claimed to have access to, and what they were trying to do—the idea those "ex-intel guys" would have communicated their plans to Flynn and/or Prince and/or Giualiani makes sense.

75/ But the key is this: the NYT said Comey re-opened the investigation publicly because he was "sure" information about the new emails would leak. And the reason he thought that information would leak is because he knew about True Pundit and (via McCabe) FBI leaks made to them.

76/ All those leaks were illegal—as Flynn, Prince and Giuliani well knew given their backgrounds. And they equally knew that True Pundit stories were regularly being repeated on Russia media. And Flynn and Prince knew by November 2nd that in fact no one had seen those emails yet.

77/ What all this suggests is coordination between True Pundit, the FBI, NYPD, and members of the Trump campaign to stall the Clinton email investigation just long enough to either (a) force Comey to re-open it, or (b) be able to claim whatever they wanted about the "new" emails.

78/ Remember how I said Bannon's Breitbart was the chief retweeter of and source for True Pundit—along with Russian bots. Remember how I said that Bannon, Flynn and Prince all met during the campaign, and all jumped on the True Pundit story the *second* it came out on November 2.

79/ This has all the hallmarks of a domestic criminal conspiracy—"criminal" because it involves fraud and obstruction of justice. And it involves the Trump campaign and Russian bots and pro-Trump elements in the FBI and NYPD working in concert. So why isn't it being investigated?

80/ Inspector General Horowitz is looking at it, we're told. That's not good enough—not when Trump is stacking the deck by claiming the FBI had a *pro-Clinton* bias, even as he knows it was working in concert with his men. Enough. Let's starting discussing this as a nation. {end}

PS/ There are up to twenty more tweets in this thread. I stopped because I needed to sleep, but there are few more items of great note that I need to add. They're forthcoming shortly. (Hope you'll share the first tweet in this thread in the meantime.)

PS2/ So I wrote about what was happening on the Trump campaign and FBI side of things after True Pundit published its false story about the Clinton emails on November 2nd, 2016. I didn't talk about what True Pundit did at that point—and frankly it's even more alarming to recount.

PS3/ To obscure the fact that its very existence, operations, sourcing, and disinformation dissemination was evidence of a pro-Trump conspiracy between current and former FBI agents, True Pundit did *exactly* what Trump is doing now: alleged a *pro-Clinton* conspiracy at the FBI.

PS4/ And it didn't wait to do this until there was a statement from the FBI or other indication of blowback from its November 2nd article, as of course there wasn't any—not against True Pundit, at least—and the goal of alleging a *pro-Clinton* conspiracy at the FBI was political.

PS5/ So what True Pundit did, in the 4 days before the election, was put on a play of sorts about—if you can believe it—its authors being hunted by pro-Clinton FBI agents. Yes—seriously—hunted. It was a ploy for attention and to falsely underscore the "truth" of its "reporting."

PS6/ Check out these tweets by "Thomas Paine" alleging that his and his compatriots' courage in posting the "real" story of Clinton's emails—again, every single piece of which was false—had led to the whole True Pundit team being hunted like dogs by pro-Clinton forces at the FBI.


PS7/ Not only do these tweets falsely suggest the True Pundit team had to go into hiding pre-election, they also implied an anticipated fake-news coordination with WikiLeaks and that the "truth" of the Clinton emails was *worse* than the fake news True Pundit had already put out.

PS8/ This performance art-like component to True Pundit's November 2nd, 2016 fake-news "bombshell" about Clinton—immediately disseminated via Trump-campaign and Trump-affiliated channels—suggests a level of premeditation to the timing and roll-out of its threats against the FBI.

PS9/ It suggests too that the fake news we're seeing from Trump right now—the idea pro-Clinton FBI agents are secretly maneuvering to suppress the truth about Clinton—is the same one True Pundit was selling (and Trump aides promoting) in the midst of a *pro-Trump* FBI conspiracy.

PS10/ But it gets worse. And it gets worse because Trump won, which fact taught True Pundit that not *only* was its fake-news dissemination via Russian, far-right, and Trump-campaign channels effective, it *also* would continue to have success—specifically—in threatening the FBI.

PS11/ In March 2017, just 48 hours before it was revealed that Mike Flynn had been illegally working as a Turkish agent prior to election day—a revelation that *substantially* ramped up his chances of getting charged by Jim Comey—True Pundit posted a harrowing message on Twitter:


PS12/ Stunning. True Pundit is using the *same* threat (revelation of Clinton emails that don't actually exist) to the *same* purpose (thwarting the administration of justice by Jim Comey) that it used *before* the election—with Trump campaign help—to swing the election to Trump.

PS13/ Note that what "Thomas Paine" is doing is illegal *whether or not his NYPD sources exist*. Just as it was illegal to do the same thing 96 hours pre-election. Just as it was illegal if Flynn, Prince, and/or Bannon know anyone from True Pundit and were coordinating with them.

PS14/ Either Thomas Paine was obstructing justice by issuing credible threats against the FBI if the FBI didn't accede to his demands—and indeed, this probably rises to a level beyond Obstruction of Justice—*or* he was part of a *conspiracy* with NYPD and FBI elements to do this.

PS15/ This is where I remind everyone a) that the animating principles behind True Pundit match those of Flynn and Flynn retweeted True Pundit's November "bombshell" ASAP; b) the nature and timing of Rudy Giuliani's statements suggest a possible connection to True Pundit; and...

PS16/ c) Bannon and Prince coordinated immediately following publication of this "bombshell" to disseminate it via Breitbart. Prince can claim he wasn't a Trump advisor (though he was), but Flynn definitely was, Giuliani definitely was, and Bannon was the *CEO of the campaign*.

PS17/ More broadly, this March 2017 tweet suggests an *ongoing plot*—and ongoing MO—at True Pundit to influence the FBI in a very specific way: to hinder the Russia investigation; to help Mike Flynn; to allege a pro-Clinton conspiracy at the FBI; to distract via Clinton "crimes."

PS18/ Remember: a) Paine won't give his name or let his face be seen—confirming that, as ex-FBI, he knows what he's doing is *illegal*—and b) he's told the media that he was *proud* to have True Pundit be part of a Russian disinformation campaign, and was aware of it at the time.

PS19/ There's no evidence to support Paine's claim he was being hunted by the FBI pre-election, but he certainly *should* be getting hunted by authorities now.

And Flynn, Prince, Bannon, Giuliani, and any other Trump aides who passed on True Pundit stories should be questioned.

PS20/ I want to emphasize that I have only *scratched the surface* of the True Pundit story here. But there's more than enough here to tell any investigator (Horowitz, Mueller, or Congressional) that the timing and coordination of all of this suggests something much larger. {end}

NOTE/ The first step is to check every Paine tweet/True Pundit story against a) events in the Russia scandal/probe, b) public RTs by Trump aides. Don't forget True Pundit was registered as Manafort came on-board (March 2016) and began the day of the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

NOTE2/ The second step is to find and question Jason Goodman—see earlier tweet in which Goodman interviews Paine—as it appears possible Goodman knows who "Thomas Paine" is (recall that "Paine" references early in his interview having "private" off-air conversations with Goodman).

NOTE3/ The third step is to get RUDY GIULIANI under oath and ask him questions about his reading of True Pundit and knowledge of *anyone* associated with it. He should also be asked about *any* October 2016 contacts with Flynn, Prince, or Bannon—as well as contacts *before* then.

NOTE4/ The fourth step is to get in contact with McCabe and Comey and ask about True Pundit's stories and threats *or* any stories or threats coming from associated websites or individuals that may have contributed to Comey being "sure" (false) info on Wiener's emails would leak.

NOTE5/ The fifth step is for Mueller to ask his now-cooperating witness Michael Flynn about *all* of this—as Flynn may well be cooperating on certain aspects of the Russia case *without* implicating others in the *domestic* end of the conspiracy that gave Trump the 2016 election.

CONCLUSION/ This is, again, just a scratching of the surface of the story of True Pundit. In the long run, extremely superficial—but enough to get the ball rolling. People have wrongly assumed this end of the story to be disconnected to the Russia probe. It is not. It is central.

DOCS/ Guess what the pro-Trump ex-FBI/IC agents at True Pundit are working on now, America—that's right, *getting Mueller fired and ending the Trump-Russia probe*.

You can be reasonably certainly the president himself has True Pundit bookmarked—as this looks like hand-in-glove.


DOC2/ "Thomas Paine" is now having a meltdown, folks. Largely—it appears—in response to this thread, as he keeps on referencing me and has already accused me of (wait for it) secret Deep State connections.

Yeah, maybe Google me first.

Pay attention, Horowitz, Mueller, Congress.


DOC3/ Here's the FiveThirtyEight analysis suggesting that what this thread is talking about is no more or less than something that was/is a *sufficient* basis for Clinton to lose the 2016 election, if not (not by any means) the *only* reason that happened.

link

DOC4/ Here's an exemplar of how right-wing pubs like InfoWars—the owner of this account is Jones' partner there—publicly associated True Pundit with WikiLeaks in a symbiotic way (i.e. WikiLeaks' RTs of True Pundit bolstered it, even as True Pundit bolstered WikiLeaks narratives):




DOC5/ This Newsline excerpt discusses Judicial Watch's McCabe-Comey emails. Note Comey clearly acknowledges that True Pundit has access to FBI agents—maybe "lower-level" agents spreading "rumors" to True Pundit.

But then—2 days later—Giuliani issued his public warnings/threats.


DOC5-II/ Note the word "still"—implying not only *isn't* this the first October conversation Comey's had with with McCabe about the risk of leaks from the NYC office, but McCabe *clearly* has expressed concerns Comey wants to disbelieve.

Giuliani's threats may have changed that.

DOCS5-III/
10/24: McCabe thinks big leak coming; Comey admits leaks but not in Clinton probe—yet.
10/26: Giuliani widely teases FBI-related October surprise that will swing election to Trump.
10/27: Comey learns his agents betrayed him.
10/28: Comey writes his letter to Congress.

***
Believe it or not, Seth's got a Part Two ready to go already. Keep watching this space for updates! - Jerky

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

ON TRUMP'S BUDGET AND THE POSSIBILITY OF BECOMING A FAILED STATE


For the time being and the foreseeable future, between special projects and DDD Executive Summaries, I'll be linking to news reports and other media that I come across that I believe to be of critical importance. Either that, or of great comedic value. This MSNBC report on Trump's disastrous incompetence, is the former. It actually achieved the impossible by making me long for the Preznitcy of George Dubya Bush.

Monday, January 9, 2017

DDD EXECUTIVE SUMMARY JAN/09/2017


THE MAIN EVENT
  • Get ready for the biggest shit-show since election night as a whole bunch of Trump's cabinet picks are about to be subjected to some degree of scrutiny during Senate confirmation hearings. More details about this sickening confederacy of kleptocrats, coming soon!
  • Meanwhile, in the UK, the ongoing Brexit debacle continues to wreak havoc, and how are the right-wingers over there reacting to the unavoidable consequences of their own little Trump Lite race-based mini-tantrum? Why, by BLAMING THE MEDIA, of course! Because of course they would.
A DEEPER DIVE
  • At the Golden Globes award show on Sunday, a handful of entertainment industry professionals decided to use the media attention afforded them as a platform to express their thoughts about the ongoing state of the union, thus triggering a near endless supply of tantrums from the whiny, reactionary crybullies of the Far Right Mediasphere. You know, I always find it ironic when self-described "conservative" pundits--people whose entire job consists of having and expressing an opinion--try to say that everyone else should keep their opinions to themselves. 
***

SUGGESTED READINGS

1. This Politico feature article, sub-titled "How an 89-year-old Cold Warrior became America's Nuclear Conscience", is absolutely hair-raising, beginning as it does:
At this naked moment in the American experiment, when many people perceive civilization on the verge of blowing up in some metaphorical sense, there is an elderly man in California hoping to seize your attention about another possibility. 
It is that civilization is on the verge of blowing up in a non-metaphorical sense.
William J. Perry is 89 now, at the tail end of one of his generation’s most illustrious careers in national security. By all rights, the former U.S. secretary of Defense, a trained mathematician who served or advised nearly every administration since Eisenhower, should be filling out the remainder of his years in quiet reflection on his achievements. 
Instead, he has set out on an urgent pilgrimage. Bill Perry has become, he says with a rueful smile, “a prophet of doom.”
Read it. Just do it. And pass it along to people whom you deem worthy.

2. Within the very title of his righteously indignant and meticulously argued Mother Jones essay, Kevin Drum rips apart a recent Los Angeles Times editorial. He goes through the article, line by line, and mercilessly dissects it, simultaneously asking, then answering, the following question: "Did Putin Swing the Election to Trump?" His answer? "Of Course He Did." I love this kind of thing, where someone rebuts another person's writing in a thorough and methodical way, taking apart flawed or misleading arguments, piece by piece, exposing the bullshit. I think my own most successful attempt at writing something like Drum's piece was my response to the Washington Post's Richard Cohen's ridiculous attack on Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, which I called "Requiem for a Self-Loathing Liberal". It is still among my favorite pieces of my own writing. 

3. The band Shytegeist has released its first video, It's called "I am Waiting." Words are by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and is read by Matt Aston. There's a lot of hard-hitting celebrity talent joining in. Enjoy.


***
QUOTE OF THE DAY

"I suppose I'll be able to say that I won at the last ever Golden Globes. I don't mean to be gloomy, it's just that it has the words Hollywood, foreign and press in the title."

- Meryl Streep got all the media attention, but the funniest comment of last night's Golden Globes, in yer old pal Jerky's opinion, came from international treasure Hugh Laurie, who put his British wit to good use while accepting the trophy for Best Supporting Actor in a TV Movie or Limited Series for "The Night Manager", which I hear is pretty good.

DDD EXTRAS
  1. If you want to learn about some cool and/or weird things that happened on the 9th day of January, check out our sister-site, Useless Eater Blog.
  2. A "hilarious" misunderstanding involving a conservative who fought tooth and nail against Obamacare because he thought it was messing with his beloved Affordable Care Act. Beautiful irony, man... just beautiful.
  3. A guest editorial by Daily Dirt veteran contributor A.C. Doyle serves as a fitting farewell and a nice tribute to the One Democrat Who's Got a Reason to Look Forward to the Inauguration.

THE TAKEAWAY

The credibility crisis has reached critical mass. Solutions?

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

SUGGESTED READING LIST ~ SEPTEMBER 20, 2016


1. Decreasingly right-wing gay Catholic media gadfly Andrew Sullivan has penned a thoughtful, engaging piece for New York Magazine going over some of the darker aspects of his experiences with social media over the years. I found it sufficiently reminiscent of my own experiences to be troubled by it, and to want to share it with you, the few dozen people who read this blog on a regular basis, because I think y'all might get something out of it. Sullivan begins:
I was sitting in a large meditation hall in a converted novitiate in central Massachusetts when I reached into my pocket for my iPhone. A woman in the front of the room gamely held a basket in front of her, beaming beneficently, like a priest with a collection plate. I duly surrendered my little device, only to feel a sudden pang of panic on my way back to my seat. If it hadn’t been for everyone staring at me, I might have turned around immediately and asked for it back. But I didn’t. I knew why I’d come here. 
A year before, like many addicts, I had sensed a personal crash coming. For a decade and a half, I’d been a web obsessive, publishing blog posts multiple times a day, seven days a week, and ultimately corralling a team that curated the web every 20 minutes during peak hours. Each morning began with a full immersion in the stream of internet consciousness and news, jumping from site to site, tweet to tweet, breaking news story to hottest take, scanning countless images and videos, catching up with multiple memes. Throughout the day, I’d cough up an insight or an argument or a joke about what had just occurred or what was happening right now. And at times, as events took over, I’d spend weeks manically grabbing every tiny scrap of a developing story in order to fuse them into a narrative in real time. I was in an unending dialogue with readers who were caviling, praising, booing, correcting. My brain had never been so occupied so insistently by so many different subjects and in so public a way for so long. 
I was, in other words, a very early adopter of what we might now call living-in-the-web. And as the years went by, I realized I was no longer alone. Facebook soon gave everyone the equivalent of their own blog and their own audience. More and more people got a smartphone — connecting them instantly to a deluge of febrile content, forcing them to cull and absorb and assimilate the online torrent as relentlessly as I had once. Twitter emerged as a form of instant blogging of microthoughts. Users were as addicted to the feedback as I had long been — and even more prolific. Then the apps descended, like the rain, to inundate what was left of our free time. It was ubiquitous now, this virtual living, this never-stopping, this always-updating. I remember when I decided to raise the ante on my blog in 2007 and update every half-hour or so, and my editor looked at me as if I were insane. But the insanity was now banality; the once-unimaginable pace of the professional blogger was now the default for everyone. 
If the internet killed you, I used to joke, then I would be the first to find out. Years later, the joke was running thin. In the last year of my blogging life, my health began to give out. Four bronchial infections in 12 months had become progressively harder to kick. Vacations, such as they were, had become mere opportunities for sleep. My dreams were filled with the snippets of code I used each day to update the site. My friendships had atrophied as my time away from the web dwindled. My doctor, dispensing one more course of antibiotics, finally laid it on the line: “Did you really survive HIV to die of the web?”
Continue reading at New York Magazine.


2. Let's go ahead and give this edition of the Daily Dirt Diaspora's Suggested Reading List a decidedly schizophrenic bent by having our second offering highlight something absolutely wonderful about new media and the internet: namely that we live at a time when wisdom such as that which Terence McKenna had to offer can be shared freely with whoever wants to hear it. Listen to this substantial, substantive podcast in order to hear one of the great teachers of our beleaguered age tell you such things as:
What psychedelics are about is deconditioning all of these culturally induced, sensory biases and ideological biases, basically it reshuffles the intellectual and sensory deck. And it’s a wonderful, salutary thing to come along for Western culture at this moment because we’re basically running out of intellectual steam. Technology is moving ahead lickety split without looking over its shoulder, but our social systems, our religious ontologies, our theories of polity, city planning, community, resource sharing, all of this is 19th Century at best. And so, really whether we live or perish as a species probably has to do with how much consciousness we can raise from any source available.
And this:
If consciousness is not part of our future then what kind of future can it be?
And this:
Culture is an intelligence test.
And also this:
I like to think that the psychedelic community has always been a source of visionary common sense because the psychedelic community, generally speaking, has not generated ideology.
And, finally, a bit of hope at this horrifying time in our history:
I think primates are most interesting when cornered.
Let's hope he's right about that. Listen to the podcast for tons more provocative, enlightening statements and interactions with his live studio audience. Then go out and listen to more McKenna podcasts, watch his videos, and read his goddamn books. He was a real treasure, and we lost him far too soon.

3. Guess who's back? Yes friends, that's right... outspoken liberal rage-monster Keith Olbermann has returned from exile after being fired from the ostensibly "liberal" MSNBC while at the top of that organ's ratings - the same fate that befell fellow progressive Phil Donahue, interestingly enough - this time, as a "special correspondent" for GQ Magazine's online multi-media platform. And his debut video is a fuckin' doozy. I sure dug it, in all its overblown, semi-exaggerated, and yet still all-too-horrifyingly-true glory, and I imagine most of you will appreciate it, too.

Sunday, August 2, 2015

MEDIAVORE: COMICS ~ RICHARD CORBEN'S "RAT GOD"


RAT GOD (Dark Horse, 5-issue mini, $3.99 each) ~ In the world of illustrated horror and dark fantasy, it just doesn't get any better than Richard Corben, multiple-award-winning Eisner Hall of Fame inductee (2012), tent-pole artist of Heavy Metal Magazine's late-70's Golden Age, and one-time High Priest of the comix underground. Whether he's working with established characters and storylines--his Luke Cage and Hulk minis for Marvel were both excellent and influential in ways that are only now beginning to be appreciated--or creating entirely new ones, as is the case with this awesome new title for prestige publisher Dark Horse, Corben is one of the most iconic and essential comics artists working today. It's always cause for celebration 'round Chateau LeBoeuf whenever the Master decides to put out a new title... and that's an understatement.

 

Over the course of its five issues, RAT GOD tells a story that is both familiar and yet completely sui generis, combining elements of Lovecraftian horror (territory with which Corben is intimately familiar) and Native American lore. In a nutshell, it tells the story of Clark Elwood, a bookish Miskatonic University professor who falls in love (sort of) with a Native American co-ed named Kito Hontz, who hails from a strange small town in the Pacific Northwest. After a nasty tiff that puts the kaibosh on their burgeoning romance, Kito splits from campus and a regretful Clark decides to drive out to her homeland to try apologize and win her back.


The story is quite good, with exciting action, convincingly concocted and original esoterica, a number of intriguing characterizations, and odd plot twists a-plenty. It also contains surprisingly mature and measured riffs on Lovecraft's all-too-human flaw of racism, and the human wreckage such beliefs can cause. You can learn more about what Corben was attempting to do in this interview with Comic Book Resources.

Of course, RAT GOD's biggest draw, as is so often the case with Corben, is the artwork.

Running the gamut, from the gorgeous lush greenery of dense evergreen forests to the grisly, gruesome carnage of rat-infested sacrificial death-pits, Corben clearly put everything he's got on the pages with this, his most visually satisfying long-form work in well over a decade. His use of color to set an emotional tone in particular has never been more assured or successful.

The fourth issue, as an example, has Clark sneaking his way into an "Eyes Wide Shut" style costume ball, and it features some of the most beautifully evocative costume designs that I've ever seen. Each costume was unique, but they all felt of a piece, as though whoever created them was harkening to some long-forgotten esoteric aesthetic... which, considering this is Corben we're talking about, probably isn't that far from the truth.

If you missed this series, which ran from February to June of this year, don't despair. I imagine a reasonably-priced volume collecting all five issues in a single book will be hitting bookstore shelves within a month or two. When it does, don't fight the urge to splurge. RAT GOD is going to go down in comics history as one of Richard Corben's finest works, which instantly puts it in the running for Best Limited Series Comic of 2015.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

THE SHINING: FORWARDS AND BACKWARDS


What with all the sorcery and witchery surrounding the making of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining - his second most esoteric film after 2001: A Space Odyssey - it should probably come as no surprise that watching it in reverse, superimposed over itself playing normally, should yield such potent symbolic fruits... to the interested and invested viewer, of course. Read this for more information on The Shining: Forwards and Backwards.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

ALBERT'S BLOG ON ALL THINGS PARAPOLITICAL


Check out Albert's Blog BDC192, the new blog by my old pal - and very interesting character in his own right - Albert Venczel. He's working on a media degree at a prestigious Toronto university, and he's undergoing a trial by fire right now as an adult student back in school at a later point in his life. He's a good man who's had some intriguing encounters, and his work on a variety of 9/11-truth-oriented projects (among other things) deserves some attention, so here's a link to his work. Wish I could do more for you, Albert! Sorry I lost all my audience! Seriously. It sucks for both of us.