From jbn at forestfield.org Fri Oct 2 00:05:11 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Thu, 01 Oct 2020 19:05:11 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Assange hearing updates Message-ID: <6a03d2ab26c29f6ee5159c9527cf74d05826dac3.camel@forestfield.org> This was the final day of the Assange hearing testimony, closing arguments are expected on November 16 (if journalists are able to get the closing arguments) and a ruling (which District Judge Vanessa Baraitser referred to as "Judgment Day") is expected in January 4, 2021. We'll see what happens; appeal is expected. RT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpmuW0wXu3E -- Julian Assange's extradition hearing comes to a close https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkYG0476190 -- 4h 13m 42s of footage from outside Assange hearing today https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrShDrU-rq0 -- David Kurten's speech outside Assange hearing: "This is about freedom of speech" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Dfz9bauOSM -- The U.S. reportedly considered poisoning Assange, court heard Consortium News https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAgMA4ccwJ0 -- Joe Lauria's update Craig Murray https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/10/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-assange-hearing-day-21/ acTVism https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=q6rwPosBbsc -- "Julian Assange Update: American Intelligence Took Extreme Efforts to Target Assange" I'm not always able to get the acTVism posts from YouTube (I'm not sure why), so I let an Invidious service try. Feel free to substitute "youtube.com" for "invidious.snopyta.org" (or your preferred Invidious service's host) in the Invidious URLs. -J From jbn at forestfield.org Fri Oct 2 00:37:23 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Thu, 01 Oct 2020 19:37:23 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] More on "What's Wrong with YouTube" and viable means of getting the videos either downloaded or viewing on the web In-Reply-To: <6a03d2ab26c29f6ee5159c9527cf74d05826dac3.camel@forestfield.org> References: <6a03d2ab26c29f6ee5159c9527cf74d05826dac3.camel@forestfield.org> Message-ID: <855f2b70069f56f6bcc8337c562cbee1f632ab3a.camel@forestfield.org> I wrote: > I'm not always able to get the acTVism posts from YouTube (I'm not > sure why), so I let an Invidious service try. Feel free to substitute > "youtube.com" for "invidious.snopyta.org" (or your preferred > Invidious service's host) in the Invidious URLs. See https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/whats-wrong-with-youtube.html for a good reference to "What's Wrong with YouTube" (the name of the article). I recommend youtube-dl (ytdl) if you're savvy on the command-line, Invidious otherwise. See https://github.com/iv-org/invidious/wiki/Invidious-Instances for a list of public instances of Invidious, websites where you can look up YouTube videos without running any Javascript (thus no fear of running non-free software). From jbn at forestfield.org Sat Oct 3 00:30:16 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Fri, 02 Oct 2020 19:30:16 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] More COVID-19 than is widely covered @Amazon: 19k+ workers testing positive; News of general strike on Election Day Message-ID: <4a3233bb8a99e6bd6b5969dbbde19aa7a99bb012.camel@forestfield.org> https://thehill.com/policy/technology/519241-amazon-says-19000-of-its-workers-tested-positive-for-covid-19 https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/nearly-20-000-amazon-workers-have-tested-positive-for-covid-19-1.4370286 Today's Jimmy Dore show with Christian Smalls also reports on this. I'm sure they'll upload this as a separate segment soon. The Hill's article starts: > More than 19,000 Amazon workers contracted COVID-19 during the > pandemic, the company revealed in an update on testing released > Thursday. > > It is the first time Amazon has publicly shared case numbers among > its more than 1.3 million Amazon and Whole Foods Market front-line > employees across the U.S. > > The company said in a press release that the 19,816 positive tests > means the rate of infection among employees was 42 percent lower than > expected, compared to the ?general population rate? in the U.S. I'm guessing that someone at Amazon was looking for some late-in-the- week non-coverage. If what Amazon did in the past holds true now (see https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21194739/amazon-warehouse-workers-coronavirus-covid-19-outraged-informed which includes "Ten Amazon warehouses in the US have had COVID-19 cases. Workers often hear of them through rumors.") you might have to rely on friend-of-a-friend info to get anything on whether workers in local facilities are infected. Smalls is looking to lead a general strike for Election Day, which he just announced on Jimmy Dore's show. See https://tcoew.org (The Congress of Essential Workers) for information on Smalls' action against one of Bezos' houses this weekend (2020-10-03 and/or 2020-10-04). -J From jbn at forestfield.org Sun Oct 4 02:23:16 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Sat, 3 Oct 2020 21:23:16 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Anyone else can't reliably post to peace/peace-discuss? Message-ID: <49315e7e-68eb-631b-d71c-3f450bcb1dce@forestfield.org> I've had 4 failed posts to peace-discuss all fail because of a blacklist peace-discuss appear to use at black.uribl.com. The bounced emails came back to me at the following dates/times: 2020-10-01 shortly before 7:26PM 2020-10-01 shortly before 7:35PM 2020-10-02 shortly before 8:58PM 2020-10-02 shortly before 10:11PM Has anyone else received bounced emails that were supposed to reach the mailing list? Also, peace-discuss has trouble reliably emailing me posts to the list. I sometimes receive an email indicating my subscription was suspended because of previous delivery problems. I don't understand this issue as none of the over 30 mailing lists to which I'm subscribed experience this, nor do I hear anything problematic from individual people who send me one-off emails such as correspondence from friends and family. I can only imagine that peace mailing list has a comparable setup and therefore comparable issues. I'm not asking for anyone to send me copies of what they post to the list (please don't; not only would any such effort quickly become annoying, it would not fix the underlying issues that appear to be unique to these mailing lists). I'd rather know if filtering email through this or any blacklist is necessary, and if the black.uribl.com blacklist is tuneable so that subscribers to either peace or peace-discuss can have their posts always go through to the list and have list posts always be delivered to subscribers' addresses. Thanks. From jbn at forestfield.org Sun Oct 4 04:28:05 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Sat, 3 Oct 2020 23:28:05 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] AOTA/NFN timeslot recommendations Message-ID: <52d1d3bd-d84c-593e-3c8c-4135342bb1de@forestfield.org> Here's another batch of recommendations for AWARE on the Air and News from Neptune timeslots which I've sent to UPTV's Jason Liggett. As before, I've said that if there are other AWARE/NFN folks with recommendations for these timeslots, please prioritize their recommendations above mine. Thanks so much to Jason for running these videos. -J Grayzone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a-z65ForXU -- (20m 39s) Aaron Mat? interviews Ali Abunimah (https://electronicintifada.net/) about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) reevaluating an invitation to speak at an event celebrating Yitzhak Rabin, former Israeli politician, statesman and general who died in 1995. There is good analysis of Rabin's legacy, AOC's politics, and who in power actually speaks in support of Palestinian rights. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9thPJW9wgOo -- (16m 41s) Aaron Mat?'s testimony to the UN about the OPCW coverup. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxRMG9B8hgU -- (20m 18s) "Red Lines" with Anya Parampil: US military seeks to "create new base in Syria" - Syrian journalist RT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COoRi3g-tyw -- (26m 43s) Sophie Shevardnadze interviews Richard Stallman on safety & privacy and the false dichotomy that encourages us to think that we must give up privacy to gain safety. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtwpzqAJMBo -- (26m 44s) "On Contact" with Chris Hedges, Hedges interviews Craig Murray on the Assange extradition hearing Black Agenda Report https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18mqGgDKgvk -- (44m 19s) Left Lens episode 16 -- Why the US is the World's Worst Human Rights Abuser From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Sun Oct 4 17:56:42 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Sun, 4 Oct 2020 12:56:42 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] The Rump Professional Class and Its Fallen Counterpart Message-ID: The Rump Professional Class and Its Fallen Counterpartby Benjamin Studebaker I?ve been thinking about the professional class?the class which sits between the wealthy billionaires and the ordinary workers. The professionals are college-educated and they are traditionally paid more than ordinary workers. But as economic inequality grows and the position of workers becomes more precarious, the professionals are less secure than they used to be. A university degree no longer guarantees a stable, robust standard of living, but it still separates those who have it from those who do not. Why? Because college students are socialised to pursue the degree as a means of demonstrating their merit. When that merit goes unrewarded, young would-be professionals grow very cross. They want their virtue to be recognised. Unable to earn more or enjoy a higher living standard than the workers, the would-be professionals retreat into the cultural realm. They use the language and ideas they learned at university to assert their moral superiority, gaining an imaginary victory over the workers. This condescension leads the workers to resent the professionals in turn, and makes it very difficult for these downwardly mobile professionals to form political alliances with the workers. All of this, of course, perpetuates the dominion of the rich. To use a metaphor, the professionals are the house slaves of capitalism?they identify with the owners because they live better than the field slaves and are invited to participate in and contribute to the culture of the owners. But once they are deprived of their superior living standard and opportunity to culturally contribute, they can defend their feeling of superiority only by mocking the field slaves for being unable to read. This is not to say that the whole of the professional class is going this way. Some college educated people still enjoy the economic and cultural advantages which historically belonged to all or most college-educated people. I want to explore how this group?what I call the ?rump professional class??interacts with the downwardly mobile group, which I call the ?fallen professional class?. There are a couple of sense in which the fallen professional class is fallen. Firstly, there are the very large number of college graduates who end up in jobs that don?t require a degree . These people are straightforwardly in the ?fallen? camp: [image: Reason #34: Millions of College Grads Are Working Jobs That Don't Require Their Degree - Ways and Means Republicans] Then there are jobs that require a degree but which are less secure and less lucrative than they used to be. Attacks on teachers? unions, for instance, are gradually eroding the benefits and security which teachers have traditionally enjoyed. As this happens, the distinction in living standard between teachers and ordinary workers becomes blurrier and blurrier. Tenured teachers still have a better situation than most workers, but fewer and fewer teachers are put in position to acquire tenure. Within teaching, then, there is a minority of secure, tenured faculty?who are part of the rump professional class. Then there are teachers who have no realistic path to tenure and have been effectively turned into casual workers. These teachers are part of the fallen professional class. The rump professional class and the fallen professional class have largely the same education, but are nonetheless treated very differently, because the system is not interested in rewarding their merit but in reducing the cost of the education system. The fallen professionals want to be part of the rump professional class, but can no longer access it materially. They can only access it culturally, by maintaining their familiarity with the language and ideas of the rump professionals. For this reason, the fallen professionals try very hard to continue to be part of the culture of the rump professionals. This enables many rump professionals to make money off their fallen counterparts by selling an ersatz version of the *experience* of professional class life. This takes the form of podcasts, YouTube videos, and prestige TV shows and films. By consuming this media, the fallen professional continues to feel part of the rump professional class, even as the fallen professional is robbed of the material benefits of being a member. Because the fallen professionals want to feel superior to the ordinary workers, the rump professionals have a financial incentive to sell ideas which flatter this superiority complex. This has led, in recent years, to the development of a woke industry which invents new terms and grounds for taking offence. By using these terms and taking offence in these ways, the fallen professionals feel they are participating in the culture of the rump professionals and they can distinguish themselves from the ordinary workers, who fail to use the language or to recognise the offensiveness. The rump professionals justify this commercialisation of radicalism on the grounds that it is ostensibly morally committed to resisting racism, patriarchy, fascism, or even capitalism itself. But the main effect of the product is to create cultural barriers between the fallen professionals and the ordinary workers, so the fallen professionals will continue to politically identify with the rump professionals and therefore with the rich. The language is used to label the ordinary worker a deplorable bigot, and the ordinary worker responds by seeking the absolute destruction of these professionals through right nationalist politics. Mortified by the right nationalism of the workers, the rump and fallen professionals lean ever harder into denouncing them as bigots, creating a vicious cycle which pushes the workers further and further to the right. For some time now, the left has sought to use these fallen professionals as ?class traitors?. They are supposed to lead left-wing movements and organise on the ground. But the fallen professionals cannot do this, because they have contempt for the people they are trying to lead. This contempt is nurtured by the cultural content manufactured by the rump professionals. None of this is anyone?s fault, individually. Because it?s getting harder and harder to be part of the rump professional class, would-be professionals must do everything they can to compete, and that means they have to look for money wherever they can find it. Those who make it must make money off those who do not. Those who do not were fed lies from childhood. They were told that a professional class life was achievable, and they were told it would be wonderful and fulfilling. Their desire to get the recognition and meaning they were promised is a reasonable consequence of the way they were socialised. And how can the ordinary worker react in any other way? The worker cannot have dignity without resisting a professional culture that constantly denigrates workers for lacking elite education. The question is whether there is any way out. Left to its own devices, this process will make the workers more and more nationalist, and the workers will use the state to annihilate elite liberal culture. If a large enough number of people receive professional education to overcome the workers, we?ll end up with a society in which woke virtue signalling is hegemonic. In neither case will the rich be threatened in any meaningful way. We would need a political movement which could induce the fallen professionals to make an alliance with the workers. But who will lead such a movement? The rump professionals will not. The decline of unions and civil society organisations leaves the workers with no means of organizing themselves. Bernie Sanders tried to thread the needle, but his campaign was set upon by the rump professionals in 2016 and co-opted by them in 2020. Increasingly, people are responding by choosing sides. Some are siding with the professionals against the workers, and others with the workers against the professionals. But the workers alone will produce right nationalism, and the professionals alone will produce woke neoliberalism. It is only through a dialectical synthesis of listening and expertise that we can have a political movement which recognises the problems we have *and *knows enough to solve them. The workers know the problems but they don?t know what to do. The professionals know how to manage complex systems, but they don?t know what?s wrong. This is a big part of the trap that we?re in. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Sun Oct 4 18:01:46 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Sun, 4 Oct 2020 13:01:46 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal Message-ID: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New DealWe already have the technology to stave off climate change, what we need now is the political will to use it. byEmmet Penney ,Adri?n Calder?n September 25, 2020 [image: A Russian nuclear technician checks a steam generator] A Russian nuclear technician checks a steam generator. (Roman Denisov / CC-BY-SA 3.0) In July, presidential candidate Joe Biden released his climate and infrastructure plan, ?The Biden Plan to Build a Modern, Sustainable Infrastructure and an Equitable Clean Energy Future .? From the automotive industry, to infrastructure, to addressing racial inequality, to labor protections, to a massive renewable energy build out, Biden aims to remake the American industrial base, right past wrongs, and generate a gobsmacking 10 million ?good union jobs? in the process. For comparison, the Works Progress Administration under the New Deal created 8.5 million jobs . Biden?s capacious plan has raised eyebrows. Some believe it speaks to his ?deceptive radicalism ;? others rightly point out that he?s ?endorsed the Green New Deal in all but name.? Both Biden?s plan and the Green New Deal rely heavily on ?variable renewables? (i.e. wind and solar, the output of which varies with the weather) to decarbonize the economy. Renewables like solar and wind, which don?t create greenhouse gas emissions, play a starring role in what is called an ?energy mix?: a combination of existing nuclear energy, variable renewables, hydropower, and biomass . Unfortunately, the view of renewables as a naturally harmonious, carbon-neutral technology is more romantic than scientific. Take California as an example. Since 2001, the state has sought to replace its fossil fuel energy with renewables. The subsequent instability of their electrical grid caused blackouts during a heatwave this August; when wildfires broke out the following month, a blanket of ash blotted out the sun in some places, cutting the state?s solar energy output by one-third . Any climate plan that doesn?t prioritize nuclear is destined to exacerbate climate problems. But the grid?s efficacy is only part of the problem. Energy in California is incredibly expensive for ratepayers, despite the declining cost of wind and solar installations. Since the state further expanded its variable renewables portfolio between 2011 and 2019, consumer electricity prices have leapt 30% . California could be a preview of what American life will look like if Biden?s plan or the Green New Deal succeeds, but it doesn?t have to be this way. Had California spent its money on nuclear energy instead of renewables, it could have decarbonized by now . That is why any climate plan that doesn?t prioritize nuclear above all other energy sources is destined to exacerbate climate problems rather than solve them. Nuclear Superiority Much of the anxiety about nuclear energy is due to the displacement of Cold War-era fears of military nuclear weapons. Fortunately, despite their shared history and basic science, nuclear weapons and civilian nuclear energy couldn?t be more dissimilar. Reactors from civilian plants don?t blow up like atomic bombs and nuclear waste isn?t a glowing toxic ooze. Throughout seven decades of service, nuclear power has consistently been proven to be safer than every other mass scale form of energy production. In one year, residents who live near a nuclear power plant are exposed to less radiation than anyone who has eaten a single banana . Though it may sound counterintuitive, because elements such as uranium and plutonium have such long half-lives, the radiation they emit is low enough to safely hold in your hand. Nuclear is also far and away the most reliable form of energy generation in the US, which makes it ideal for providing baseload power for the electrical grid. Nuclear reactors routinely spend years in continuous operation. The current fleet of nuclear power plants have no technical limits that prevent them from being in service for 80 years , if not a century. Waste from the entire history of American nuclear power can fit within an area the size of a football field. Many nuclear advocates direct attention to the innovative (though pointedly market-based) nuclear technology breakthroughs that always seem to be years away from commercialization and are dependent on massive, inconstant government grants . As impressive and potentially useful as these developments may be, many existing reactors in the global fleet have capabilities that could be considered ?advanced? in and of themselves: the currently operating BN-800 plant in Russia is a fast breeder reactor, which means it can use nuclear waste as fuel, and the 1950s design CANDU reactor is small enough to be considered ?modular? and can also use unenriched uranium or thorium as fuel. Nuclear power works now and works well. Probably the biggest bugbear for anti-nuclear environmentalists is the question of radioactive waste disposal. But not all nuclear waste is created equal; in fact, most is composed of low-level waste (LLW) made up of protective clothing, cleaning materials, equipment, and tools exposed to neutron radiation. LLW accounts for 90% of nuclear waste by volume but only 1% of its total radioactivity and can be disposed of safely and permanently. After about half a decade of providing carbon-free energy in the reactor core, the uranium fuel itself must be replaced. This high-level waste (HLW) is the highly radioactive and long-living stuff that you see caricatured in popular imagination. Yet this type of waste comprises only 3% of total nuclear waste. To put this in perspective, all of the waste from the entire history of American nuclear power plants can fit within an area the size of a football field , 50 feet high?half the height of a single wind turbine. Graphic provided by Erik Vogt Meanwhile, weather-dependent renewables require 400-450 times the land to produce the same amount of electricity as nuclear. Leveling an area of land larger than almost a third of all U.S. states for energy production might be an acceptable compromise to some, but it does not solve the weather-dependent nature of those sources. Further complicating matters is the fact renewable energy must be stored for later, which requires the use of lithium batteries. But the sheer scale of mining and land use required, and the fact that it involves the domination and exploitation of predominantly developing countries, makes the choice not only inefficient, but unethical. With the abundant uranium reserves already in the United States today, we have the capacity to cultivate an industry to domestically fuel our reactors right now. We are 100% funded by readers like you.Subscribe to our Patreon today to keep the Bellows alive.SUBSCRIBE The Nuclear New Deal No nuclear energy program has ever launched without heavy state intervention?the capital costs are just too high for private entities to take on. The Biden campaign says it wants to rely on ?innovation? and ?rapid commercialization? to drive down costs for nuclear energy, but that means praying to the gods of Silicon Valley for rain. The price-trolling is disingenuous. Other countries, especially those that at least partially subsidize their nuclear industries pay l ess than we do for nuclear. Russia?s Rosatom, for example, benefits from its industrial capacity and experience, the two ingredients necessary for cheaper nuclear production. Unlike most industries, innovation actually makes nuclear more expensive. As researchers Michel Berth?lemy and Lina Escobar Rangel have pointed out , construction costs can only be reduced by mass-producing identical reactors, assembly-line style. In order for this to work in the United States, the federal government could consolidate the nuclear arms of General Atomics, General Electric, Westinghouse, and others into a single public corporation. This federal entity would be mandated to decarbonize the American electricity grid. First, the US will need to commit to an industrial policy like those of France and South Korea , which allowed them to create their own nuclear programs to manufacture the necessary reactors. These reactors (and their plants) will need to be standardized if they?re going to recoup the aforementioned benefits of repetitive construction. A substantial number of new reactors will need to be built per year, so American industry would have to increase its construction capacity, especially to provide the necessary heavy forging . Reactors already in service should undergo safety reviews that extend their licensing. They should also undergo refurbishment and retrofitting with technical upgrades to increase efficiency and safety. Alongside the reactor buildout, a strong domestic fuel cycle industry to provide the uranium would need to be developed. Second, the US will have to train a workforce. Staffing these new plants would strain the capacity of the currently existing nuclear engineering programs in both academia and industry, which need to pass along decades of expertise to a new generation of nuclear workers. In the original spirit of the National Defense Education Act of 1958 , the federal government should forgo market incentives and directly award government grants to higher education institutions, vocational schools , and students in nuclear energy and related fields to scale up along with the growing industry as quickly as possible. Not counting construction, and taking the Diablo Canyon plant as a model, an estimated 250,000 workers will be needed to operate some 230 of these plants *in perpetuity*. If the American rollout of its 21st century nuclear fleet is in line with historical nuclearizations , the annual decarbonization rate should end up being 0.5% less than the 5% per-year ?carbon law ? emissions reduction suggested by the Stockholm Resilience Centre. This steep rate would reduce the risk of blowing past our carbon budget to stay under 2?C by 2050. But the emissions reduction does not stop there. Once the energy grid is nuclear and carbon-free, we could then turn our attention to producing district heat, high-temperature industrial heat, and hydrogen and ammonia production. We could also decarbonize transport and agriculture. Decarbonizing electricity would only be the first part of a larger goal of completely decarbonizing the US. Since the 1970s, America has seen rapid deindustrialization, offshoring, and an ever-strengthening sense of diminishing expectations. Plans that rely on renewables speak to a waning sense of confidence in the national ability to overcome problems. Whereas we once dreamed of a future of plenty for all, many wonder how much will be left to go around. But a carbon-free and abundant future is possible. We must commit ourselves to an American Prometheanism, a commitment to persevere and excel through even the toughest of problems by virtue of industry and pursuit of the public good. A Green Nuclear Deal would be the realization of this dream. AUTHORS Emmet Penney @dumbaristotle Emmet Penney is a writer and researcher whose work has appeared in Paste Magazine, Popula, Invisible Oranges, Post Trash, and elsewhere. He also co-hosts the ex.haust podcast. Adri?n Calder?n @adrianeaux Adri?n Calder?n is a writer living in Chicago. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Mon Oct 5 02:53:18 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Sun, 4 Oct 2020 21:53:18 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] "Planet of the Humans" suppression interview on Jimmy Dore's channel Message-ID: https://thegrayzone.com/2020/09/07/green-billionaires-planet-of-the-humans/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIU3ML3xHng is Jimmy Dore with Max Blumenthal (of The Grayzone) on the suppression of the "Planet of the Humans" documentary (English: https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE German: https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=A2-t4qe2Yrk -- these are probably the censored versions which resulted from a bogus copyright complaint YouTube reacted to) covers a lot of interesting topics: - California's alleged push to mandate electric cars, The increased demand for battery-powered tech means an increase in the demand for cobalt. Cobalt is mined by children in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Congolese families are suing big tech firms of knowingly using children to do this hazardous work in unsafe conditions. This will be an interesting lawsuit both in how little establishment media coverage this receives, and in terms of the suit itself to see how far this goes. If the push for electric or hybrid cars goes as Blumenthal says, California may end up exacerbating the problem of so many cars on the road by getting people to think that consumerism will save the planet ('if we just purchase the /right/ things...') instead of realizing that consumerism will never solve climate problems, - the connection to big bank money and big foundation money, - and "greenwashing". -J From brussel at illinois.edu Mon Oct 5 04:47:03 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2020 04:47:03 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <57796FD4-E686-45E5-83C8-A010A179C357@illinois.edu> This is a useful article especially if one consults the links that are provided . As some of you know, I?ve been an advocate for the further development and use of nuclear power. The reason it has largely been abandoned here and elsewhere is 1) building and deconstructing nuclear plants is costly, uneconomical compared to the costs of building wind turbine or solar panel installations; 2) unreasoned fear of radioactivity from accidents in nuclear power plants; 3) worries about how nuclear waste is to be handled safely and stored and 4) worries about the possibility that nuclear power plants can enable the production of nuclear material for weaponry. There have also been concerns about the safety of the reactors against terrorist attacks. These presumed deficiencies of nuclear power sources are reasonably well discussed in the article. Yet, nuclear power is efficient and reliable and produces minimal toxic wastes, and so provides clean steady power whereas turbine and solar power sources tend to be dependent on weather, hence intermittent, and rely on the storage of energy to even out intermittency. Moreover, newer nuclear power sources promise inexhausable energy and fail-safe operation even if conventional power fails to maintain the operation of the reactors. Another advantage of nuclear power is its minimal footprint; the power plants occupy little area copared to solar and wind turbine installations. These advantages and others are discussed in the article. What is not stated is the time it takes to build large nuclear reactors, of the order of many years or decades. This disadvantage may be avoided with production of so-called smaller ?modular" reactors currently under study and development; they can be built off site and be transported. Also not mentioned is that the cooling of the reactors can cause heat pollution of water sources (rivers, wells, the sea) used for the cooling. Another source of green energy not mentioned in the article is geothermal energy. Unfortunately, it cannot be utilized economically everywhere. Only certain unstable reigions such as in Iceland, provide such energy, very economically for heat and electricity. On Oct 4, 2020, at 1:01 PM, David Green via Peace-discuss > wrote: We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal We already have the technology to stave off climate change, what we need now is the political will to use it. byEmmet Penney,Adri?n Calder?n September 25, 2020 [A Russian nuclear technician checks a steam generator] A Russian nuclear technician checks a steam generator. (Roman Denisov / CC-BY-SA 3.0) In July, presidential candidate Joe Biden released his climate and infrastructure plan, ?The Biden Plan to Build a Modern, Sustainable Infrastructure and an Equitable Clean Energy Future.? From the automotive industry, to infrastructure, to addressing racial inequality, to labor protections, to a massive renewable energy build out, Biden aims to remake the American industrial base, right past wrongs, and generate a gobsmacking 10 million ?good union jobs? in the process. For comparison, the Works Progress Administration under the New Deal created 8.5 million jobs. Biden?s capacious plan has raised eyebrows. Some believe it speaks to his ?deceptive radicalism;? others rightly point out that he?s ?endorsed the Green New Deal in all but name.? Both Biden?s plan and the Green New Deal rely heavily on ?variable renewables? (i.e. wind and solar, the output of which varies with the weather) to decarbonize the economy. Renewables like solar and wind, which don?t create greenhouse gas emissions, play a starring role in what is called an ?energy mix?: a combination of existing nuclear energy, variable renewables, hydropower, and biomass. Unfortunately, the view of renewables as a naturally harmonious, carbon-neutral technology is more romantic than scientific. Take California as an example. Since 2001, the state has sought to replace its fossil fuel energy with renewables. The subsequent instability of their electrical grid caused blackouts during a heatwave this August; when wildfires broke out the following month, a blanket of ash blotted out the sun in some places, cutting the state?s solar energy output by one-third. Any climate plan that doesn?t prioritize nuclear is destined to exacerbate climate problems. But the grid?s efficacy is only part of the problem. Energy in California is incredibly expensive for ratepayers, despite the declining cost of wind and solar installations. Since the state further expanded its variable renewables portfolio between 2011 and 2019, consumer electricity prices have leapt 30%. California could be a preview of what American life will look like if Biden?s plan or the Green New Deal succeeds, but it doesn?t have to be this way. Had California spent its money on nuclear energy instead of renewables, it could have decarbonized by now. That is why any climate plan that doesn?t prioritize nuclear above all other energy sources is destined to exacerbate climate problems rather than solve them. Nuclear Superiority Much of the anxiety about nuclear energy is due to the displacement of Cold War-era fears of military nuclear weapons. Fortunately, despite their shared history and basic science, nuclear weapons and civilian nuclear energy couldn?t be more dissimilar. Reactors from civilian plants don?t blow up like atomic bombs and nuclear waste isn?t a glowing toxic ooze. Throughout seven decades of service, nuclear power has consistently been proven to be safer than every other mass scale form of energy production. In one year, residents who live near a nuclear power plant are exposed to less radiation than anyone who has eaten a single banana. Though it may sound counterintuitive, because elements such as uranium and plutonium have such long half-lives, the radiation they emit is low enough to safely hold in your hand. Nuclear is also far and away the most reliable form of energy generation in the US, which makes it ideal for providing baseload power for the electrical grid. Nuclear reactors routinely spend years in continuous operation. The current fleet of nuclear power plants have no technical limits that prevent them from being in service for 80 years, if not a century. Waste from the entire history of American nuclear power can fit within an area the size of a football field. Many nuclear advocates direct attention to the innovative (though pointedly market-based) nuclear technology breakthroughs that always seem to be years away from commercialization and are dependent on massive, inconstant government grants. As impressive and potentially useful as these developments may be, many existing reactors in the global fleet have capabilities that could be considered ?advanced? in and of themselves: the currently operating BN-800 plant in Russia is a fast breeder reactor, which means it can use nuclear waste as fuel, and the 1950s design CANDU reactor is small enough to be considered ?modular? and can also use unenriched uranium or thorium as fuel. Nuclear power works now and works well. [https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/y6D0-PCEyOjxETliFjWqAl34h-jcyJ082pxS2egDt5IhFhUi88unOp8W7IiZsqt0PT7fDOFqfi37ZKeQBtGMsL3LGYJsfbaHmZ2VL9EIwywgQY188bVLChrvwv01kTcaa_dyUgJC] Probably the biggest bugbear for anti-nuclear environmentalists is the question of radioactive waste disposal. But not all nuclear waste is created equal; in fact, most is composed of low-level waste (LLW) made up of protective clothing, cleaning materials, equipment, and tools exposed to neutron radiation. LLW accounts for 90% of nuclear waste by volume but only 1% of its total radioactivity and can be disposed of safely and permanently. After about half a decade of providing carbon-free energy in the reactor core, the uranium fuel itself must be replaced. This high-level waste (HLW) is the highly radioactive and long-living stuff that you see caricatured in popular imagination. Yet this type of waste comprises only 3% of total nuclear waste. To put this in perspective, all of the waste from the entire history of American nuclear power plants can fit within an area the size of a football field, 50 feet high?half the height of a single wind turbine. [https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/YZgc8FsRYP6AOHeHwILcDeeYKwkU_PHGjVdn7kcAyhwEPIeJl9TVfVn1m2cthkIzkSX8b5iI4IAmACz21QACd3O-f2z9vbF3gibNaLO1owaKVcTRT8KqN49I9EdjSw_UHTQ5tHj0]Graphic provided by Erik Vogt Meanwhile, weather-dependent renewables require 400-450 times the land to produce the same amount of electricity as nuclear. Leveling an area of land larger than almost a third of all U.S. states for energy production might be an acceptable compromise to some, but it does not solve the weather-dependent nature of those sources. Further complicating matters is the fact renewable energy must be stored for later, which requires the use of lithium batteries. But the sheer scale of mining and land use required, and the fact that it involves the domination and exploitation of predominantly developing countries, makes the choice not only inefficient, but unethical. With the abundant uranium reserves already in the United States today, we have the capacity to cultivate an industry to domestically fuel our reactors right now. We are 100% funded by readers like you. Subscribe to our Patreon today to keep the Bellows alive. SUBSCRIBE The Nuclear New Deal No nuclear energy program has ever launched without heavy state intervention?the capital costs are just too high for private entities to take on. The Biden campaign says it wants to rely on ?innovation? and ?rapid commercialization? to drive down costs for nuclear energy, but that means praying to the gods of Silicon Valley for rain. The price-trolling is disingenuous. Other countries, especially those that at least partially subsidize their nuclear industries pay less than we do for nuclear. Russia?s Rosatom, for example, benefits from its industrial capacity and experience, the two ingredients necessary for cheaper nuclear production. Unlike most industries, innovation actually makes nuclear more expensive. As researchers Michel Berth?lemy and Lina Escobar Rangel have pointed out, construction costs can only be reduced by mass-producing identical reactors, assembly-line style. In order for this to work in the United States, the federal government could consolidate the nuclear arms of General Atomics, General Electric, Westinghouse, and others into a single public corporation. This federal entity would be mandated to decarbonize the American electricity grid. First, the US will need to commit to an industrial policy like those of France and South Korea, which allowed them to create their own nuclear programs to manufacture the necessary reactors. These reactors (and their plants) will need to be standardized if they?re going to recoup the aforementioned benefits of repetitive construction. A substantial number of new reactors will need to be built per year, so American industry would have to increase its construction capacity, especially to provide the necessary heavy forging. Reactors already in service should undergo safety reviews that extend their licensing. They should also undergo refurbishment and retrofitting with technical upgrades to increase efficiency and safety. Alongside the reactor buildout, a strong domestic fuel cycle industry to provide the uranium would need to be developed. Second, the US will have to train a workforce. Staffing these new plants would strain the capacity of the currently existing nuclear engineering programs in both academia and industry, which need to pass along decades of expertise to a new generation of nuclear workers. In the original spirit of the National Defense Education Act of 1958, the federal government should forgo market incentives and directly award government grants to higher education institutions, vocational schools, and students in nuclear energy and related fields to scale up along with the growing industry as quickly as possible. Not counting construction, and taking the Diablo Canyon plant as a model, an estimated 250,000 workers will be needed to operate some 230 of these plants in perpetuity. If the American rollout of its 21st century nuclear fleet is in line with historical nuclearizations, the annual decarbonization rate should end up being 0.5% less than the 5% per-year ?carbon law? emissions reduction suggested by the Stockholm Resilience Centre. This steep rate would reduce the risk of blowing past our carbon budget to stay under 2?C by 2050. But the emissions reduction does not stop there. Once the energy grid is nuclear and carbon-free, we could then turn our attention to producing district heat, high-temperature industrial heat, and hydrogen and ammonia production. We could also decarbonize transport and agriculture. Decarbonizing electricity would only be the first part of a larger goal of completely decarbonizing the US. Since the 1970s, America has seen rapid deindustrialization, offshoring, and an ever-strengthening sense of diminishing expectations. Plans that rely on renewables speak to a waning sense of confidence in the national ability to overcome problems. Whereas we once dreamed of a future of plenty for all, many wonder how much will be left to go around. But a carbon-free and abundant future is possible. We must commit ourselves to an American Prometheanism, a commitment to persevere and excel through even the toughest of problems by virtue of industry and pursuit of the public good. A Green Nuclear Deal would be the realization of this dream. [https://www.thebellows.org/wp-content/themes/bellows/assets/img/b.png] AUTHORS Emmet Penney @dumbaristotle Emmet Penney is a writer and researcher whose work has appeared in Paste Magazine, Popula, Invisible Oranges, Post Trash, and elsewhere. He also co-hosts the ex.haust podcast. Adri?n Calder?n @adrianeaux Adri?n Calder?n is a writer living in Chicago. _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Mon Oct 5 23:24:32 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2020 18:24:32 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] AOC says "the Green New Deal does leave the door open for nuclear" In-Reply-To: <57796FD4-E686-45E5-83C8-A010A179C357@illinois.edu> References: <57796FD4-E686-45E5-83C8-A010A179C357@illinois.edu> Message-ID: Brussel, Morton K wrote: > This is a useful article especially if one consults the links that are provided . > As some of you know, I?ve been an advocate for the further development and use of > nuclear power. Then you should like what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) recently said about nuclear power. "Third Way Climate & Energy" carried this clip in https://twitter.com/ThirdWayEnergy/status/1262803166053183488 ; here's what she said in that clip: > Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: You know, you bring up an important element of our > energy mix which is nuclear. And this is absolutely a critical part of this > conversation. And, so, one thing that I would just like to clarify is that the > Green New Deal does leave the door open for nuclear. You are right: we name > renewables like wind and solar specifically. The door is open for nuclear. But we > also have to make sure that community input and the technology is vetted. I do > believe that there is an open door there. Jimmy Dore also covered this clip in https://youtube.com/watch?v=tRU8K402OK8 ("AOC Now Open To NUCLEAR Green New Deal!?") including a description of the Twitter account holder, Third Way Climate & Energy and an opposing view from Leona Morgan from Navajo Nation. Insofar as AOC is a spokesperson for the Democratic Party's vision of the Green New Deal, it seems that the title "We Need a Nuclear New Deal, Not a Green New Deal" is misstating the proposition; the way AOC put it, "the Green New Deal does leave the door open for nuclear". From jbn at forestfield.org Tue Oct 6 00:14:02 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2020 19:14:02 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Daniel Kovalik interview on "Renegade, Inc." this week Message-ID: <3d517b5b-7ae5-08d0-c85d-95767abd5839@forestfield.org> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm1Jo0EnN6o -- (27m 55s) "Renegade, Inc." is particularly good this week, "The War Hawks Come Home to Roost" is an interview with Daniel Kovalik, author & professor of law at Univ. of Pittsburgh. I plan to add this to the next batch of recommended videos as it seems to be quite suitable for part of AWARE on the Air's hour. -J From jbn at forestfield.org Wed Oct 7 01:43:05 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Tue, 6 Oct 2020 20:43:05 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Howie Hawkins coming up on Jimmy Dore show soon (not tonight) Message-ID: <6cb03208-5de1-090c-b9d4-c83ba86fa161@forestfield.org> I'm not sure when Hawkins will be on Jimmy Dore's show, but Jimmy just said on his live show that Howie Hawkins will be a guest on Dore's show. Hawkins is a Russiagator (see https://youtube.com/watch?v=9xZZTlzThTo and https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=0BYQak3JEes for an extract of his Primo Nutmeg interview https://youtube.com/watch?v=ABW-_2lnn00), hence it was ridiculous for the Green Party to nominate him. After all, if you want to vote for a Russiagator you've got at least two parties offering you candidates to choose from. The Greens could have offered roughly 100 million registered voters a reason to vote for them but they blew it with bad views that directly read on important policy (life and death through sanctions, war). Jimmy Dore's reaction (also part of a Primo Nutmeg interview) is https://youtube.com/watch?v=zvbSLYC2PaE where Dore calls Hawkins "the death of the Green Party". Ben Norton's reaction on Hawkins & the Green Party to Primo Nutmeg (https://youtube.com/watch?v=ogwbu3cYUVw). This could be an interesting interview. More on this as it develops. From jbn at forestfield.org Wed Oct 7 02:00:18 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Tue, 6 Oct 2020 21:00:18 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) is backing bad speech-related legislation as she leaves Congress Message-ID: <23b23bea-c20a-e564-fad3-152be041317f@forestfield.org> Mike Masnick of TechDirt.com has a good article on Rep. Tulsi Gabbard's continuing dislike of the 1st Amendment. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20201005/15392845445/reps-gabbard-gosar-introduce-ridiculous-house-companion-to-ridiculous-anti-230-senate-bill-senator-kennedy.shtml > [Masnick] You may recall that, last year, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard decided to file a > ridiculously silly lawsuit against Google, claiming that the company had "violated > her First Amendment rights" because it temporarily shut down her advertising > account, and also because it filtered some of her campaign emails to spam. In a > lawsuit that read remarkably similar to the various people arguing that > "anti-conservative bias" was the basis for a lawsuit, it made a whole bunch of > silly claims that any good lawyer would recognize as frivolous (hold that > thought). > > The lawsuit was easily tossed out on 1st Amendment grounds. And when I say "1st > Amendment grounds," I mean the court had to explain to Gabbard -- a sitting > Congressional Representative -- that the 1st Amendment only applies to the > government and Google is not the government. This is really embarrassing: > > [Quoting the decision] Google is not now, nor (to the Court?s knowledge) has it > ever been, an arm of the United States government....[end excerpt] > > [Masnick continued] The court jumped straight to the 1st Amendment issue, though > it could have easily tossed out the case on Section 230 grounds as well, and it > appears that Tulsi has now joined the "destroy Section 230" crowd, teaming up with > Rep. Paul Gosar to introduce yet another anti-Section 230 bill in the House. > [...] > > So these two have now teamed up to introduce the Don't Push My Buttons Act. If > that sounds familiar, it's because Senator John Kennedy introduced the same thing > in the Senate last week. When that was introduced, we explained just how awful > the bill was and that analysis stands. It would take Section 230 immunity away > from sites that do some fairly basic data tracking, or if they use an > algorithmically generated feed. It makes no sense and seems to serve only one > purpose: to frustrate social media companies with annoying nuisance regulation. > > The bill seems unlikely to go anywhere, and Gabbard is not running for > re-election, so this again seems more for show than anything else, but what a > terrible bill to go out on. Gabbard failed in her wacky legal attack on social > media, and so as a parting gift she tries to remove their Section 230 > protections. Disgusting. [ridiculously silly lawsuit against Google] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190725/12250442653/presidential-candidate-tulsi-gabbard-sues-google-using-all-same-debunked-legal-theories-others-have-tried.shtml [easily tossed out] https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.753634/gov.uscourts.cacd.753634.31.0.pdf [anti-Section 230 bill] https://gosar.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=4046 [Don't Push My Buttons Act] https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7222464/Gosar-275-Xml.pdf [just how awful the bill was] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200930/23050145420/because-congress-apparently-has-nothing-all-important-to-work-it-introduced-two-more-section-230-bills-yesterday.shtml I saw Gabbard's Google lawsuit as an attempt to get more press (clear as it was from the start that she'd lose and lose for good reasons). I also think that it ended up contributing to an overall impression that she has problems with freedom of speech. Now she's backing legislation that aims to disincentivize data collection, data collection which is being unfairly identified as the source of a problem with why people's political views aren't what the establishment wants them to be. This data collection distraction is offered up because it reiterates the establishment line that undesirable election outcomes stems from voters being bamboozled with bad or conflicting information from so many people talking online; if all you people would just state establishment-compatible grievances, we wouldn't have so many people 'fomenting discord' (as the Democrats put it). So long as this distraction keeps people away from demanding something in exchange for their votes and working together to demand something of elected officials (Medicare for All, a national jobs program, universal basic income, etc.), the distraction is doing its job. From jbn at forestfield.org Thu Oct 8 00:44:06 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2020 19:44:06 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Compelling Syrian gas attack debunking from The Grayzone, Jimmy Dore Message-ID: Live Jimmy Dore show: https://youtube.com/watch?v=PUuOWg_G0g4 (archived URL coming tomorrow or so) Grayzone Syrian coverage from the past week (or so): https://thegrayzone.com/2020/10/07/opcw-syria-whistleblower-and-ex-opcw-chief-attacked-by-us-uk-french-at-un/ https://thegrayzone.com/2020/10/05/ex-opcw-chief-jose-bustani-reads-syria-testimony-that-us-uk-blocked-at-un/ https://thegrayzone.com/2020/10/02/us-military-seeks-to-create-new-base-in-syria-syrian-journalist/ From jbn at forestfield.org Thu Oct 8 01:51:16 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2020 20:51:16 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Compelling Syrian gas attack debunking from The Grayzone, Jimmy Dore In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I wrote: > Grayzone Syrian coverage from the past week (or so): > > https://thegrayzone.com/2020/10/07/opcw-syria-whistleblower-and-ex-opcw-chief-attacked-by-us-uk-french-at-un/ > > > https://thegrayzone.com/2020/10/05/ex-opcw-chief-jose-bustani-reads-syria-testimony-that-us-uk-blocked-at-un/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP8z4APHDjI (1h 56s) is very worthwhile viewing, and can be filed under Russiagate too. Yes, when the OPCW (under its current management being told what to do by Western powers including the US) can't challenge its inspectors and related experts on the facts, they run for distracting people by claiming anyone contradicting the US rep's view is a Russian operative (or somehow working at the behest of Vladimir Putin). You'd better bet this video will be part of my recommended list for playing during AOTA/NFN timeslots. From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Thu Oct 8 16:20:20 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2020 12:20:20 -0400 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Is Warren Buffett the Wallet Behind Black Lives Matter? - Tablet Magazine Message-ID: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/warren-buffett-black-lives-matter -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Thu Oct 8 16:40:12 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2020 12:40:12 -0400 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Is Warren Buffett the Wallet Behind Black Lives Matter? - Tablet Magazine In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At the conclusion of this article one finds a reference to the "Jewish" group Bend the Arc, of which I have been publicly critical in back and forth letters to the NG re Belden Fields, regarding immigration. My suspicions and critical instincts are confirmed in spades. These are neoliberal front outfits, including CU Immigration Forum and the ridiculous Thomas Garza. ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: David Green Date: Thu, Oct 8, 2020, 12:20 PM Subject: Is Warren Buffett the Wallet Behind Black Lives Matter? - Tablet Magazine To: Peace-discuss https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/warren-buffett-black-lives-matter -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From moboct1 at aim.com Fri Oct 9 02:11:10 2020 From: moboct1 at aim.com (Mildred O'brien) Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2020 02:11:10 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] Is Warren Buffett the Wallet Behind Black Lives Matter? - Tablet Magazine In-Reply-To: <131923917.28410.1602208744065@mail.yahoo.com> References: <1591421248.27603.1602208447305@mail.yahoo.com> <131923917.28410.1602208744065@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <567609753.36017.1602209470457@mail.yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Is Warren Buffett the Wallet Behind Black Lives Matter? - Tablet Magazine Another reason not to like BLM.-- Midge "...leverage the power of capitalism to achieve social justice"--"Trained Marxists"???Follow the money and the path inevitably leads to Obama -----Original Message----- From: David Green via Peace-discuss To: Peace-discuss Sent: Thu, Oct 8, 2020 9:21 am Subject: [Peace-discuss] Is Warren Buffett the Wallet Behind Black Lives Matter? - Tablet Magazine https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/warren-buffett-black-lives-matter?_______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Fri Oct 9 16:28:41 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2020 11:28:41 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] No longer receiving " Peace Discuss " e-mails ? ? Message-ID: <008e01d69e59$40729f60$c157de20$@comcast.net> Hello Jeff, Could you please re add me to the " Peace Discuss " list. I have not received anything from the list in several months, so I thought it was no longer in existence. I just now found out otherwise. Thanks David Johnson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Fri Oct 9 23:43:32 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2020 18:43:32 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] No longer receiving " Peace Discuss " e-mails ? ? In-Reply-To: <008e01d69e59$40729f60$c157de20$@comcast.net> References: <008e01d69e59$40729f60$c157de20$@comcast.net> Message-ID: David Johnson via Peace-discuss wrote: > Hello Jeff, > > Could you please re add me to the " Peace Discuss " list. > > I have not received anything from the list in several months, so I thought > it was no longer in existence. > > I just now found out otherwise. Hi David, You posted the above to the peace-discuss mailing list. I'm going to guess that you're writing to me. But I don't administer the peace-discuss mailing list. I'm posting this to the peace-discuss mailing list and sending you a copy of this as well (hopefully you'll see both copies of this, one on the list and one directly to your account). I'll try contacting the list administrators at peace-discuss-owner at lists.chambana.net as well to see if perhaps the list is having trouble sending you list posts. I know that the peace-discuss mailing list has trouble sending me posts from time to time and occasionally I get an email from the mailing list saying my subscription is suspended until I visit a link or reply saying that my list subscription should be resumed. I'll be in touch. -J From stuartnlevy at gmail.com Sat Oct 10 05:24:39 2020 From: stuartnlevy at gmail.com (Stuart Levy) Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2020 05:24:39 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] No longer receiving " Peace Discuss " e-mails ? ? In-Reply-To: <008e01d69e59$40729f60$c157de20$@comcast.net> References: <008e01d69e59$40729f60$c157de20$@comcast.net> Message-ID: <3d082753-ee1a-424b-b872-5309e9317135@gmail.com> Hey Dave, and all, Thanks for reporting this! I see that the peace-discuss list had stopped sending email to several people, including you, because it thought email to you was bouncing. I've re-enabled it... We can see how long it lasts, or whether it still thinks that email is bouncing. If that continues to happen, though, I don't think I have any way to fix it, short of giving up on the peace/peace-discuss lists and moving to a different list provider, which would mean probably a different email address (we could probably keep @anti-war.net but not @lists.chambana.net). Oct 9, 2020 11:29:07 AM David Johnson via Peace-discuss : > Hello Jeff, > > Could you please re add me to the ? Peace Discuss ? list. > > I have not received anything from the list in several months, so I thought it was no longer in existence. > > I just now found out otherwise. > > Thanks > > David Johnson > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Sat Oct 10 14:06:12 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2020 09:06:12 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] No longer receiving " Peace Discuss " e-mails ? ? In-Reply-To: <3d082753-ee1a-424b-b872-5309e9317135@gmail.com> References: <008e01d69e59$40729f60$c157de20$@comcast.net> <3d082753-ee1a-424b-b872-5309e9317135@gmail.com> Message-ID: <003c01d69f0e$8382e340$8a88a9c0$@comcast.net> Thanks Stuart ! David J. From: Stuart Levy [mailto:stuartnlevy at gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2020 12:25 AM To: David Johnson Cc: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] No longer receiving " Peace Discuss " e-mails ? ? Hey Dave, and all, Thanks for reporting this! I see that the peace-discuss list had stopped sending email to several people, including you, because it thought email to you was bouncing. I've re-enabled it... We can see how long it lasts, or whether it still thinks that email is bouncing. If that continues to happen, though, I don't think I have any way to fix it, short of giving up on the peace/peace-discuss lists and moving to a different list provider, which would mean probably a different email address (we could probably keep @anti-war.net but not @lists.chambana.net). Oct 9, 2020 11:29:07 AM David Johnson via Peace-discuss : Hello Jeff, Could you please re add me to the ? Peace Discuss ? list. I have not received anything from the list in several months, so I thought it was no longer in existence. I just now found out otherwise. Thanks David Johnson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Sat Oct 10 14:08:07 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2020 09:08:07 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] No longer receiving " Peace Discuss " e-mails ? ? In-Reply-To: References: <008e01d69e59$40729f60$c157de20$@comcast.net> Message-ID: <004901d69f0e$d4a54dd0$7defe970$@comcast.net> Thanks Jeff ! David J. -----Original Message----- From: J.B. Nicholson [mailto:jbn at forestfield.org] Sent: Friday, October 09, 2020 6:44 PM To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net; David Johnson Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] No longer receiving " Peace Discuss " e-mails ? ? David Johnson via Peace-discuss wrote: > Hello Jeff, > > Could you please re add me to the " Peace Discuss " list. > > I have not received anything from the list in several months, so I thought > it was no longer in existence. > > I just now found out otherwise. Hi David, You posted the above to the peace-discuss mailing list. I'm going to guess that you're writing to me. But I don't administer the peace-discuss mailing list. I'm posting this to the peace-discuss mailing list and sending you a copy of this as well (hopefully you'll see both copies of this, one on the list and one directly to your account). I'll try contacting the list administrators at peace-discuss-owner at lists.chambana.net as well to see if perhaps the list is having trouble sending you list posts. I know that the peace-discuss mailing list has trouble sending me posts from time to time and occasionally I get an email from the mailing list saying my subscription is suspended until I visit a link or reply saying that my list subscription should be resumed. I'll be in touch. -J From jbn at forestfield.org Sat Oct 10 17:33:29 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2020 12:33:29 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] No longer receiving " Peace Discuss " e-mails ? ? In-Reply-To: <3d082753-ee1a-424b-b872-5309e9317135@gmail.com> References: <008e01d69e59$40729f60$c157de20$@comcast.net> <3d082753-ee1a-424b-b872-5309e9317135@gmail.com> Message-ID: Stuart Levy via Peace-discuss wrote: > If that continues to happen, though, I don't think I have any way to fix it, short > of giving up on the peace/peace-discuss lists and moving to a different list > provider, which would mean probably a different email address (we could probably > keep @anti-war.net but not @lists.chambana.net). I recommended this a while ago and I still recommend making this move away from whatever system lists.chambana.net is. If you need info on migrating to Dreamhost I can offer mailing list migration info I got from Dreamhost admins back when I looked into this (Dreamhost also has a Mailman 2 installation). Dreamhost would require that someone pays for the Dreamhost subscription and anti-war.net domain hosting fees. I still think there's something wrong with lists.chambana.net's mail server because I don't have any problem receiving email from anyone (including lots of other mailing lists, none of which are hosted on lists.chambana.net). I only have problems receiving posts from peace-discuss and (I'm guessing) I'd have the same problems receiving posts from peace list as well if I had post delivery turned on for that list. From jbn at forestfield.org Sat Oct 10 21:42:17 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2020 16:42:17 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Compelling Syrian gas attack debunking from The Grayzone, Jimmy Dore In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <71eecc9f-e5a4-a90f-d70b-7ac56b8302f9@forestfield.org> I wrote: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP8z4APHDjI (1h 56s) is very worthwhile viewing, and > can be filed under Russiagate too. Yes, when the OPCW (under its current management > being told what to do by Western powers including the US) can't challenge its > inspectors and related experts on the facts, they run for distracting people by > claiming anyone contradicting the US rep's view is a Russian operative (or somehow > working at the behest of Vladimir Putin). Relatedly, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbtTNFmwnWg is Aaron Mat? talking to Jimmy Dore about multiple topics including: - the U.N. Security Council discussing blocking the OPCW's first Director-General is not an appropriate witness, - media silence on the alleged Syrian gas attack which was used to ostensibly justify the coordinated US/UK/French missile attack which followed. The coordinated missile attack was likely an attempt at overthrowing Assad in order to install a gas pipeline and do the bidding of western energy companies, - how Wikipedia has deprecated The Grayzone (considered not a valid source) for Grayzone's debunking of the recent coup attempts in Venezuela and thus proving that neocon interests have editing power over Wikipedia. Wikipedia's saving grace is that the Mediawiki software (which runs Wikipedia) is free software and all of Wikipedia articles are licensed to share. So one could make a copy of Wikipedia, using the same software Wikipedia runs, where one publishes things Wikipedia won't allow us to publish on wikipedia.org. I probably can't get UPTV to run this because it comes from Jimmy Dore who swears on his show. But you can watch it without UPTV. -J P.S. In regards to the start of this interview: Dore did not win an I. F. "Izzy" Stone award, Mat? won in 2019 alongside Laura Flanders, Dave Lindorf, and Earth Island Journal (see https://www.ithaca.edu/academics/roy-h-park-school-communications/park-center-independent-media/annual-izzy-award). Also, just before this clip began Dore was talking (on the live feed) about getting cheaper shirts like the shirt you see him wearing in this clip. From r-szoke at illinois.edu Sun Oct 11 22:41:07 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2020 22:41:07 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Who becomes a Trumpist? Message-ID: NOTE that this was published over 2.5 years ago, but I believe its analysis still to be largely valid. ?Authoritarianism,? as a personal character trait, has had an erratic career in social & political psychology, due in part to its frequent use as an accusation, & not as a value-neutral analytical term. (Compare ?patriarchy.?) ? RSz. === INSIDE THE MINDS OF HARDCORE TRUMP SUPPORTERS https://psmag.com/news/inside-the-minds-of-hardcore-trump-supporters?fbclid=IwAR00dxPWuxRCSUMYuyk-uS1ui3EPY9ehCX7M-T03lBhSPqpd5H_n1y3UL2c New research finds the president's earliest and strongest followers embody a particularly belligerent strain of authoritarian thinking. TOM JACOBS Pacific Standard [? Santa Barbara, CA] FEB 15, 2018 About 700 people gathered at the Minnesota capitol building in St. Paul, Minnesota, on March 4th, 2017, to show support for Donald Trump. Given the meteoric rise of Donald Trump, and the ill-defined phenomenon known as Trumpism, it's vital that we understand the psychology that attracted Americans to the real estate mogul in the first place. Research suggests such voters are driven by a combination of racial resentment and authoritarianism. Sociologist David Norman Smith cited both in a just-published paper, in which he argues hardcore Trump supporters "target minorities and women" and "favor domineering and intolerant leaders who are uninhibited about their biases." And yet, there's something puzzling about that equation. If authoritarians, by definition, revere authority, why would they support an anti-establishment candidate like Trump? And why are they OK with his administration slandering bedrock American institutions as the Federal Bureau of Investigation? A second recently published study provides an answer: There are different strains of authoritarian thinking. And support for Trump is associated with what is arguably the most toxic type: authoritarian aggression. The study suggests the bulk of his supporters, at least in the Republican primaries, were not old-fashioned conservatives who preach obedience and respect for authority. Rather, they were people who take a belligerent, combative approach toward people they find threatening. The notion that there are different types of authoritarians was proposed in the 1980s by University of Manitoba psychologist Robert Altemeyer, and refined in 2010 by a research team led by John Duckitt of the University of Auckland. In the journal Political Psychology, that team defined right-wing authoritarianism as "a set of three related ideological attitude dimensions." They are: "Conventionalism," a.k.a. "traditionalism," which is defined as "favoring traditional, old-fashioned social norms, values, and morality." Authoritarian submission," defined as "favoring uncritical, respectful, obedient, submissive support for existing authorities and institutions." "Authoritarian aggression," defined as "favoring the use of strict, tough, harsh, punitive, coercive social control." Duckitt and his colleagues created a survey designed to measure each of these three facets. It was measured by participants' responses to statements such as "The old-fashioned ways, and old-fashioned values, still show the best way to live" (traditionalism); "Our country would be great if we show respect for authority and obey our leaders" (submission); and "The way things are going in this country, it's going to take a lot of 'strong medicine' to straighten out the troublemakers, criminals, and perverts" (aggression). A research team led by psychologist Steven Ludeke of the University of Southern Denmark used those scales to try to tease out why some studies link Trump support to authoritarianism, while others do not. It discovered the problem with the latter is they tend to either heavily or exclusively focus on the "submission" dimension, which has traditionally been studied in the context of child-rearing (as in, "Do you expect your children to unquestioningly obey their elders?"). As it turns out, that's the facet of authoritarianism that has the least to do with support for Trump. Ludeke's study, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, featured 1,444 participants recruited online in April of 2016. They responded to 18 authoritarianism-focused statements?six for each facet?and indicated who, among the presidential candidates remaining in the race at that point, they supported. "Consistent with Trump's representation of the world as a dangerous place requiring harsh treatment of deviant minorities," they write, "Trump supporters were high on authoritarian aggression." Strong support for conventionalism/traditionalism was also linked to support for Trump, but high scores on the submission category?that is, respect for authority, and obedience to superiors?was not. THE EMOTIONAL ROOTS OF POLITICAL POLARIZATION: New research argues feelings of disillusionment prompt people to take more extreme positions. Smith's analysis of data from the American National Election Study reaches a similar conclusion. He reports "enthusiastic Trump voters are also enthusiastic about domineering leaders, and that they are not especially enthusiastic about respectful children." Authoritarianism in the Trump era "is not the wish to follow any and every authority but, rather, the wish to support a strong and determined authority who will 'crush evil and take us back to our true path,'" Smith and his co-author, Eric Hanley, conclude. Participants in Ludeke's study also completed surveys measuring Social Dominance Orientation?the belief that one group has the right to dominate others. Replicating previous research, they found this philosophy, which often accompanies authoritarianism, correlated with support for Trump. So the very things a majority of Americans find disconcerting, if not disqualifying, about Trump?his need to dominate, his thinly veiled white supremacism, and his blunt, bullying language?is precisely what appeals to his hardcore fans. They are very likely stand to by their man, whatever scandals might emerge. That said, these results suggest Democrats have a decent chance of peeling away a different slice of the Republican-leaning electorate?if they can defend liberal policies while embodying a more traditional respect for authority. Those "submission"-oriented voters don't have a natural affinity for Trump. They may prefer candidates who embody a traditional sense of dignity?people they can feel comfortable looking up to. That possibility aside, the picture painted in both of these studies is pretty bleak from a progressive perspective. Smith's paper, the lead article in the March 2018 issue of Critical Sociology, concludes this way: Most Trump voters cast their ballots for him with their eyes open, not despite his prejudices but because of them. Their partisanship, whether positive (toward Trump and the Republicans) or negative (against Clinton and the Democrats), is intense. This partisanship is anchored in anger and resentment among mild as well as strong Trump voters. Anger, not fear, was the emotional key to the Tea Party, and that seems to be true for Trumpism as well. If so, the challenge for progressives is greater than many people have imagined. Hostility to minorities and women cannot be wished away; nor can the wish for domineering leaders. > Tom Jacobs is a senior staff writer at Pacific Standard, where he specializes in social science, culture, and learning. He is a veteran journalist and former staff writer for the Los Angeles Daily News and the Santa Barbara News-Press. From r-szoke at illinois.edu Sun Oct 11 22:41:07 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2020 22:41:07 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Who becomes a Trumpist? Message-ID: NOTE that this was published over 2.5 years ago, but I believe its analysis still to be largely valid. ?Authoritarianism,? as a personal character trait, has had an erratic career in social & political psychology, due in part to its frequent use as an accusation, & not as a value-neutral analytical term. (Compare ?patriarchy.?) ? RSz. === INSIDE THE MINDS OF HARDCORE TRUMP SUPPORTERS https://psmag.com/news/inside-the-minds-of-hardcore-trump-supporters?fbclid=IwAR00dxPWuxRCSUMYuyk-uS1ui3EPY9ehCX7M-T03lBhSPqpd5H_n1y3UL2c New research finds the president's earliest and strongest followers embody a particularly belligerent strain of authoritarian thinking. TOM JACOBS Pacific Standard [? Santa Barbara, CA] FEB 15, 2018 About 700 people gathered at the Minnesota capitol building in St. Paul, Minnesota, on March 4th, 2017, to show support for Donald Trump. Given the meteoric rise of Donald Trump, and the ill-defined phenomenon known as Trumpism, it's vital that we understand the psychology that attracted Americans to the real estate mogul in the first place. Research suggests such voters are driven by a combination of racial resentment and authoritarianism. Sociologist David Norman Smith cited both in a just-published paper, in which he argues hardcore Trump supporters "target minorities and women" and "favor domineering and intolerant leaders who are uninhibited about their biases." And yet, there's something puzzling about that equation. If authoritarians, by definition, revere authority, why would they support an anti-establishment candidate like Trump? And why are they OK with his administration slandering bedrock American institutions as the Federal Bureau of Investigation? A second recently published study provides an answer: There are different strains of authoritarian thinking. And support for Trump is associated with what is arguably the most toxic type: authoritarian aggression. The study suggests the bulk of his supporters, at least in the Republican primaries, were not old-fashioned conservatives who preach obedience and respect for authority. Rather, they were people who take a belligerent, combative approach toward people they find threatening. The notion that there are different types of authoritarians was proposed in the 1980s by University of Manitoba psychologist Robert Altemeyer, and refined in 2010 by a research team led by John Duckitt of the University of Auckland. In the journal Political Psychology, that team defined right-wing authoritarianism as "a set of three related ideological attitude dimensions." They are: "Conventionalism," a.k.a. "traditionalism," which is defined as "favoring traditional, old-fashioned social norms, values, and morality." Authoritarian submission," defined as "favoring uncritical, respectful, obedient, submissive support for existing authorities and institutions." "Authoritarian aggression," defined as "favoring the use of strict, tough, harsh, punitive, coercive social control." Duckitt and his colleagues created a survey designed to measure each of these three facets. It was measured by participants' responses to statements such as "The old-fashioned ways, and old-fashioned values, still show the best way to live" (traditionalism); "Our country would be great if we show respect for authority and obey our leaders" (submission); and "The way things are going in this country, it's going to take a lot of 'strong medicine' to straighten out the troublemakers, criminals, and perverts" (aggression). A research team led by psychologist Steven Ludeke of the University of Southern Denmark used those scales to try to tease out why some studies link Trump support to authoritarianism, while others do not. It discovered the problem with the latter is they tend to either heavily or exclusively focus on the "submission" dimension, which has traditionally been studied in the context of child-rearing (as in, "Do you expect your children to unquestioningly obey their elders?"). As it turns out, that's the facet of authoritarianism that has the least to do with support for Trump. Ludeke's study, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, featured 1,444 participants recruited online in April of 2016. They responded to 18 authoritarianism-focused statements?six for each facet?and indicated who, among the presidential candidates remaining in the race at that point, they supported. "Consistent with Trump's representation of the world as a dangerous place requiring harsh treatment of deviant minorities," they write, "Trump supporters were high on authoritarian aggression." Strong support for conventionalism/traditionalism was also linked to support for Trump, but high scores on the submission category?that is, respect for authority, and obedience to superiors?was not. THE EMOTIONAL ROOTS OF POLITICAL POLARIZATION: New research argues feelings of disillusionment prompt people to take more extreme positions. Smith's analysis of data from the American National Election Study reaches a similar conclusion. He reports "enthusiastic Trump voters are also enthusiastic about domineering leaders, and that they are not especially enthusiastic about respectful children." Authoritarianism in the Trump era "is not the wish to follow any and every authority but, rather, the wish to support a strong and determined authority who will 'crush evil and take us back to our true path,'" Smith and his co-author, Eric Hanley, conclude. Participants in Ludeke's study also completed surveys measuring Social Dominance Orientation?the belief that one group has the right to dominate others. Replicating previous research, they found this philosophy, which often accompanies authoritarianism, correlated with support for Trump. So the very things a majority of Americans find disconcerting, if not disqualifying, about Trump?his need to dominate, his thinly veiled white supremacism, and his blunt, bullying language?is precisely what appeals to his hardcore fans. They are very likely stand to by their man, whatever scandals might emerge. That said, these results suggest Democrats have a decent chance of peeling away a different slice of the Republican-leaning electorate?if they can defend liberal policies while embodying a more traditional respect for authority. Those "submission"-oriented voters don't have a natural affinity for Trump. They may prefer candidates who embody a traditional sense of dignity?people they can feel comfortable looking up to. That possibility aside, the picture painted in both of these studies is pretty bleak from a progressive perspective. Smith's paper, the lead article in the March 2018 issue of Critical Sociology, concludes this way: Most Trump voters cast their ballots for him with their eyes open, not despite his prejudices but because of them. Their partisanship, whether positive (toward Trump and the Republicans) or negative (against Clinton and the Democrats), is intense. This partisanship is anchored in anger and resentment among mild as well as strong Trump voters. Anger, not fear, was the emotional key to the Tea Party, and that seems to be true for Trumpism as well. If so, the challenge for progressives is greater than many people have imagined. Hostility to minorities and women cannot be wished away; nor can the wish for domineering leaders. > Tom Jacobs is a senior staff writer at Pacific Standard, where he specializes in social science, culture, and learning. He is a veteran journalist and former staff writer for the Los Angeles Daily News and the Santa Barbara News-Press. From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Mon Oct 12 15:49:54 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2020 10:49:54 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] The latest article from award winning journalist Aaron Mate - Pelosis Take a Big Stake in CrowdStrike, Democrat-Connected Linchpin of Russia Probe Message-ID: <008301d6a0af$5f56bfd0$1e043f70$@comcast.net> The latest from award winning independent journalist Aaron Mate. Former Democracy Now co-host and contributor to The Nation magazine. Pelosis Take a Big Stake in CrowdStrike, Democrat-Connected Linchpin of Russia Probe By Aaron Mat?, RealClearInvestigations October 09, 2020 The cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike rose to global prominence in mid-June 2016 when it publicly accused Russia of hacking the Democratic National Committee and stealing its data. The previously unknown company's explosive allegation set off a seismic chain of events that engulfs U.S. national politics to this day. The Hillary Clinton campaign seized on CrowdStrike's claim by accusing Russia of meddling in the election to help Donald Trump. U.S. intelligence officials would soon also endorse CrowdStrike's allegation and pursue what amounted to a multi-year, all-consuming investigation of Russian interference and Trump's potential complicity. With the next presidential election now in its final weeks, the Democrats' national leader, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and her husband, Paul Pelosi, are endorsing the publicly traded firm in a different way. Recent financial disclosure filings show the couple have invested up to $1 million in CrowdStrike Holdings. The Pelosis purchased the stock at a share price of $129.25 on Sept. 3. The price has since risen above $140. Drew Hammill, spokesman for Pelosi, said: ?Speaker Pelosi is not involved in her husband?s investments and was not aware of the investment until the required filing was made. Mr. Pelosi is a private investor and has investments in a number of publicly traded companies. The Speaker fully complies with House Rules and the relevant statutory requirements.? The Pelosis' sizeable investment in CrowdStrike in the $500,000-to-$1-million range could revive scrutiny of the company's involvement in the Trump-Russia saga since the Democrats' 2016 election loss. http://assets.realclear.com/images/48/483013_5_.png Dmitri Alperovitch: The CrowdStrike co-founder reportedly was thanked by a senior U.S. official "for pushing the government along" in its DNC hacking probe. CrowdStrike.com After generating the hacking allegation against Russia in 2016, CrowdStrike played a critical role in the FBI's ensuing investigation of the DNC data theft. CrowdStrike executives shared intelligence with the FBI on a consistent basis, making dozens of contacts in the investigation's early months. According to Esquire, when U.S. intelligence officials first accused Russia of conducting malicious cyber activity in October 2016, a senior U.S. government official personally alerted CrowdStrike co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch and thanked him "for pushing the government along." The final reports of both Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the Senate Intelligence Committee cite CrowdStrike's forensics. The firm's centrality to Russiagate has drawn the ire of President Trump. During the fateful July 2019 phone call that would later trigger impeachment proceedings, Trump asked Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky to scrutinize CrowdStrike's role in the DNC server breach, suggesting that the company may have been involved in hiding the real perpetrators. Pelosi's recent investment in CrowdStrike also adds a new partisan entanglement for a company with significant connections to Democratic Party and intelligence officials that drove Russiagate. DNC law firm Perkins Coie hired CrowdStrike to investigate the breach in late April 2016. At the outset, Perkins Coie attorney Michael Sussmann personally informed CrowdStrike officials that Russia was suspected of breaching the server. By the time CrowdStrike went public with the Russian hacking allegation less than two months later, Perkins Coie had recently hired Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that produced discredited Steele dossier alleging a longstanding conspiracy between Trump and Russia. http://assets.realclear.com/images/50/509874_5_.png Shawn Henry: Behind closed doors, the CrowdStrike president admitted under oath in December 2017 that his firm "did not have concrete evidence" that Russian hackers actually stole any emails or other data from the DNC servers. "There's circumstantial evidence, but no evidence that they were actually exfiltrated." CrowdStrike.com CrowdStrike President Shawn Henry, who led the team that remediated the DNC breach and blamed Russia for the hacking, previously served as assistant director at the FBI under Robert Mueller. Since June 2015, Henry has also worked as an analyst at MSNBC, the cable network that has promoted debunked Trump-Russia innuendo perhaps more than any other outlet. Alperovitch, the co-founder and former chief technology officer, is a former nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the Washington organization that actively lobbies for a hawkish posture toward Russia. Campaign disclosures also show that CrowdStrike contributed $100,000 to the Democratic Governors Association in 2016 and 2017. The firm's multiple conflicts of interest in the Russia investigation coincide with a series of embarrassing disclosures that call into question its technical reliability. In early 2017, CrowdStrike was forced to retract its allegation that Russia had hacked Ukrainian military equipment with the same malware the firm claimed to have discovered inside the DNC server. During the FBI's investigation of the DNC breach, CrowdStrike never provided direct access to the pilfered servers, rebuffing multiple requests that came from officials all the way up to then-Director James Comey. The FBI had to rely on CrowdStrike's own images of the servers, as well as reports that Justice Department officials later acknowledged were delivered in incomplete, redacted form. James Trainor, who served as assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division, complained to the Senate Intelligence Committee that the DNC's cooperation with the FBI's 2016 hack investigation was "slow and laborious in many respects" and that CrowdStrike's information was "scrubbed" before it was handed over. Alperovitch, the former CTO, has claimed that CrowdStrike installed its Falcon software to protect the DNC server on May 5, 2016. Yet the Democratic Party emails were stolen from the server three weeks later, from May 25 to June 1. Yet the most damaging revelation calling into question CrowdStrike's Russian hacking allegations came with an admission early in the Russia probe that was only made public this year. Unsealed testimony from the House Intelligence Committee shows that Henry admitted under oath behind closed doors in December 2017 that the firm "did not have concrete evidence" that Russian hackers actually stole any emails or other data from the DNC servers. "There's circumstantial evidence, but no evidence that they were actually exfiltrated," Henry said. "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." The Henry testimony was among a trove of damning transcripts released by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff only after pressure from the then-acting Director of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell. As RealClearInvestigations reported last month, Henry's House testimony also conflicts with his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee two months prior, in October 2017. According to the Senate report, Henry claimed that CrowdStrike was "able to see some exfiltration and the types of files that had been touched," but not the files' content. Yet two months later, Henry told the House that "we didn't see the data leave, but we believe it left, based on what we saw." Notably, Henry's acknowledgment to the House that CrowdStrike did not have evidence of exfiltration came only after he was interrupted and prodded by his attorneys to correct an initial answer. Right before that intervention from CrowdStrike counsel, Henry had falsely asserted that he knew when Russian hackers had exfiltrated the stolen information: http://assets.realclear.com/images/49/494368_5_.jpg Adam Schiff: CrowdStrike testimony was released by the House Intelligence Committee chairman only after pressure from the then-acting Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell. AP Photo/Alex Brandon Adam Schiff: Do you know the date in which the Russians exfiltrated the data from the DNC? Shawn Henry: I do. I have to just think about it. I don?t know. I mean, it?s in our report that I think the Committee has. Schiff: And, to the best of your recollection, when would that have been? Henry: Counsel just reminded me that, as it relates to the DNC, we have indicators that data was exfiltrated. We do not have concrete evidence that data was exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have indicators that it was exfiltrated. Henry then improbably argued that, in the absence of evidence showing the emails leaving the DNC server, Russian hackers could have taken individual screenshots of each of the 44,053 emails and 17,761 attachments that were ultimately put out by WikiLeaks. Keeping Henry's admission under wraps for nearly four years was highly consequential. The allegation of Russian hacking was elevated to a dire national security issue, and anyone who dared to question it ? including President Trump ? was accused of doing the Kremlin's bidding. The hacking allegation also helped plunge U.S.-Russia relations to new lows. Under persistent bipartisan pressure over allegations of Russian meddling, Trump has approved a series of punitive measures and aggressive policies toward Moscow, shunning his own campaign vow to seek cooperation. http://assets.realclear.com/images/51/510011_5_.png Wikipedia/CrowdStrike.com Meanwhile, during the several years that CrowdStrike's own uncertainty about its hacking allegation was kept from the public, the firm has enjoyed a stratospheric rise on Wall Street. In 2017, one year after lodging its Russia hacking allegations, CrowdStrike had a valuation of $1 billion. Three years later, after going public in 2019, the firm's valuation was set at $6.7 billion, and soon hit $11.4 billion. Just over a year later, its market cap was $31.37 billion. CrowdStrike has more than doubled its revenue on average every year, going from $52.75 million in 2017 to $481.41 million in 2020. CrowdStrike and Fusion GPS, which spread Trump-Russia collusion allegations via the Steele dossier, are not the only private companies to play a critical and lucrative role in the Trump-Russia saga. The firm New Knowledge, staffed by several former Democratic Party operatives and intelligence officials, authored a disputed report for the Senate Intelligence Committee that accused a Russian troll farm of a sophisticated social media interference campaign that duped millions of vulnerable Americans. Ironically, the company itself took part in a social media disinformation operation in the 2017 Alabama Senate race to help elect the ultimate victor, Democratic candidate Doug Jones. Just as the Democratic Party's impeachment proceedings were in full swing a year ago, another cybersecurity firm with Democratic Party ties, Area One, accused the Russian spy agency GRU of hacking into the Ukrainian company Burisma with the aim of uncovering dirt on Joe Biden. Graphika, a firm with extensive ties to the Atlantic Council and the Pentagon, has recently put out reports accusing Russians of impersonating left-wing and right-wing websites to fool hyper-partisan American audiences. Having generated the seminal Russian hacking allegation, CrowdStrike sits at the top of what has become a booming cottage industry of firms and organizations shaping a multi-year barrage of accusations of Russian interference in American politics. And with her new investment in CrowdStrike, Nancy Pelosi -- the highest-ranking elected official of a party that has promoted Russiagate above all else -- is already profiting from its success. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image009.png Type: image/png Size: 40877 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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Nicholson) Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2020 12:43:34 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] The latest article from award winning journalist Aaron Mate - Pelosis Take a Big Stake in CrowdStrike, Democrat-Connected Linchpin of Russia Probe In-Reply-To: <008301d6a0af$5f56bfd0$1e043f70$@comcast.net> References: <008301d6a0af$5f56bfd0$1e043f70$@comcast.net> Message-ID: <0606381c-df97-68d8-0f08-c082d89382a8@forestfield.org> David Johnson pointed to https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/10/09/pelosi_takes_big_stake_in_crowdstrike_democrat-tied_linchpin_of_russiagate_125557.html which is an article from RealClear Investigations written by Aaron Mat?: > Pelosis Take a Big Stake in CrowdStrike, Democrat-Connected Linchpin of > Russia Probe > > By Aaron Mat?, RealClearInvestigations > October 09, 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1NEexEintU is Jimmy Dore's take on that article. It's well worth watching. Jimmy Dore has been on the right side of Russiagate, the alleged Syrian gas attack in Douma that didn't happen, the OPCW cover-up of said Douma attack, and media coverage of these things (including so-called 'alternative' media which is no alternative at all, like Democracy Now which is just another establishment repeater). -J From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Mon Oct 12 18:08:35 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2020 13:08:35 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Data on degrees/jobs Message-ID: As a data-based follow-up to the article about the "Rump Professional Class," one can find some interesting charts about the "overproduction" of college grads in this article: https://www.thebellows.org/on-the-real-reactionaries/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Tue Oct 13 00:16:06 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2020 19:16:06 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] AOTA/NFN timeslot recommended videos Message-ID: Hi Jason et al, Here's another batch of recommendations for AWARE on the Air and News from Neptune timeslots which I've sent to Jason Liggett of UPTV. As before, I've said to prioritize other recommendations for these timeslots above mine. Thanks so much to Jason Liggett for running these videos. -J RT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm1Jo0EnN6o -- (27m 55s) "Renegade, Inc." is "The War Hawks Come Home to Roost" an interview with Daniel Kovalik, author & professor of law at Univ. of Pittsburgh. Grayzone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP8z4APHDjI -- (1h 56s) "OPCW Syria whistleblower and ex-OPCW chief attacked by US, UK, France at UN" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgIDlgD_txM -- (12m57s) Ex-OPCW chief Jose Bustani [pronounced jho-SAY boo-STAHN-ee] reads Syria testimony that US, UK blocked at UN Consortium News https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXRpQVXV5Vk -- (10m) Why UK may rule in favor of Assange - Ellsberg, Narv?ez, Mercouris & Lauria Empire Files https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUdODhFDtQg -- (7m 19s) Biden vs. Trump on foreign policy From brussel at illinois.edu Tue Oct 13 01:55:02 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2020 01:55:02 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Data on degrees/jobs In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <908567EF-FFD0-4476-9E00-07F2F44C8AC7@illinois.edu> So, it seems best that students not aspire to enter the universities. Were things better, more progressive, without higher education? Yes, the problems of jobs/decent employment/ in the future, and perhaps even now is a major conundrum. Clearly, new economic models will have to be invented, and realized. Hopefully much more egalitarian. On Oct 12, 2020, at 1:08 PM, David Green > wrote: As a data-based follow-up to the article about the "Rump Professional Class," one can find some interesting charts about the "overproduction" of college grads in this article: https://www.thebellows.org/on-the-real-reactionaries/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Tue Oct 13 03:33:50 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2020 22:33:50 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Data on degrees/jobs In-Reply-To: <908567EF-FFD0-4476-9E00-07F2F44C8AC7@illinois.edu> References: <908567EF-FFD0-4476-9E00-07F2F44C8AC7@illinois.edu> Message-ID: It would at least be desirable to have something that could be credibly called liberal or civic studies that would be freely available, if demanding and rigorous, to those so intellectually inclined, clearly delineated from vocational, technical, and professional studies, which should be in accord with the demands for such labor; although these approaches should not be seen as mutually exclusive for any individual, especially in the context of a normal lifetime. On Mon, Oct 12, 2020, 8:55 PM Brussel, Morton K wrote: > So, it seems best that students not aspire to enter the universities. Were > things better, more progressive, without higher education? > Yes, the problems of jobs/decent employment/ in the future, and perhaps > even now is a major conundrum. Clearly, new economic models will have to > be invented, and realized. Hopefully much more egalitarian. > > On Oct 12, 2020, at 1:08 PM, David Green wrote: > > As a data-based follow-up to the article about the "Rump Professional > Class," one can find some interesting charts about the "overproduction" of > college grads in this article: > > https://www.thebellows.org/on-the-real-reactionaries/ > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From moboct1 at aim.com Tue Oct 13 21:10:21 2020 From: moboct1 at aim.com (Mildred O'brien) Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2020 21:10:21 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] Data on degrees/jobs In-Reply-To: <2096887720.248194.1602623054602@mail.yahoo.com> References: <908567EF-FFD0-4476-9E00-07F2F44C8AC7@illinois.edu> <2096887720.248194.1602623054602@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <263574953.244228.1602623421878@mail.yahoo.com> Sent: Tue, Oct 13, 2020 2:04 pm Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Data on degrees/jobs Are there really currently only some 360,000 first degree-college graduates a year?? It would seem many more than that--I wonder what is the percentage of grads to peer-eligible non-graduates.? I would venture that the majority of college graduates are technically trained rather than "educated"--in history, philosophy, sciences, mathematics, languages, and literature--and think that a?basic liberal arts curriculum for at least two years should constitute an undergraduate program prior to professional or technical training (which many graduates pursue in advanced graduate training anyway), which would better prepare the college graduate to consider his/her place in the universe and contribute to a more cooperative, equitable environment instead of climbing the class-based ladder of elitism.? ? ? ? Midge -----Original Message----- From: David Green via Peace-discuss To: Brussel, Morton K Cc: Peace-discuss wrote: So, it seems best that students not aspire to enter the universities. Were things better, more progressive, without higher education??Yes, the problems of jobs/decent employment/ in the future, and perhaps even now is a major ?conundrum. Clearly, new economic models will have to be invented, and realized. Hopefully much more egalitarian.? On Oct 12, 2020, at 1:08 PM, David Green wrote: As a data-based follow-up to the article about the "Rump Professional Class," one can find some interesting charts about the "overproduction" of college grads in this article: https://www.thebellows.org/on-the-real-reactionaries/ _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Tue Oct 13 22:28:47 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2020 17:28:47 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Data on degrees/jobs In-Reply-To: <263574953.244228.1602623421878@mail.yahoo.com> References: <908567EF-FFD0-4476-9E00-07F2F44C8AC7@illinois.edu> <2096887720.248194.1602623054602@mail.yahoo.com> <263574953.244228.1602623421878@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Midge, that number was for the UK, although the job data is for the U.S., a little confusing for sure, but I think the same increase would apply to the U.S. There are currently about 2 million Bachelor's degrees awarded in the U.S. per year. On Tue, Oct 13, 2020, 4:10 PM Mildred O'brien via Peace-discuss < peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > Sent: Tue, Oct 13, 2020 2:04 pm > Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Data on degrees/jobs > > Are there really currently only some 360,000 first degree-college > graduates a year? It would seem many more than that--I wonder what is the > percentage of grads to peer-eligible non-graduates. I would venture that > the majority of college graduates are technically trained rather than > "educated"--in history, philosophy, sciences, mathematics, languages, and > literature--and think that a basic liberal arts curriculum for at least two > years should constitute an undergraduate program prior to professional or > technical training (which many graduates pursue in advanced graduate > training anyway), which would better prepare the college graduate to > consider his/her place in the universe and contribute to a more > cooperative, equitable environment instead of climbing the class-based > ladder of elitism. > > Midge > > > -----Original Message----- > From: David Green via Peace-discuss > To: Brussel, Morton K > Cc: Peace-discuss Sent: Mon, Oct 12, 2020 8:34 pm > Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Data on degrees/jobs > > It would at least be desirable to have something that could be credibly > called liberal or civic studies that would be freely available, if > demanding and rigorous, to those so intellectually inclined, clearly > delineated from vocational, technical, and professional studies, which > should be in accord with the demands for such labor; although these > approaches should not be seen as mutually exclusive for any individual, > especially in the context of a normal lifetime. > > On Mon, Oct 12, 2020, 8:55 PM Brussel, Morton K > wrote: > > So, it seems best that students not aspire to enter the universities. Were > things better, more progressive, without higher education? > Yes, the problems of jobs/decent employment/ in the future, and perhaps > even now is a major conundrum. Clearly, new economic models will have to > be invented, and realized. Hopefully much more egalitarian. > > On Oct 12, 2020, at 1:08 PM, David Green wrote: > > As a data-based follow-up to the article about the "Rump Professional > Class," one can find some interesting charts about the "overproduction" of > college grads in this article: > > https://www.thebellows.org/on-the-real-reactionaries/ > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Mon Oct 19 14:01:53 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2020 10:01:53 -0400 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?WaPo=3A_Trump_administration_rejects_P?= =?utf-8?q?utin=E2=80=99s_offer_on_nuclear_arms_deal_extension?= Message-ID: Na, na, na, na, na! "Mr. Dealmaker" Trump can't even make a deal with Putin to extend an arms-control agreement. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-administration-rejects-putins-offer-on-nuclear-arms-deal-extension/2020/10/16/48d01db8-0fe2-11eb-bfcf-b1893e2c51b4_story.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Thu Oct 22 13:14:34 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2020 08:14:34 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] My neighbor's dog is influencing the U.S. elections Message-ID: <003601d6a875$499fae90$dcdf0bb0$@comcast.net> Another bullshit evidence free conspiracy theory propaganda story from the New York Times. Look over there it's the Chinese. No it's now the Iranians. Those Russians are still hiding under your bed. Next it will be Venezuela. Nicolas Maduro told me who to vote for so I must obey. Why doesn't Facebook and Twitter censor / block this unsubstantiated story ( one of many ) like they did the N.Y. Post story about the Bidens ???? Iran and Russia Seek to Influence Election in Final Days, U.S. Officials Warn Iran is behind threatening, spoofed emails sent to voters, the officials said, but there was no indication that any votes themselves had been altered. By Julian E. Barnes and David E. Sanger * Oct. 21, 2020 . * . . . WASHINGTON - Iran and Russia have both obtained American voter registration data, top national security officials announced late on Wednesday, providing the first concrete evidence that the two countries are stepping in to try to influence the presidential election as it enters its final two weeks. Iran used the information to send threatening, faked emails to voters, said John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, and Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, in an evening announcement from the bureau's headquarters. Intelligence agencies had collected information that Iran planned to take more steps to influence the vote in coming days, prompting the unusual timing of the briefing as an effort to deter further action by Tehran. There was no indication that any election result tallies were changed or that information about who is registered to vote was altered, either of which could affect the outcome of voting that has already begun across the United States. The officials also did not claim that either nation hacked into voter registration systems - leaving open the possibility that the data was available to anyone who knew where to look. The voter data obtained by Iran and Russia was mostly public, according to one intelligence official, and Iran was exploiting it as a political campaign might. Voters' names, party registrations and some contact information are publicly available. That information may have been merged with other identifying material, like email addresses, obtained from other databases, according to intelligence officials, including some sold by criminal hacking networks on the "dark web." "This data can be used by foreign actors to attempt to communicate false information to registered voters that they hope will cause confusion, sow chaos and undermine your confidence in American democracy," Mr. Ratcliffe said. The Trump administration's announcement that a foreign adversary, Iran, had tried to influence the election by sending intimidating emails was both a stark warning and a reminder of how other powers can exploit the vulnerabilities exposed by the Russian interference in 2016. But it may also play into President Trump's hands. For weeks, he has argued, without evidence, that the vote on Nov. 3 will be "rigged," that mail-in ballots will lead to widespread fraud and that the only way he can be defeated is if his opponents cheat. * Unlock more free articles. Create an account or log in Now, on the eve of the final debate, he has evidence of foreign influence campaigns designed to hurt his re-election chances, even if they did not affect the voting infrastructure. Some of the spoofed emails, sent to Democratic voters, purported to be from pro-Trump far-right groups, including the Proud Boys. Iranian hackers tried to cover their tracks, intelligence and security officials said, first routing the emails through a compromised Saudi insurance company network. Later, they sent more than 1,500 emails using the website of an Estonian textbook company, according to an analysis by researchers at Proofpoint, a cybersecurity firm. Until now, some officials had insisted that Russia remains the primary threat to the election. But the new information, both Republican and Democratic officials said, demonstrates that Iran is building upon Russian techniques and trying to make clear that it, too, is capable of being a force in the election. Since August, intelligence officials have warned that Iran opposed Mr. Trump's re-election, hardly a surprise after he exited the Iran nuclear deal more than two years ago and reimposed crushing economic sanctions on the country. The officials said Iran did not intend to deter voters, but rather to hurt Mr. Trump and mobilize support for Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nominee, by angering voters about the president's apparent embrace of the Proud Boys in the first debate. Keep up with Election 2020 Mr. Biden has indicated that he would re-enter the nuclear deal and lift many of those sanctions as long as Iran first returns to obeying the limits on its nuclear program that it agreed to five years ago. Iran sharply denied the accusations, suggesting they were fabricated and calling them an attempt by the American government to undermine its own voters' confidence in the election. "Unlike the U.S., Iran does not interfere in other countries' elections," Alireza Miryousefi, the spokesman for the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, said in an apparent reference to the C.I.A.'s efforts to depose an Iranian leader in the 1950s. "Iran has no interest in interfering in the U.S. election and no preference for the outcome," he added. But American officials have insisted that Iran has been considering how to influence the election for months. At one time, officials thought that the country's military and clerical leaders could try to interrupt oil markets or mount some sort of attack in the Middle East intended to hurt Mr. Trump. Tehran pulled back from those plans, and Wednesday's announcement suggested that instead it was following a playbook closer to Russia's - and one less likely to provoke an American military response. The fact that Iran - which has stepped up its cyberabilities drastically over the past decade, after its nuclear program was attacked with American and Israeli cyberweapons - was involved demonstrates how fast other nations have learned from Russia's influence operations in 2016. "We are under attack, and we are going to be up to Nov. 3 and probably beyond," said Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee. "Both the American people have to be skeptical and thoughtful about information they receive, and certainly election officials have to be doubly cautious now that we know again they are targets." Sign up to receive an email when we publish a new story about the 2020 election. Mr. Ratcliffe has drawn criticism for embracing Mr. Trump's political agenda from what is typically an apolitical post, while Mr. Wray has repeatedly been the target of the president's ire over his refusal to do so, according to people briefed on the president's private conversations. Mr. Trump has discussed firing the F.B.I. director after the election, the people said. Election 2020 > Latest Updates Updated Oct. 22, 2020, 8:37 a.m. ET32 minutes ago 32 minutes ago * Under pressure to take a stand on court packing, Biden says he'll take cues from scholars. * Six former commerce secretaries endorse Biden. * Trump's cash crunch is constraining his campaign in the homestretch. Is this helpful? Intelligence officials briefed Senate leaders on Wednesday, including Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader; Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida and the chairman of the Intelligence Committee; and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the panel's top Democrat. Mr. Rubio and Mr. Warner urged the intelligence agencies to release more information about the threat, but officials said they had to limit what information they made public, according to people briefed on the meeting. Later, on "The Rachel Maddow Show" on MSNBC, Mr. Schumer said the intelligence officials did not tell him that the Iranian activity was meant to hurt the Trump campaign. "From the briefing, I had the strong impression it was much rather to undermine confidence in elections and not aimed at any particular figure," he said. Officials have been warning for months about the risk of what are known as perception hacks: efforts to use a mix of easily accessible data to create the impression among voters that foreign powers are actually inside voting infrastructure. That perception alone, officials said, could shake confidence in the integrity of the vote - exactly what Russia has been seeking to do since its interference in 2016, when it scanned the contents of many state election systems and penetrated a few, including Arizona and Illinois, even if it did not change any votes. "This may be the beginning of a more concerted operation," Mr. King said. "They don't have to do anything; they just have to make people think they are doing something." Iran has tinkered at the edges of American election interference since 2012, but always as a minor actor. Last year, it stepped up its game, private cybersecurity firms have warned. They have caught Iranian operatives occasionally impersonating politicians and journalists around the world, often to spread narratives that are aimed at denigrating Israel or Saudi Arabia, its two major adversaries in the Middle East. "But they have gone from propaganda to deliberate interference in this election," John Hultquist, the senior director of FireEye, a Silicon Valley security firm, said after Wednesday's announcement. "Their focus here is to prey on existing fears that election infrastructure will be subverted and hacked, as well as fears of voter intimidation," he said. Iran may not have had to hack the data it used for the emails, instead it simply may have bought the information. In recent days, Trustwave, a cybersecurity firm, discovered voter databases for sale on the dark web and alerted the F.B.I. The databases would be "highly desirable to U.S. adversaries," said Mark Whitehead, a global vice president at the firm. Hackers, he said, are merging public information with material stolen in data breaches and selling the result. "The consumer and voter databases that we discovered hackers are currently selling significantly lowers the barrier to entry for nation-states to execute sophisticated phishing, disinformation and intimidation campaigns," Mr. Whitehead said. Mr. Ratcliffe and Mr. Wray said little about Russia, but until the wave of fake emails, Moscow had been the No. 1 concern of the National Security Agency, the United States Cyber Command and the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which has responsibility for helping states secure their voting systems. Two weeks ago, Cyber Command, a part of the military, helped paralyze a complex network developed by Russian-speaking hackers and used in ransomware attacks on cities and towns across the United States, along with on many companies. Microsoft led a team of firms doing the same, armed with court orders that enabled them to take down the command-and-control servers used to distribute the tools, which are called TrickBot. The move was made to disrupt the system so that it could not be used to lock up voter registration systems. In recent days, another Russian hacking group called Energetic Bear, often linked to the F.S.B. - one of the successors to the Soviet Union's K.G.B. - appears to have focused its attentions on gaining access to state and local government networks. That has caught the attention of federal investigators because, until now, the group had largely targeted energy firms, including public utilities. But there is no evidence that the hackers have directly attacked any election infrastructure. The fear among cybersecurity experts is that once inside local government networks, they could try to move laterally, into voter registration databases. So far, there is no evidence they have tried to do that, but officials said that kind of move would come only in the last days of the election campaign, if at all. Iran's efforts appear to focus on voter intimidation and disinformation. Some spoofed emails sent to voters contained links to a false and deceptive video that tried to scare voters into believing the senders were also capable of manipulating the mail-in vote process, playing on fears that Mr. Trump has fanned with his insistence that mail-in ballots are subject to fraud. Though the link was not widely shared on social media, a few users did post it to Twitter. Twitter said in a statement on Wednesday night that it had moved "quickly to proactively and permanently suspend a small number of accounts and limit the sharing of media" in the Iran-led campaign, but it gave no specifics. Twitter said that the link to the video never gained traction on the platform or reached a widespread audience, though its investigation is still open. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Thu Oct 22 14:26:04 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2020 09:26:04 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] My neighbor's dog is influencing the U.S. elections In-Reply-To: <003601d6a875$499fae90$dcdf0bb0$@comcast.net> References: <003601d6a875$499fae90$dcdf0bb0$@comcast.net> Message-ID: Thus, it's the NYT that's doing the conspiring, or the USG intells, take your pick. Thus, QAnon is more of a conspiracy of elites to get people to believe that it's a thing, rather than an actual thing on the so-called right. On Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 8:15 AM David Johnson via Peace-discuss < peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > Another bullshit evidence free conspiracy theory propaganda story from the > New York Times. Look over there it's the Chinese. No it's now the Iranians. > Those Russians are still hiding under your bed. Next it will be Venezuela. > Nicolas Maduro told me who to vote for so I must obey. Why doesn't Facebook > and Twitter censor / block this unsubstantiated story ( one of many ) like > they did the N.Y. Post story about the Bidens ???? > > > > *Iran and Russia Seek to Influence Election in Final Days, U.S. Officials > Warn* > > Iran is behind threatening, spoofed emails sent to voters, the officials > said, but there was no indication that any votes themselves had been > altered. > > > > > > > > By Julian E. Barnes and David > E. Sanger > > - Oct. 21, 2020 > > ? > > - > > ? ? ? WASHINGTON ? Iran and Russia have both obtained American voter > registration data, top national security officials announced late on > Wednesday, providing the first concrete evidence that the two countries are > stepping in to try to influence the presidential election as it enters its > final two weeks. > > Iran used the information to send threatening, faked emails > > to voters, said John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, and > Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, in an evening announcement from > the bureau?s headquarters. Intelligence agencies had collected information > that Iran planned to take more steps to influence the vote in coming days, > prompting the unusual timing of the briefing as an effort to deter further > action by Tehran. > > There was no indication that any election result tallies were changed or > that information about who is registered to vote was altered, either of > which could affect the outcome of voting that has already begun across the > United States. The officials also did not claim that either nation hacked > into voter registration systems ? leaving open the possibility that the > data was available to anyone who knew where to look. > > The voter data obtained by Iran and Russia was mostly public, according to > one intelligence official, and Iran was exploiting it as a political > campaign might. Voters? names, party registrations and some contact > information are publicly available. That information may have been merged > with other identifying material, like email addresses, obtained from other > databases, according to intelligence officials, including some sold by > criminal hacking networks on the ?dark web.? > > ?This data can be used by foreign actors to attempt to communicate false > information to registered voters that they hope will cause confusion, sow > chaos and undermine your confidence in American democracy,? Mr. Ratcliffe > said. > > The Trump administration?s announcement that a foreign adversary, Iran, > had tried to influence the election by sending intimidating emails was both > a stark warning and a reminder of how other powers can exploit the > vulnerabilities exposed by the Russian interference in 2016. But it may > also play into President Trump?s hands. For weeks, he has argued, without > evidence, that the vote on Nov. 3 will be ?rigged,? that mail-in ballots > will lead to widespread fraud and that the only way he can be defeated is > if his opponents cheat. > > - Unlock more free articles. > > Create an account or log in > > > Now, on the eve of the final debate, he has evidence of foreign influence > campaigns designed to hurt his re-election chances, even if they did not > affect the voting infrastructure. > > Some of the spoofed emails, sent to Democratic voters, purported to be > > from pro-Trump far-right groups, including the Proud Boys. Iranian hackers > tried to cover their tracks, intelligence and security officials said, > first routing the emails through a compromised Saudi insurance company > network. Later, they sent more than 1,500 emails using the website of an > Estonian textbook company, according to an analysis by researchers at > Proofpoint, a cybersecurity firm. > > Until now, some officials had insisted that Russia remains the primary > threat to the election. But the new information, both Republican and > Democratic officials said, demonstrates that Iran is building upon Russian > techniques and trying to make clear that it, too, is capable of being a > force in the election. > > Since August, intelligence officials have warned that Iran opposed Mr. > Trump?s re-election, hardly a surprise after he exited the Iran nuclear > deal more than two years ago and reimposed crushing economic sanctions on > the country. The officials said Iran did not intend to deter voters, but > rather to hurt Mr. Trump and mobilize support for Joseph R. Biden Jr., the > Democratic nominee, by angering voters about the president?s apparent embrace > of the Proud Boys > in the > first debate. > > *Keep up with Election 2020* > > Mr. Biden has indicated that he would re-enter the nuclear deal and lift > many of those sanctions as long as Iran first returns to obeying the limits > on its nuclear program that it agreed to five years ago. > > Iran sharply denied the accusations, suggesting they were fabricated and > calling them an attempt by the American government to undermine its own > voters? confidence in the election. > > ?Unlike the U.S., Iran does not interfere in other countries? elections,? > Alireza Miryousefi, the spokesman for the Iranian Mission to the United > Nations, said in an apparent reference to the C.I.A.?s efforts to depose an > Iranian leader in the 1950s. > > ?Iran has no interest in interfering in the U.S. election and no > preference for the outcome,? he added. > > But American officials have insisted that Iran has been considering how to > influence the election for months. At one time, officials thought that the > country?s military and clerical leaders could try to interrupt oil markets > or mount some sort of attack in the Middle East intended to hurt Mr. Trump > . > Tehran pulled back from those plans, and Wednesday?s announcement suggested > that instead it was following a playbook closer to Russia?s ? and one less > likely to provoke an American military response. > > The fact that Iran ? which has stepped up its cyberabilities drastically > over the past decade, after its nuclear program was attacked with American > and Israeli cyberweapons ? was involved demonstrates how fast other nations > have learned from Russia?s influence operations in 2016. > > ?We are under attack, and we are going to be up to Nov. 3 and probably > beyond,? said Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, who sits on the > Senate Intelligence Committee. ?Both the American people have to be > skeptical and thoughtful about information they receive, and certainly > election officials have to be doubly cautious now that we know again they > are targets.? > > Sign up to receive an email when we publish a new story about the 2020 > election. > > Mr. Ratcliffe has drawn criticism > > for embracing Mr. Trump?s political agenda from what is typically an > apolitical post, while Mr. Wray has repeatedly been the target of the > president?s ire over his refusal to do so, according to people briefed on > the president?s private conversations. Mr. Trump has discussed firing the > F.B.I. director after the election, the people said. > > Election 2020 ? > > > *Latest Updates > * > > Updated > > Oct. 22, 2020, 8:37 a.m. ET32 minutes ago > > 32 minutes ago > > - Under pressure to take a stand on court packing, Biden says he?ll > take cues from scholars. > > - Six former commerce secretaries endorse Biden. > > - Trump?s cash crunch is constraining his campaign in the homestretch. > > > Is this helpful? > > Intelligence officials briefed Senate leaders on Wednesday, including > Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader; Senator Marco > Rubio, Republican of Florida and the chairman of the Intelligence > Committee; and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the panel?s top Democrat. > Mr. Rubio and Mr. Warner urged the intelligence agencies to release more > information about the threat, but officials said they had to limit what > information they made public, according to people briefed on the meeting. > > Later, on ?The Rachel Maddow Show? > on > MSNBC, Mr. Schumer said the intelligence officials did not tell him that > the Iranian activity was meant to hurt the Trump campaign. ?From the > briefing, I had the strong impression it was much rather to undermine > confidence in elections and not aimed at any particular figure,? he said. > > Officials have been warning for months about the risk of what are known as > perception hacks: efforts to use a mix of easily accessible data to create > the impression among voters that foreign powers are actually inside voting > infrastructure. That perception alone, officials said, could shake > confidence in the integrity of the vote ? exactly what Russia has been > seeking to do since its interference in 2016, when it scanned the contents > of many state election systems and penetrated a few, including Arizona and > Illinois, even if it did not change any votes. > > ?This may be the beginning of a more concerted operation,? Mr. King said. > ?They don?t have to do anything; they just have to make people think they > are doing something.? > > Iran has tinkered at the edges of American election interference since > 2012, but always as a minor actor. Last year, it stepped up its game, > private cybersecurity firms have warned. They have caught Iranian > operatives occasionally impersonating politicians and journalists around > the world, often to spread narratives that are aimed at denigrating Israel > or Saudi Arabia, its two major adversaries in the Middle East. > > ?But they have gone from propaganda to deliberate interference in this > election,? John Hultquist, the senior director of FireEye, a Silicon Valley > security firm, said after Wednesday?s announcement. > > ?Their focus here is to prey on existing fears that election > infrastructure will be subverted and hacked, as well as fears of voter > intimidation,? he said. > > Iran may not have had to hack the data it used for the emails, instead it > simply may have bought the information. In recent days, Trustwave, a > cybersecurity firm, discovered voter databases > > for sale on the dark web and alerted the F.B.I. The databases would be > ?highly desirable to U.S. adversaries,? said Mark Whitehead, a global vice > president at the firm. Hackers, he said, are merging public information > with material stolen in data breaches and selling the result. > > ?The consumer and voter databases that we discovered hackers are currently > selling significantly lowers the barrier to entry for nation-states to > execute sophisticated phishing, disinformation and intimidation campaigns,? > Mr. Whitehead said. > > Mr. Ratcliffe and Mr. Wray said little about Russia, but until the wave of > fake emails, Moscow had been the No. 1 concern of the National Security > Agency, the United States Cyber Command and the Department of Homeland > Security?s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which has > responsibility for helping states secure their voting systems. > > Two weeks ago, Cyber Command, a part of the military, helped paralyze a > complex network developed by Russian-speaking hackers > > and used in ransomware attacks on cities and towns across the United > States, along with on many companies. Microsoft led a team of firms doing > the same, armed with court orders that enabled them to take down the > command-and-control servers used to distribute the tools, which are called > TrickBot. The move was made to disrupt the system so that it could not be > used to lock up voter registration systems. > > In recent days, another Russian hacking group called Energetic Bear, often > linked to the F.S.B. ? one of the successors to the Soviet Union?s K.G.B. ? > appears to have focused its attentions on gaining access to state and local > government networks. That has caught the attention of federal investigators > because, until now, the group had largely targeted energy firms, including > public utilities. > > But there is no evidence that the hackers have directly attacked any > election infrastructure. The fear among cybersecurity experts is that once > inside local government networks, they could try to move laterally, into > voter registration databases. > > So far, there is no evidence they have tried to do that, but officials > said that kind of move would come only in the last days of the election > campaign, if at all. > > Iran?s efforts appear to focus on voter intimidation and disinformation. > Some spoofed emails sent to voters contained links to a false and deceptive > video that tried to scare voters into believing the senders were also > capable of manipulating the mail-in vote process, playing on fears that Mr. > Trump has fanned with his insistence that mail-in ballots are subject to > fraud. > > Though the link was not widely shared on social media, a few users did > post it to Twitter. Twitter said in a statement on Wednesday night that it > had moved ?quickly to proactively and permanently suspend a small number of > accounts and limit the sharing of media? in the Iran-led campaign, but it > gave no specifics. > > Twitter said that the link to the video never gained traction on the > platform or reached a widespread audience, though its investigation is > still open. > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brussel at illinois.edu Thu Oct 22 15:13:11 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2020 15:13:11 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] My neighbor's dog is influencing the U.S. elections In-Reply-To: References: <003601d6a875$499fae90$dcdf0bb0$@comcast.net> Message-ID: The Russians are coming!! Also the Iranians and Chinese. Woe be to all of us from those evil furiners? On Oct 22, 2020, at 9:26 AM, David Green via Peace-discuss > wrote: Thus, it's the NYT that's doing the conspiring, or the USG intells, take your pick. Thus, QAnon is more of a conspiracy of elites to get people to believe that it's a thing, rather than an actual thing on the so-called right. On Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 8:15 AM David Johnson via Peace-discuss > wrote: Another bullshit evidence free conspiracy theory propaganda story from the New York Times. Look over there it's the Chinese. No it's now the Iranians. Those Russians are still hiding under your bed. Next it will be Venezuela. Nicolas Maduro told me who to vote for so I must obey. Why doesn't Facebook and Twitter censor / block this unsubstantiated story ( one of many ) like they did the N.Y. Post story about the Bidens ???? Iran and Russia Seek to Influence Election in Final Days, U.S. Officials Warn Iran is behind threatening, spoofed emails sent to voters, the officials said, but there was no indication that any votes themselves had been altered. By Julian E. Barnes and David E. Sanger * Oct. 21, 2020 ? * ? ? ? WASHINGTON ? Iran and Russia have both obtained American voter registration data, top national security officials announced late on Wednesday, providing the first concrete evidence that the two countries are stepping in to try to influence the presidential election as it enters its final two weeks. Iran used the information to send threatening, faked emails to voters, said John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, and Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, in an evening announcement from the bureau?s headquarters. Intelligence agencies had collected information that Iran planned to take more steps to influence the vote in coming days, prompting the unusual timing of the briefing as an effort to deter further action by Tehran. There was no indication that any election result tallies were changed or that information about who is registered to vote was altered, either of which could affect the outcome of voting that has already begun across the United States. The officials also did not claim that either nation hacked into voter registration systems ? leaving open the possibility that the data was available to anyone who knew where to look. The voter data obtained by Iran and Russia was mostly public, according to one intelligence official, and Iran was exploiting it as a political campaign might. Voters? names, party registrations and some contact information are publicly available. That information may have been merged with other identifying material, like email addresses, obtained from other databases, according to intelligence officials, including some sold by criminal hacking networks on the ?dark web.? ?This data can be used by foreign actors to attempt to communicate false information to registered voters that they hope will cause confusion, sow chaos and undermine your confidence in American democracy,? Mr. Ratcliffe said. The Trump administration?s announcement that a foreign adversary, Iran, had tried to influence the election by sending intimidating emails was both a stark warning and a reminder of how other powers can exploit the vulnerabilities exposed by the Russian interference in 2016. But it may also play into President Trump?s hands. For weeks, he has argued, without evidence, that the vote on Nov. 3 will be ?rigged,? that mail-in ballots will lead to widespread fraud and that the only way he can be defeated is if his opponents cheat. * Unlock more free articles. Create an account or log in Now, on the eve of the final debate, he has evidence of foreign influence campaigns designed to hurt his re-election chances, even if they did not affect the voting infrastructure. Some of the spoofed emails, sent to Democratic voters, purported to be from pro-Trump far-right groups, including the Proud Boys. Iranian hackers tried to cover their tracks, intelligence and security officials said, first routing the emails through a compromised Saudi insurance company network. Later, they sent more than 1,500 emails using the website of an Estonian textbook company, according to an analysis by researchers at Proofpoint, a cybersecurity firm. Until now, some officials had insisted that Russia remains the primary threat to the election. But the new information, both Republican and Democratic officials said, demonstrates that Iran is building upon Russian techniques and trying to make clear that it, too, is capable of being a force in the election. Since August, intelligence officials have warned that Iran opposed Mr. Trump?s re-election, hardly a surprise after he exited the Iran nuclear deal more than two years ago and reimposed crushing economic sanctions on the country. The officials said Iran did not intend to deter voters, but rather to hurt Mr. Trump and mobilize support for Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nominee, by angering voters about the president?s apparent embrace of the Proud Boys in the first debate. Keep up with Election 2020 Mr. Biden has indicated that he would re-enter the nuclear deal and lift many of those sanctions as long as Iran first returns to obeying the limits on its nuclear program that it agreed to five years ago. Iran sharply denied the accusations, suggesting they were fabricated and calling them an attempt by the American government to undermine its own voters? confidence in the election. ?Unlike the U.S., Iran does not interfere in other countries? elections,? Alireza Miryousefi, the spokesman for the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, said in an apparent reference to the C.I.A.?s efforts to depose an Iranian leader in the 1950s. ?Iran has no interest in interfering in the U.S. election and no preference for the outcome,? he added. But American officials have insisted that Iran has been considering how to influence the election for months. At one time, officials thought that the country?s military and clerical leaders could try to interrupt oil markets or mount some sort of attack in the Middle East intended to hurt Mr. Trump. Tehran pulled back from those plans, and Wednesday?s announcement suggested that instead it was following a playbook closer to Russia?s ? and one less likely to provoke an American military response. The fact that Iran ? which has stepped up its cyberabilities drastically over the past decade, after its nuclear program was attacked with American and Israeli cyberweapons ? was involved demonstrates how fast other nations have learned from Russia?s influence operations in 2016. ?We are under attack, and we are going to be up to Nov. 3 and probably beyond,? said Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee. ?Both the American people have to be skeptical and thoughtful about information they receive, and certainly election officials have to be doubly cautious now that we know again they are targets.? Sign up to receive an email when we publish a new story about the 2020 election. Mr. Ratcliffe has drawn criticism for embracing Mr. Trump?s political agenda from what is typically an apolitical post, while Mr. Wray has repeatedly been the target of the president?s ire over his refusal to do so, according to people briefed on the president?s private conversations. Mr. Trump has discussed firing the F.B.I. director after the election, the people said. Election 2020 ? Latest Updates Updated Oct. 22, 2020, 8:37 a.m. ET32 minutes ago 32 minutes ago * Under pressure to take a stand on court packing, Biden says he?ll take cues from scholars. * Six former commerce secretaries endorse Biden. * Trump?s cash crunch is constraining his campaign in the homestretch. Is this helpful? Intelligence officials briefed Senate leaders on Wednesday, including Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader; Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida and the chairman of the Intelligence Committee; and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the panel?s top Democrat. Mr. Rubio and Mr. Warner urged the intelligence agencies to release more information about the threat, but officials said they had to limit what information they made public, according to people briefed on the meeting. Later, on ?The Rachel Maddow Show? on MSNBC, Mr. Schumer said the intelligence officials did not tell him that the Iranian activity was meant to hurt the Trump campaign. ?From the briefing, I had the strong impression it was much rather to undermine confidence in elections and not aimed at any particular figure,? he said. Officials have been warning for months about the risk of what are known as perception hacks: efforts to use a mix of easily accessible data to create the impression among voters that foreign powers are actually inside voting infrastructure. That perception alone, officials said, could shake confidence in the integrity of the vote ? exactly what Russia has been seeking to do since its interference in 2016, when it scanned the contents of many state election systems and penetrated a few, including Arizona and Illinois, even if it did not change any votes. ?This may be the beginning of a more concerted operation,? Mr. King said. ?They don?t have to do anything; they just have to make people think they are doing something.? Iran has tinkered at the edges of American election interference since 2012, but always as a minor actor. Last year, it stepped up its game, private cybersecurity firms have warned. They have caught Iranian operatives occasionally impersonating politicians and journalists around the world, often to spread narratives that are aimed at denigrating Israel or Saudi Arabia, its two major adversaries in the Middle East. ?But they have gone from propaganda to deliberate interference in this election,? John Hultquist, the senior director of FireEye, a Silicon Valley security firm, said after Wednesday?s announcement. ?Their focus here is to prey on existing fears that election infrastructure will be subverted and hacked, as well as fears of voter intimidation,? he said. Iran may not have had to hack the data it used for the emails, instead it simply may have bought the information. In recent days, Trustwave, a cybersecurity firm, discovered voter databases for sale on the dark web and alerted the F.B.I. The databases would be ?highly desirable to U.S. adversaries,? said Mark Whitehead, a global vice president at the firm. Hackers, he said, are merging public information with material stolen in data breaches and selling the result. ?The consumer and voter databases that we discovered hackers are currently selling significantly lowers the barrier to entry for nation-states to execute sophisticated phishing, disinformation and intimidation campaigns,? Mr. Whitehead said. Mr. Ratcliffe and Mr. Wray said little about Russia, but until the wave of fake emails, Moscow had been the No. 1 concern of the National Security Agency, the United States Cyber Command and the Department of Homeland Security?s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which has responsibility for helping states secure their voting systems. Two weeks ago, Cyber Command, a part of the military, helped paralyze a complex network developed by Russian-speaking hackers and used in ransomware attacks on cities and towns across the United States, along with on many companies. Microsoft led a team of firms doing the same, armed with court orders that enabled them to take down the command-and-control servers used to distribute the tools, which are called TrickBot. The move was made to disrupt the system so that it could not be used to lock up voter registration systems. In recent days, another Russian hacking group called Energetic Bear, often linked to the F.S.B. ? one of the successors to the Soviet Union?s K.G.B. ? appears to have focused its attentions on gaining access to state and local government networks. That has caught the attention of federal investigators because, until now, the group had largely targeted energy firms, including public utilities. But there is no evidence that the hackers have directly attacked any election infrastructure. The fear among cybersecurity experts is that once inside local government networks, they could try to move laterally, into voter registration databases. So far, there is no evidence they have tried to do that, but officials said that kind of move would come only in the last days of the election campaign, if at all. Iran?s efforts appear to focus on voter intimidation and disinformation. Some spoofed emails sent to voters contained links to a false and deceptive video that tried to scare voters into believing the senders were also capable of manipulating the mail-in vote process, playing on fears that Mr. Trump has fanned with his insistence that mail-in ballots are subject to fraud. Though the link was not widely shared on social media, a few users did post it to Twitter. Twitter said in a statement on Wednesday night that it had moved ?quickly to proactively and permanently suspend a small number of accounts and limit the sharing of media? in the Iran-led campaign, but it gave no specifics. Twitter said that the link to the video never gained traction on the platform or reached a widespread audience, though its investigation is still open. _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Thu Oct 22 17:01:46 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2020 12:01:46 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Tweet from Sticky Shoe (@shoe_sticky) Message-ID: Sticky Shoe (@shoe_sticky) Tweeted: Haven't seen many people mention the fact that Uber retained Laphonza Butler?a Kamala Harris 2020 campaign advisor, former head of one of SEIU's largest unions, now partner at political strategy firm?to advise + represent Uber regarding labor? Seems pretty relevant re prop 22 no? https://twitter.com/shoe_sticky/status/1319223325147557891?s=20 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From moboct1 at aim.com Thu Oct 22 17:09:10 2020 From: moboct1 at aim.com (Mildred O'brien) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2020 17:09:10 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] My neighbor's dog is influencing the U.S. elections In-Reply-To: <003601d6a875$499fae90$dcdf0bb0$@comcast.net> References: <003601d6a875$499fae90$dcdf0bb0$@comcast.net> Message-ID: <1526176646.1883386.1603386550799@mail.yahoo.com> It's more likely that the DNC was behind the amateurist "Iranian emails," trying to implicate GOP, Proud Boys, Russia or (fill in the blank); after all DNC has the addresses of the recipient Democrats from voter registration rolls. Wonder if Biden would appoint Law Prof. Francis Boyle as one of his "scholars" to his Supreme Court advisory panel. MO'B ? -----Original Message----- From: David Johnson via Peace-discuss To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net Sent: Thu, Oct 22, 2020 6:15 am Subject: [Peace-discuss] My neighbor's dog is influencing the U.S. elections Another bullshit evidence free conspiracy theory propaganda story from the New York Times. Look over there it's the Chinese. No it's now the Iranians. Those Russians are still hiding under your bed. Next it will be Venezuela. Nicolas Maduro told me who to vote for so I must obey. Why doesn't Facebook and Twitter censor / block this unsubstantiated story ( one of many ) like they did the N.Y. Post story about the Bidens ???? ? Iran and Russia Seek to Influence Election in Final Days, U.S. Officials Warn Iran is behind threatening, spoofed emails sent to voters, the officials said, but there was no indication that any votes themselves had been altered. ? ? ? By Julian E. Barnes and David E. Sanger - Oct. 21, 2020 ????????? ? - ? ?? ?? ?? WASHINGTON ? Iran and Russia have both obtained American voter registration data, top national security officials announced late on Wednesday, providing the first concrete evidence that the two countries are stepping in to try to influence the presidential election as it enters its final two weeks. Iran used the information to send threatening, faked emails to voters, said John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, and Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, in an evening announcement from the bureau?s headquarters. Intelligence agencies had collected information that Iran planned to take more steps to influence the vote in coming days, prompting the unusual timing of the briefing as an effort to deter further action by Tehran. There was no indication that any election result tallies were changed or that information about who is registered to vote was altered, either of which could affect the outcome of voting that has already begun across the United States. The officials also did not claim that either nation hacked into voter registration systems ? leaving open the possibility that the data was available to anyone who knew where to look. The voter data obtained by Iran and Russia was mostly public, according to one intelligence official, and Iran was exploiting it as a political campaign might. Voters? names, party registrations and some contact information are publicly available. That information may have been merged with other identifying material, like email addresses, obtained from other databases, according to intelligence officials, including some sold by criminal hacking networks on the ?dark web.? ?This data can be used by foreign actors to attempt to communicate false information to registered voters that they hope will cause confusion, sow chaos and undermine your confidence in American democracy,? Mr. Ratcliffe said. The Trump administration?s announcement that a foreign adversary, Iran, had tried to influence the election by sending intimidating emails was both a stark warning and a reminder of how other powers can exploit the vulnerabilities exposed by the Russian interference in 2016. But it may also play into President Trump?s hands. For weeks, he has argued, without evidence, that the vote on Nov. 3 will be ?rigged,? that mail-in ballots will lead to widespread fraud and that the only way he can be defeated is if his opponents cheat. - Unlock more free articles. Create an account or log in Now, on the eve of the final debate, he has evidence of foreign influence campaigns designed to hurt his re-election chances, even if they did not affect the voting infrastructure. Some of the spoofed emails, sent to Democratic voters, purported to be from pro-Trump far-right groups, including the Proud Boys. Iranian hackers tried to cover their tracks, intelligence and security officials said, first routing the emails through a compromised Saudi insurance company network. Later, they sent more than 1,500 emails using the website of an Estonian textbook company, according to an analysis by researchers at Proofpoint, a cybersecurity firm. Until now, some officials had insisted that Russia remains the primary threat to the election. But the new information, both Republican and Democratic officials said, demonstrates that Iran is building upon Russian techniques and trying to make clear that it, too, is capable of being a force in the election. Since August, intelligence officials have warned that Iran opposed Mr. Trump?s re-election, hardly a surprise after he exited the Iran nuclear deal more than two years ago and reimposed crushing economic sanctions on the country. The officials said Iran did not intend to deter voters, but rather to hurt Mr. Trump and mobilize support for Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nominee, by angering voters about the president?s apparent embrace of the Proud Boys in the first debate. Keep up with Election 2020 Mr. Biden has indicated that he would re-enter the nuclear deal and lift many of those sanctions as long as Iran first returns to obeying the limits on its nuclear program that it agreed to five years ago. Iran sharply denied the accusations, suggesting they were fabricated and calling them an attempt by the American government to undermine its own voters? confidence in the election. ?Unlike the U.S., Iran does not interfere in other countries? elections,? Alireza Miryousefi, the spokesman for the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, said in an apparent reference to the C.I.A.?s efforts to depose an Iranian leader in the 1950s. ?Iran has no interest in interfering in the U.S. election and no preference for the outcome,? he added. But American officials have insisted that Iran has been considering how to influence the election for months. At one time, officials thought that the country?s military and clerical leaders could try to interrupt oil markets or mount some sort of attack in the Middle East intended to hurt Mr. Trump. Tehran pulled back from those plans, and Wednesday?s announcement suggested that instead it was following a playbook closer to Russia?s ? and one less likely to provoke an American military response. The fact that Iran ? which has stepped up its cyberabilities drastically over the past decade, after its nuclear program was attacked with American and Israeli cyberweapons ? was involved demonstrates how fast other nations have learned from Russia?s influence operations in 2016. ?We are under attack, and we are going to be up to Nov. 3 and probably beyond,? said Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee. ?Both the American people have to be skeptical and thoughtful about information they receive, and certainly election officials have to be doubly cautious now that we know again they are targets.? Sign up to receive an email when we publish a new story about the 2020 election. Mr. Ratcliffe has drawn criticism for embracing Mr. Trump?s political agenda from what is typically an apolitical post, while Mr. Wray has repeatedly been the target of the president?s ire over his refusal to do so, according to people briefed on the president?s private conversations. Mr. Trump has discussed firing the F.B.I. director after the election, the people said. Election 2020 ? Latest Updates Updated? Oct. 22, 2020, 8:37 a.m. ET32 minutes ago 32 minutes ago - Under pressure to take a stand on court packing, Biden says he?ll take cues from scholars. - Six former commerce secretaries endorse Biden. - Trump?s cash crunch is constraining his campaign in the homestretch. Is this helpful? Intelligence officials briefed Senate leaders on Wednesday, including Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader; Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida and the chairman of the Intelligence Committee; and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the panel?s top Democrat. Mr. Rubio and Mr. Warner urged the intelligence agencies to release more information about the threat, but officials said they had to limit what information they made public, according to people briefed on the meeting. Later, on ?The Rachel Maddow Show? on MSNBC, Mr. Schumer said the intelligence officials did not tell him that the Iranian activity was meant to hurt the Trump campaign. ?From the briefing, I had the strong impression it was much rather to undermine confidence in elections and not aimed at any particular figure,? he said. Officials have been warning for months about the risk of what are known as perception hacks: efforts to use a mix of easily accessible data to create the impression among voters that foreign powers are actually inside voting infrastructure. That perception alone, officials said, could shake confidence in the integrity of the vote ? exactly what Russia has been seeking to do since its interference in 2016, when it scanned the contents of many state election systems and penetrated a few, including Arizona and Illinois, even if it did not change any votes. ?This may be the beginning of a more concerted operation,? Mr. King said. ?They don?t have to do anything; they just have to make people think they are doing something.? Iran has tinkered at the edges of American election interference since 2012, but always as a minor actor. Last year, it stepped up its game, private cybersecurity firms have warned. They have caught Iranian operatives occasionally impersonating politicians and journalists around the world, often to spread narratives that are aimed at denigrating Israel or Saudi Arabia, its two major adversaries in the Middle East. ?But they have gone from propaganda to deliberate interference in this election,? John Hultquist, the senior director of FireEye, a Silicon Valley security firm, said after Wednesday?s announcement. ?Their focus here is to prey on existing fears that election infrastructure will be subverted and hacked, as well as fears of voter intimidation,? he said. Iran may not have had to hack the data it used for the emails, instead it simply may have bought the information. In recent days, Trustwave, a cybersecurity firm, discovered voter databases for sale on the dark web and alerted the F.B.I. The databases would be ?highly desirable to U.S. adversaries,? said Mark Whitehead, a global vice president at the firm. Hackers, he said, are merging public information with material stolen in data breaches and selling the result. ?The consumer and voter databases that we discovered hackers are currently selling significantly lowers the barrier to entry for nation-states to execute sophisticated phishing, disinformation and intimidation campaigns,? Mr. Whitehead said. Mr. Ratcliffe and Mr. Wray said little about Russia, but until the wave of fake emails, Moscow had been the No. 1 concern of the National Security Agency, the United States Cyber Command and the Department of Homeland Security?s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which has responsibility for helping states secure their voting systems. Two weeks ago, Cyber Command, a part of the military, helped paralyze a complex network developed by Russian-speaking hackers and used in ransomware attacks on cities and towns across the United States, along with on many companies. Microsoft led a team of firms doing the same, armed with court orders that enabled them to take down the command-and-control servers used to distribute the tools, which are called TrickBot. The move was made to disrupt the system so that it could not be used to lock up voter registration systems. In recent days, another Russian hacking group called Energetic Bear, often linked to the F.S.B. ? one of the successors to the Soviet Union?s K.G.B. ? appears to have focused its attentions on gaining access to state and local government networks. That has caught the attention of federal investigators because, until now, the group had largely targeted energy firms, including public utilities. But there is no evidence that the hackers have directly attacked any election infrastructure. The fear among cybersecurity experts is that once inside local government networks, they could try to move laterally, into voter registration databases. So far, there is no evidence they have tried to do that, but officials said that kind of move would come only in the last days of the election campaign, if at all. Iran?s efforts appear to focus on voter intimidation and disinformation. Some spoofed emails sent to voters contained links to a false and deceptive video that tried to scare voters into believing the senders were also capable of manipulating the mail-in vote process, playing on fears that Mr. Trump has fanned with his insistence that mail-in ballots are subject to fraud. Though the link was not widely shared on social media, a few users did post it to Twitter. Twitter said in a statement on Wednesday night that it had moved ?quickly to proactively and permanently suspend a small number of accounts and limit the sharing of media? in the Iran-led campaign, but it gave no specifics. Twitter said that the link to the video never gained traction on the platform or reached a widespread audience, though its investigation is still open. ? _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Thu Oct 22 22:06:04 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2020 17:06:04 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] My neighbor's dog is influencing the U.S. elections In-Reply-To: <1526176646.1883386.1603386550799@mail.yahoo.com> References: <003601d6a875$499fae90$dcdf0bb0$@comcast.net> <1526176646.1883386.1603386550799@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <007201d6a8bf$89bd6900$9d383b00$@comcast.net> Midge, That is a very likely probability about the DNC. Francis Boyle appointed by Biden ? Would love to see it but Francis would make Bernie Sanders nervous, not to mention Joe Biden. David J. From: Peace-discuss [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Mildred O'brien via Peace-discuss Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2020 12:09 PM To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] My neighbor's dog is influencing the U.S. elections It's more likely that the DNC was behind the amateurist "Iranian emails," trying to implicate GOP, Proud Boys, Russia or (fill in the blank); after all DNC has the addresses of the recipient Democrats from voter registration rolls. Wonder if Biden would appoint Law Prof. Francis Boyle as one of his "scholars" to his Supreme Court advisory panel. MO'B -----Original Message----- From: David Johnson via Peace-discuss To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net Sent: Thu, Oct 22, 2020 6:15 am Subject: [Peace-discuss] My neighbor's dog is influencing the U.S. elections Another bullshit evidence free conspiracy theory propaganda story from the New York Times. Look over there it's the Chinese. No it's now the Iranians. Those Russians are still hiding under your bed. Next it will be Venezuela. Nicolas Maduro told me who to vote for so I must obey. Why doesn't Facebook and Twitter censor / block this unsubstantiated story ( one of many ) like they did the N.Y. Post story about the Bidens ???? Iran and Russia Seek to Influence Election in Final Days, U.S. Officials Warn Iran is behind threatening, spoofed emails sent to voters, the officials said, but there was no indication that any votes themselves had been altered. By Julian E. Barnes and David E. Sanger * Oct. 21, 2020 ? * ? ? ? WASHINGTON ? Iran and Russia have both obtained American voter registration data, top national security officials announced late on Wednesday, providing the first concrete evidence that the two countries are stepping in to try to influence the presidential election as it enters its final two weeks. Iran used the information to send threatening, faked emails to voters, said John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, and Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, in an evening announcement from the bureau?s headquarters. Intelligence agencies had collected information that Iran planned to take more steps to influence the vote in coming days, prompting the unusual timing of the briefing as an effort to deter further action by Tehran. There was no indication that any election result tallies were changed or that information about who is registered to vote was altered, either of which could affect the outcome of voting that has already begun across the United States. The officials also did not claim that either nation hacked into voter registration systems ? leaving open the possibility that the data was available to anyone who knew where to look. The voter data obtained by Iran and Russia was mostly public, according to one intelligence official, and Iran was exploiting it as a political campaign might. Voters? names, party registrations and some contact information are publicly available. That information may have been merged with other identifying material, like email addresses, obtained from other databases, according to intelligence officials, including some sold by criminal hacking networks on the ?dark web.? ?This data can be used by foreign actors to attempt to communicate false information to registered voters that they hope will cause confusion, sow chaos and undermine your confidence in American democracy,? Mr. Ratcliffe said. The Trump administration?s announcement that a foreign adversary, Iran, had tried to influence the election by sending intimidating emails was both a stark warning and a reminder of how other powers can exploit the vulnerabilities exposed by the Russian interference in 2016. But it may also play into President Trump?s hands. For weeks, he has argued, without evidence, that the vote on Nov. 3 will be ?rigged,? that mail-in ballots will lead to widespread fraud and that the only way he can be defeated is if his opponents cheat. * Unlock more free articles. Create an account or log in Now, on the eve of the final debate, he has evidence of foreign influence campaigns designed to hurt his re-election chances, even if they did not affect the voting infrastructure. Some of the spoofed emails, sent to Democratic voters, purported to be from pro-Trump far-right groups, including the Proud Boys. Iranian hackers tried to cover their tracks, intelligence and security officials said, first routing the emails through a compromised Saudi insurance company network. Later, they sent more than 1,500 emails using the website of an Estonian textbook company, according to an analysis by researchers at Proofpoint, a cybersecurity firm. Until now, some officials had insisted that Russia remains the primary threat to the election. But the new information, both Republican and Democratic officials said, demonstrates that Iran is building upon Russian techniques and trying to make clear that it, too, is capable of being a force in the election. Since August, intelligence officials have warned that Iran opposed Mr. Trump?s re-election, hardly a surprise after he exited the Iran nuclear deal more than two years ago and reimposed crushing economic sanctions on the country. The officials said Iran did not intend to deter voters, but rather to hurt Mr. Trump and mobilize support for Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nominee, by angering voters about the president?s apparent embrace of the Proud Boys in the first debate. Keep up with Election 2020 Mr. Biden has indicated that he would re-enter the nuclear deal and lift many of those sanctions as long as Iran first returns to obeying the limits on its nuclear program that it agreed to five years ago. Iran sharply denied the accusations, suggesting they were fabricated and calling them an attempt by the American government to undermine its own voters? confidence in the election. ?Unlike the U.S., Iran does not interfere in other countries? elections,? Alireza Miryousefi, the spokesman for the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, said in an apparent reference to the C.I.A.?s efforts to depose an Iranian leader in the 1950s. ?Iran has no interest in interfering in the U.S. election and no preference for the outcome,? he added. But American officials have insisted that Iran has been considering how to influence the election for months. At one time, officials thought that the country?s military and clerical leaders could try to interrupt oil markets or mount some sort of attack in the Middle East intended to hurt Mr. Trump . Tehran pulled back from those plans, and Wednesday?s announcement suggested that instead it was following a playbook closer to Russia?s ? and one less likely to provoke an American military response. The fact that Iran ? which has stepped up its cyberabilities drastically over the past decade, after its nuclear program was attacked with American and Israeli cyberweapons ? was involved demonstrates how fast other nations have learned from Russia?s influence operations in 2016. ?We are under attack, and we are going to be up to Nov. 3 and probably beyond,? said Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee. ?Both the American people have to be skeptical and thoughtful about information they receive, and certainly election officials have to be doubly cautious now that we know again they are targets.? Sign up to receive an email when we publish a new story about the 2020 election. Mr. Ratcliffe has drawn criticism for embracing Mr. Trump?s political agenda from what is typically an apolitical post, while Mr. Wray has repeatedly been the target of the president?s ire over his refusal to do so, according to people briefed on the president?s private conversations. Mr. Trump has discussed firing the F.B.I. director after the election, the people said. Election 2020 ? Latest Updates Updated Oct. 22, 2020, 8:37 a.m. ET32 minutes ago 32 minutes ago * Under pressure to take a stand on court packing, Biden says he?ll take cues from scholars. * Six former commerce secretaries endorse Biden. * Trump?s cash crunch is constraining his campaign in the homestretch. Is this helpful? Intelligence officials briefed Senate leaders on Wednesday, including Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader; Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida and the chairman of the Intelligence Committee; and Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the panel?s top Democrat. Mr. Rubio and Mr. Warner urged the intelligence agencies to release more information about the threat, but officials said they had to limit what information they made public, according to people briefed on the meeting. Later, on ?The Rachel Maddow Show? on MSNBC, Mr. Schumer said the intelligence officials did not tell him that the Iranian activity was meant to hurt the Trump campaign. ?From the briefing, I had the strong impression it was much rather to undermine confidence in elections and not aimed at any particular figure,? he said. Officials have been warning for months about the risk of what are known as perception hacks: efforts to use a mix of easily accessible data to create the impression among voters that foreign powers are actually inside voting infrastructure. That perception alone, officials said, could shake confidence in the integrity of the vote ? exactly what Russia has been seeking to do since its interference in 2016, when it scanned the contents of many state election systems and penetrated a few, including Arizona and Illinois, even if it did not change any votes. ?This may be the beginning of a more concerted operation,? Mr. King said. ?They don?t have to do anything; they just have to make people think they are doing something.? Iran has tinkered at the edges of American election interference since 2012, but always as a minor actor. Last year, it stepped up its game, private cybersecurity firms have warned. They have caught Iranian operatives occasionally impersonating politicians and journalists around the world, often to spread narratives that are aimed at denigrating Israel or Saudi Arabia, its two major adversaries in the Middle East. ?But they have gone from propaganda to deliberate interference in this election,? John Hultquist, the senior director of FireEye, a Silicon Valley security firm, said after Wednesday?s announcement. ?Their focus here is to prey on existing fears that election infrastructure will be subverted and hacked, as well as fears of voter intimidation,? he said. Iran may not have had to hack the data it used for the emails, instead it simply may have bought the information. In recent days, Trustwave, a cybersecurity firm, discovered voter databases for sale on the dark web and alerted the F.B.I. The databases would be ?highly desirable to U.S. adversaries,? said Mark Whitehead, a global vice president at the firm. Hackers, he said, are merging public information with material stolen in data breaches and selling the result. ?The consumer and voter databases that we discovered hackers are currently selling significantly lowers the barrier to entry for nation-states to execute sophisticated phishing, disinformation and intimidation campaigns,? Mr. Whitehead said. Mr. Ratcliffe and Mr. Wray said little about Russia, but until the wave of fake emails, Moscow had been the No. 1 concern of the National Security Agency, the United States Cyber Command and the Department of Homeland Security?s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which has responsibility for helping states secure their voting systems. Two weeks ago, Cyber Command, a part of the military, helped paralyze a complex network developed by Russian-speaking hackers and used in ransomware attacks on cities and towns across the United States, along with on many companies. Microsoft led a team of firms doing the same, armed with court orders that enabled them to take down the command-and-control servers used to distribute the tools, which are called TrickBot. The move was made to disrupt the system so that it could not be used to lock up voter registration systems. In recent days, another Russian hacking group called Energetic Bear, often linked to the F.S.B. ? one of the successors to the Soviet Union?s K.G.B. ? appears to have focused its attentions on gaining access to state and local government networks. That has caught the attention of federal investigators because, until now, the group had largely targeted energy firms, including public utilities. But there is no evidence that the hackers have directly attacked any election infrastructure. The fear among cybersecurity experts is that once inside local government networks, they could try to move laterally, into voter registration databases. So far, there is no evidence they have tried to do that, but officials said that kind of move would come only in the last days of the election campaign, if at all. Iran?s efforts appear to focus on voter intimidation and disinformation. Some spoofed emails sent to voters contained links to a false and deceptive video that tried to scare voters into believing the senders were also capable of manipulating the mail-in vote process, playing on fears that Mr. Trump has fanned with his insistence that mail-in ballots are subject to fraud. Though the link was not widely shared on social media, a few users did post it to Twitter. Twitter said in a statement on Wednesday night that it had moved ?quickly to proactively and permanently suspend a small number of accounts and limit the sharing of media? in the Iran-led campaign, but it gave no specifics. Twitter said that the link to the video never gained traction on the platform or reached a widespread audience, though its investigation is still open. _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r-szoke at illinois.edu Tue Oct 27 00:53:51 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2020 00:53:51 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Improve your vocabulary Message-ID: HOTWORDS 102620 An occasional review of some terms useful in political analysis & polemics apophenia, pareidolia APOPHENIA n. ? is the human tendency to perceive meaningful patterns within random data. > The term apparently dates back to 1958, when Klaus Conrad published a monograph titled Die beginnende Schizophrenie. Versuch einer Gestaltanalyse des Wahns ("The onset of schizophrenia: an attempt to form an analysis of delusion"),[1] in which he described in groundbreaking detail the prodromal mood and earliest stages of schizophrenia. He coined the word "Apoph?nie" to characterize the onset of delusional thinking in psychosis. Conrad's theories on the genesis of schizophrenia have since been partially, yet inconclusively, confirmed in psychiatric literature when tested against empirical findings.[2] > Conrad's neologism was translated into English as "apophenia" (from the Greek apo [away from] + phaenein [to show]) to reflect the fact that a person with schizophrenia initially experiences delusion as revelation.[3] In 2001 neuroscientist Peter Brugger referenced Conrad's terminology [4] and defined the term as the "unmotivated seeing of connections" accompanied by a "specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness". Apophenia has come to imply a universal human tendency to seek patterns in random information, such as gambling.[5] / Examples: PAREIDOLIA This figure, which consists of three circles and a line, is perceived as a face, despite having only a few of the features of an actual face. Such perception facilitates facial recognition. > Pareidolia is a type of apophenia involving the perception of images or sounds in random stimuli. For example, hearing a ringing phone, while taking a shower. The noise produced by the running water provides a background from which the mind perceives the sound of a phone. A more common example is the perception of a face within an inanimate object?the headlights and grill of an automobile may appear to be "grinning". People around the world see the "Man in the Moon".[6] > People sometimes see the face of a religious figure in a piece of toast or in the grain of a piece of wood.[7] Another common example is of one standing in a large crowd and perceiving that several people within the crowd are calling one's name. > Overfitting In statistics and machine learning, apophenia is an example of what is known as overfitting. Overfitting occurs when a statistical model fits the noise rather than the signal. The model overfits the particular data or observations rather than fitting a generalizable pattern in a general population. > Gambler's fallacy Apophenia is well documented as a rationalization for gambling. Gamblers may imagine that they see patterns in the numbers which appear in lotteries, card games, or roulette wheels.[8] One variation of this is known as the "gambler's fallacy". > Hidden meanings Fortune-telling and divination are often based upon discerning patterns seen in what most people would consider to be meaningless chance events. The concept of a Freudian slip is based upon what had previously been dismissed as meaningless errors of speech or memory. Sigmund Freud believed that such "slips" held meaning for the unconscious mind (see The Interpretation of Dreams). / Related terms: In contrast to an epiphany, an apophany (i.e., an instance of apophenia) does not provide insight into the nature of reality or its interconnectedness but is a "process of repetitively and monotonously experiencing abnormal meanings in the entire surrounding experiential field". Such meanings are entirely self-referential, solipsistic, and paranoid ? "being observed, spoken about, the object of eavesdropping, followed by strangers".[9] Thus the English term "apophenia" has a somewhat different meaning than that which Conrad defined when he coined the term "Apoph?nie". >? Patternicity" In 2008, Michael Shermer coined the word "patternicity", defining it as "the tendency to find meaningful patterns in meaningless noise".[10][11] "Agenticity" In The Believing Brain (2011), Shermer wrote that humans have "the tendency to infuse patterns with meaning, intention, and agency", which he called "agenticity".[12] "Randomania" In 2011, parapsychologist David Luke proposed that apophenia is one end of a spectrum and that the opposite behaviour (attributing to chance what are apparently patterned or related data) can be called "randomania". He asserted that dream precognition is real and that randomania is the reason why some people dismiss it.[13] > PAREIDOLIA n. The perception of a recognizable image or meaningful pattern where none exists or is intended, as the perception of a face in the surface features of the moon. (Psychiatry) the imagined perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not actually exist, as in considering the moon to have human features [ Cp. conspiracy, superstition, causation (?everything happens for a reason?), confirmation bias, paranoia, astronomical constellations, QAnon, ?it is no accident that . . . ?, ?there are no coincidences,? etc. ] # # # From r-szoke at illinois.edu Tue Oct 27 00:53:51 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2020 00:53:51 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Improve your vocabulary Message-ID: HOTWORDS 102620 An occasional review of some terms useful in political analysis & polemics apophenia, pareidolia APOPHENIA n. ? is the human tendency to perceive meaningful patterns within random data. > The term apparently dates back to 1958, when Klaus Conrad published a monograph titled Die beginnende Schizophrenie. Versuch einer Gestaltanalyse des Wahns ("The onset of schizophrenia: an attempt to form an analysis of delusion"),[1] in which he described in groundbreaking detail the prodromal mood and earliest stages of schizophrenia. He coined the word "Apoph?nie" to characterize the onset of delusional thinking in psychosis. Conrad's theories on the genesis of schizophrenia have since been partially, yet inconclusively, confirmed in psychiatric literature when tested against empirical findings.[2] > Conrad's neologism was translated into English as "apophenia" (from the Greek apo [away from] + phaenein [to show]) to reflect the fact that a person with schizophrenia initially experiences delusion as revelation.[3] In 2001 neuroscientist Peter Brugger referenced Conrad's terminology [4] and defined the term as the "unmotivated seeing of connections" accompanied by a "specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness". Apophenia has come to imply a universal human tendency to seek patterns in random information, such as gambling.[5] / Examples: PAREIDOLIA This figure, which consists of three circles and a line, is perceived as a face, despite having only a few of the features of an actual face. Such perception facilitates facial recognition. > Pareidolia is a type of apophenia involving the perception of images or sounds in random stimuli. For example, hearing a ringing phone, while taking a shower. The noise produced by the running water provides a background from which the mind perceives the sound of a phone. A more common example is the perception of a face within an inanimate object?the headlights and grill of an automobile may appear to be "grinning". People around the world see the "Man in the Moon".[6] > People sometimes see the face of a religious figure in a piece of toast or in the grain of a piece of wood.[7] Another common example is of one standing in a large crowd and perceiving that several people within the crowd are calling one's name. > Overfitting In statistics and machine learning, apophenia is an example of what is known as overfitting. Overfitting occurs when a statistical model fits the noise rather than the signal. The model overfits the particular data or observations rather than fitting a generalizable pattern in a general population. > Gambler's fallacy Apophenia is well documented as a rationalization for gambling. Gamblers may imagine that they see patterns in the numbers which appear in lotteries, card games, or roulette wheels.[8] One variation of this is known as the "gambler's fallacy". > Hidden meanings Fortune-telling and divination are often based upon discerning patterns seen in what most people would consider to be meaningless chance events. The concept of a Freudian slip is based upon what had previously been dismissed as meaningless errors of speech or memory. Sigmund Freud believed that such "slips" held meaning for the unconscious mind (see The Interpretation of Dreams). / Related terms: In contrast to an epiphany, an apophany (i.e., an instance of apophenia) does not provide insight into the nature of reality or its interconnectedness but is a "process of repetitively and monotonously experiencing abnormal meanings in the entire surrounding experiential field". Such meanings are entirely self-referential, solipsistic, and paranoid ? "being observed, spoken about, the object of eavesdropping, followed by strangers".[9] Thus the English term "apophenia" has a somewhat different meaning than that which Conrad defined when he coined the term "Apoph?nie". >? Patternicity" In 2008, Michael Shermer coined the word "patternicity", defining it as "the tendency to find meaningful patterns in meaningless noise".[10][11] "Agenticity" In The Believing Brain (2011), Shermer wrote that humans have "the tendency to infuse patterns with meaning, intention, and agency", which he called "agenticity".[12] "Randomania" In 2011, parapsychologist David Luke proposed that apophenia is one end of a spectrum and that the opposite behaviour (attributing to chance what are apparently patterned or related data) can be called "randomania". He asserted that dream precognition is real and that randomania is the reason why some people dismiss it.[13] > PAREIDOLIA n. The perception of a recognizable image or meaningful pattern where none exists or is intended, as the perception of a face in the surface features of the moon. (Psychiatry) the imagined perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not actually exist, as in considering the moon to have human features [ Cp. conspiracy, superstition, causation (?everything happens for a reason?), confirmation bias, paranoia, astronomical constellations, QAnon, ?it is no accident that . . . ?, ?there are no coincidences,? etc. ] # # # From jbn at forestfield.org Tue Oct 27 02:54:25 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2020 21:54:25 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Suggested AOTA/NFN videos Message-ID: <3046a9c0519b60c13aceff367380f49a42a53183.camel@forestfield.org> Here are some suggested videos for upcoming timeslots which I just sent to UPTV's Jason Liggett. As per usual, I offered these videos with the recommendation to let other AWARE members have priority over my recommendations. These recommendations should last for a couple of weeks: The Intercept https://youtube.com/watch?v=EGI4fc_VB7c -- (1h 23m) Glenn Greenwald interviews Ira Glasser, former head of the ACLU and star of the new documentary about his life and ACLU work "Mighty Ira". Consortium News https://youtube.com/watch?v=LNskcUR-L3s -- (1h 38m) Roger Waters, John Pilger, and Ray McGovern discuss the trial of Julian Assange. https://youtube.com/watch?v=m780Fzt2joo -- (1h 24m) Comedy and the U.S. Election with Consortium News and political comedians Lee Camp, Ron Placone, Juice Media, and Randy Credico. RT Transcript https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/504451-christian-parenti-radical-hamilton-book/ Video https://cdnv.rt.com/files/2020.10/5f951ee185f5406e6d22790b.mp4 (28m) -- Chris Hedges talks to Christian Parenti about Alexander Hamilton, the first treasury secretary of the United States, who has been called the founding father of US capitalism and imperialism. Black Agenda Report https://youtube.com/watch?v=Rg6Y0nmIhw0 -- (40m) "Left Lens": Danny Haiphong and Margaret Kimberley talk about the upcoming US presidential election. Empire Files https://youtube.com/watch?v=tUdODhFDtQg -- (7m 19s) Biden vs. Trump on foreign policy Thanks. -J From brussel at illinois.edu Fri Oct 30 02:05:11 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2020 02:05:11 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] John Jay analysis of our current condition Message-ID: <223AD928-ED56-4484-9DD7-7B16C2B448F6@illinois.edu> Pretty good, comprehensive. Recommended. Makes the argument why you should vote? https://theanalysis.news/commentary/without-illusions-the-left-should-vote-for-biden-paul-jay/ ?mkb -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Fri Oct 30 02:12:37 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2020 21:12:37 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Glenn Greenwald leaves The Intercept Message-ID: I believe it was a Jimmy Dore interview with Aaron Mat? where I first learned that Greenwald had final word editing on his own articles at The Intercept -- Greenwald could publish what he wanted (what he calls "my contractual right of editorial freedom" in the following article). There were very few reasons to read The Intercept. Over the years it became another neocon/neolib, establishment-friendly (remember how they told the NSA about Reality Winner's leak to them?), Russiagating rag reminiscent of the highly-overrated New York Times. Now there's one less reason to read The Intercept. Please take note of the proper response to speech one doesn't like -- more speech -- instead of censorship ("I had no objection to their disagreement with my views of what this Biden evidence shows: as a last-ditch attempt to avoid being censored, I encouraged them to air their disagreements with me by writing their own articles that critique my perspectives and letting readers decide who is right, the way any confident and healthy media outlet would. But modern media outlets do not air dissent; they quash it. So censorship of my article, rather than engagement with it, was the path these Biden-supporting editors chose."). I recommend reading his other articles at https://greenwald.substack.com/?no_cover=true as well. I'm guessing that Jimmy Dore will discuss this tomorrow (2020-10-30) night if not also have someone else on his show to discuss this with. I don't recommend DN for much because it too has gone the way of Russiagating (which means DN is pro-war) and remaining mostly silent on the OPCW scandal (just as the Syrian missile attackers -- the US, UK, and French -- would want DN to be). In fact these were reasons Mat? quit working at DN. But Greenwald does interviews with Amy Goodman on DN making DN occasionally useful. Perhaps DN will interview him soon. https://greenwald.substack.com/p/my-resignation-from-the-intercept > The same trends of repression, censorship and ideological homogeneity plaguing the > national press generally have engulfed the media outlet I co-founded, culminating > in censorship of my own articles. > > Today I sent my intention to resign from The Intercept, the news outlet I > co-founded in 2013 with Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras, as well as from its > parent company First Look Media. > > The final, precipitating cause is that The Intercept?s editors, in violation of my > contractual right of editorial freedom, censored an article I wrote this week, > refusing to publish it unless I remove all sections critical of Democratic > presidential candidate Joe Biden, the candidate vehemently supported by all > New-York-based Intercept editors involved in this effort at suppression. > > The censored article, based on recently revealed emails and witness testimony, > raised critical questions about Biden?s conduct. Not content to simply prevent > publication of this article at the media outlet I co-founded, these Intercept > editors also demanded that I refrain from exercising a separate contractual right > to publish this article with any other publication. > > I had no objection to their disagreement with my views of what this Biden evidence > shows: as a last-ditch attempt to avoid being censored, I encouraged them to air > their disagreements with me by writing their own articles that critique my > perspectives and letting readers decide who is right, the way any confident and > healthy media outlet would. But modern media outlets do not air dissent; they > quash it. So censorship of my article, rather than engagement with it, was the > path these Biden-supporting editors chose. > > The censored article will be published on this page shortly (it is now published > here[1], and the emails with Intercept editors showing the censorship are here[2]). My > letter of intent to resign, which I sent this morning to First Look Media?s > President Michael Bloom, is published below. > > As of now, I will be publishing my journalism here on Substack, where numerous > other journalists, including my good friend, the great intrepid reporter Matt > Taibbi, have come in order to practice journalism free of the increasingly > repressive climate that is engulfing national mainstream media outlets across the > country. > > This was not an easy choice: I am voluntarily sacrificing the support of a large > institution and guaranteed salary in exchange for nothing other than a belief that > there are enough people who believe in the virtues of independent journalism and > the need for free discourse who will be willing to support my work by > subscribing. > > Like anyone with young children, a family and numerous obligations, I do this with > some trepidation, but also with the conviction that there is no other choice. I > could not sleep at night knowing that I allowed any institution to censor what I > want to say and believe ? least of all a media outlet I co-founded with the > explicit goal of ensuring this never happens to other journalists, let alone to > me, let alone because I have written an article critical of a powerful Democratic > politician vehemently supported by the editors in the imminent national election. > > But the pathologies, illiberalism, and repressive mentality that led to the > bizarre spectacle of my being censored by my own media outlet are ones that are by > no means unique to The Intercept. These are the viruses that have contaminated > virtually every mainstream center-left political organization, academic > institution, and newsroom. I began writing about politics fifteen years ago with > the goal of combatting media propaganda and repression, and ? regardless of the > risks involved ? simply cannot accept any situation, no matter how secure or > lucrative, that forces me to submit my journalism and right of free expression to > its suffocating constraints and dogmatic dictates. > > From the time I began writing about politics in 2005, journalistic freedom and > editorial independence have been sacrosanct to me. Fifteen years ago, I created a > blog[3] on the free Blogspot software when I was still working as a lawyer: not with > any hopes or plans of starting a new career as a journalist, but just as a citizen > concerned about what I was seeing with the War on Terror and civil liberties, and > wanting to express what I believed needed to be heard. It was a labor of love, > based in an ethos of cause and conviction, dependent upon a guarantee of complete > editorial freedom. > > It thrived because the readership I built knew that, even when they disagreed with > particular views I was expressing, I was a free and independent voice, unwedded to > any faction, controlled by nobody, endeavoring to be as honest as possible about > what I was seeing, and always curious about the wisdom of seeing things > differently. The title I chose for that blog, ?Unclaimed Territory,? reflected > that spirit of liberation from captivity to any fixed political or intellectual > dogma or institutional constraints. > > When Salon offered me a job as a columnist in 2007, and then again when the > Guardian did the same in 2012, I accepted their offers on the condition that I > would have the right, except in narrowly defined situations (such as articles that > could create legal liability for the news outlet), to publish my articles and > columns directly to the internet without censorship, advanced editorial > interference, or any other intervention permitted or approval needed. Both outlets > revamped their publication system to accommodate this condition, and over the many > years I worked with them, they always honored those commitments. > > When I left the Guardian[4] at the height of the Snowden reporting in 2013 in order > to create a new media outlet, I did not do so, needless to say, in order to impose > upon myself more constraints and restrictions on my journalistic independence. The > exact opposite was true: the intended core innovation of The Intercept, above all > else, was to create a new media outlets where all talented, responsible > journalists would enjoy the same right of editorial freedom I had always insisted > upon for myself. As I told former New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller in a > 2013 exchange we had in The New York Times[5] about my critiques of mainstream > journalism and the idea behind The Intercept: ?editors should be there to empower > and enable strong, highly factual, aggressive adversarial journalism, not to serve > as roadblocks to neuter or suppress the journalism.? > > When the three of us as co-founders made the decision early on that we would not > attempt to manage the day-to-day operations of the new outlet, so that we could > instead focus on our journalism, we negotiated the right of approval for senior > editors and, especially the editor-in-chief. The central responsibility of the > person holding that title was to implement, in close consultation with us, the > unique journalistic vision and journalistic values on which we founded this new > media outlet. > > Chief among those values was editorial freedom, the protection of a journalist?s > right to speak in an honest voice, and the airing rather than suppression of > dissent from mainstream orthodoxies and even collegial disagreements with one > another. That would be accomplished, above all else, by ensuring that journalists, > once they fulfilled the first duty of factual accuracy and journalistic ethics, > would be not just permitted but encouraged to express political and ideological > views that deviated from mainstream orthodoxy and those of their own editors; to > express themselves in their own voice of passion and conviction rather stuffed > into the corporatized, contrived tone of artificial objectivity, above-it-all > omnipotence; and to be completely free of anyone else?s dogmatic beliefs or > ideological agenda ? including those of the three co-founders. > > The current iteration of The Intercept is completely unrecognizable when compared > to that original vision. Rather than offering a venue for airing dissent, > marginalized voices and unheard perspectives, it is rapidly becoming just another > media outlet with mandated ideological and partisan loyalties, a rigid and narrow > range of permitted viewpoints (ranging from establishment liberalism to soft > leftism, but always anchored in ultimate support for the Democratic Party), a deep > fear of offending hegemonic cultural liberalism and center-left Twitter > luminaries, and an overarching need to secure the approval and admiration of the > very mainstream media outlets we created The Intercept to oppose, critique and > subvert. > > As a result, it is a rare event indeed when a radical freelance voice unwelcome in > mainstream precincts is published in The Intercept. Outside reporters or writers > with no claim to mainstream acceptability ? exactly the people we set out to > amplify ? have almost no chance of being published. It is even rarer for The > Intercept to publish content that would not fit very comfortably in at least a > dozen or more center-left publications of similar size which pre-dated its > founding, from Mother Jones to Vox and even MSNBC. > > Courage is required to step out of line, to question and poke at those pieties > most sacred in one?s own milieu, but fear of alienating the guardians of liberal > orthodoxy, especially on Twitter, is the predominant attribute of The Intercept?s > New-York based editorial leadership team. As a result, The Intercept has all but > abandoned its core mission of challenging and poking at, rather than appeasing and > comforting, the institutions and guardians most powerful in its cultural and > political circles. > > Making all of this worse, The Intercept ? while gradually excluding the > co-founders from any role in its editorial mission or direction, and making one > choice after the next to which I vocally objected as a betrayal of our core > mission ? continued publicly to trade on my name in order to raise funds for > journalism it knew I did not support. It purposely allowed the perception to > fester that I was the person responsible for its journalistic mistakes in order to > ensure that blame for those mistakes was heaped on me rather than the editors who > were consolidating control and were responsible for them. > > The most egregious, but by no means only, example of exploiting my name to evade > responsibility was the Reality Winner debacle. As The New York Times recently > reported[6], that was a story in which I had no involvement whatsoever. While based > in Brazil, I was never asked to work on the documents which Winner sent to our New > York newsroom with no request that any specific journalist work on them. I did not > even learn of the existence of that document until very shortly prior to its > publication. The person who oversaw, edited and controlled that story was Betsy > Reed, which was how it should be given the magnitude and complexity of that > reporting and her position as editor-in-chief. > > It was Intercept editors who pressured the story?s reporters to quickly send those > documents for authentication to the government ? because they was eager to prove > to mainstream media outlets and prominent liberals that The Intercept was willing > to get on board the Russiagate train. They wanted to counter-act the perception, > created by my articles expressing skepticism about the central claims of that > scandal, that The Intercept had stepped out of line on a story of high importance > to U.S. liberalism and even the left. That craving ? to secure the approval of the > very mainstream media outlets we set out to counteract ? was the root cause for > the speed and recklessness with which that document from Winner was handled. > > But The Intercept, to this very day, has refused to provide any public accounting > of what happened in the Reality Winner story: to explain who the editors were who > made mistakes and why any of it happened. As the New York Times article makes > clear, that refusal persists to this very day notwithstanding vocal demands from > myself, Scahill, Laura Poitras and others that The Intercept, as an institution > that demands transparency from others, has the obligation to provide it for > itself. > > The reason for this silence and this cover-up is obvious: accounting to the public > about what happened with the Reality Winner story would reveal who the actual > editors are who are responsible for that deeply embarrassing newsroom failure, and > that would negate their ability to continue to hide behind me and let the public > continue to assume that I was the person at fault for a reporting process from > which I was completely excluded from the start. That is just one example > illustrating the frustrating dilemma of having a newsroom exploit my name, work > and credibility when it is convenient to do so, while increasingly denying me any > opportunity to influence its journalistic mission and editorial direction, all > while pursuing an editorial mission completely anathema to what I believe. > > Despite all of this, I did not want to leave The Intercept. As it deteriorated and > abandoned its original mission, I reasoned to myself ? perhaps rationalized ? that > as long as The Intercept at least continued to provide me the resources to > personally do the journalism I believe in, and never to interfere in or impede my > editorial freedom, I could swallow everything else. > > But the brute censorship this week of my article ? about the Hunter Biden > materials and Joe Biden?s conduct regarding Ukraine and China, as well my critique > of the media?s rank-closing attempt, in a deeply unholy union with Silicon Valley > and the ?intelligence community,? to suppress its revelations ? eroded the last > justification I could cling to for staying. It meant that not only does this media > outlet not provide the editorial freedom to other journalists, as I had so > hopefully envisioned seven years ago, but now no longer even provides it to me. In > the days heading into a presidential election, I am somehow silenced from > expressing any views that random editors in New York find disagreeable, and now > somehow have to conform my writing and reporting to cater to their partisan > desires and eagerness to elect specific candidates. > > To say that such censorship is a red line for me, a situation I would never accept > no matter the cost, is an understatement. It is astonishing to me, but also a > reflection of our current discourse and illiberal media environment, that I have > been silenced about Joe Biden by my own media outlet. > > Numerous other episodes were also contributing causes to my decision to leave: the > Reality Winner cover-up; the decision to hang Lee Fang out to dry and even force > him to apologize when a colleague tried to destroy his reputation by publicly, > baselessly and repeatedly branding him a racist; its refusal to report on the > daily proceedings of the Assange extradition hearing because the freelance > reporter doing an outstanding job was politically distasteful; its utter lack of > editorial standards when it comes to viewpoints or reporting that flatter the > beliefs of its liberal base (The Intercept published some of the most credulous > and false affirmations of maximalist Russiagate madness, and, horrifyingly, took > the lead in falsely branding the Hunter Biden archive as ?Russian disinformation? > by mindlessly and uncritically citing ? of all things ? a letter by former CIA > officials that contained this baseless insinuation). > > I know it sounds banal to say, but ? even with all of these frustrations and > failures ? I am leaving, and writing this, with genuine sadness, not fury. That > news outlet is something I and numerous close friends and colleagues poured an > enormous amount of our time, energy, passion and love into building. > > The Intercept has done great work. Its editorial leaders and First Look?s managers > steadfastly supported the difficult and dangerous reporting[7] I did last year with > my brave young colleagues at The Intercept Brasil to expose corruption at the > highest levels of the Bolsonaro government, and stood behind us as we endured > threats of death and imprisonment[8]. > > It continues to employ some of my closest friends, outstanding journalists whose > work ? when it overcomes editorial resistance ? produces nothing but the highest > admiration from me: Jeremy Scahill, Lee Fang, Murtaza Hussain, Naomi Klein, Ryan > Grim and others. And I have no personal animus for anyone there, nor any desire to > hurt it as an institution. Betsy Reed is an exceptionally smart editor and a very > good human being with whom I developed a close and valuable friendship. And Pierre > Omidyar, the original funder and publisher of First Look, always honored his > personal commitment never to interfere in our editorial process even when I was > publishing articles directly at odds with his strongly held views and even when I > was attacking other institutions he was funding. I?m not leaving out of vengeance > or personal conflict but out of conviction and cause. > > And none of the critiques I have voiced about The Intercept are unique to it. To > the contrary: these are the raging battles over free expression and the right of > dissent raging within every major cultural, political and journalistic > institution. That?s the crisis that journalism, and more broadly values of > liberalism, faces. Our discourse is becoming increasingly intolerant of dissenting > views, and our culture is demanding more and more submission to prevailing > orthodoxies imposed by self-anointed monopolists of Truth and Righteousness, > backed up by armies of online enforcement mobs. > > And nothing is crippled by that trend more severely than journalism, which, above > all else, requires the ability of journalists to offend and anger power centers, > question or reject sacred pieties, unearth facts that reflect negatively even on > (especially on) the most beloved and powerful figures, and highlight corruption no > matter where it is found and regardless of who is benefited or injured by its > exposure. > > Prior to the extraordinary experience of being censored this week by my own news > outlet, I had already been exploring the possibility of creating a new media > outlet. I have spent a couple of months in active discussions with some of the > most interesting, independent and vibrant journalists, writers and commentators > across the political spectrum about the feasibility of securing financing for a > new outlet that would be designed to combat these trends. The first two paragraphs > of our working document reads as follows: > > American media is gripped in a polarized culture war that is forcing journalism to > conform to tribal, groupthink narratives that are often divorced from the truth > and cater to perspectives that are not reflective of the broader public but > instead a minority of hyper-partisan elites. The need to conform to highly > restrictive, artificial cultural narratives and partisan identities has created a > repressive and illiberal environment in which vast swaths of news and reporting > either do not happen or are presented through the most skewed and reality-detached > lens. > > With nearly all major media institutions captured to some degree by this dynamic, > a deep need exists for media that is untethered and free to transgress the > boundaries of this polarized culture war and address a demand from a public that > is starved for media that doesn?t play for a side but instead pursues lines of > reporting, thought, and inquiry wherever they lead, without fear of violating > cultural pieties or elite orthodoxies. > > I have definitely not relinquished hope that this ambitious project can be > accomplished. And I theoretically could have stayed at The Intercept until then, > guaranteeing a stable and secure income for my family by swallowing the dictates > of my new censors. > > But I would be deeply ashamed if I did that, and believe I would be betraying my > own principles and convictions that I urge others to follow. So in the meantime, I > have decided to follow in the footsteps of numerous other writers and journalists > who have been expelled from increasingly repressive journalistic precincts for > various forms of heresy and dissent and who have sought refuge here. > > I hope to exploit the freedom this new platform offers not only to continue to > publish the independent and hard-hitting investigative journalism and candid > analysis and opinion writing that my readers have come to expect, but also to > develop a podcast, and continue the YouTube program, ?System Update,? I launched > earlier this year in partnership with The Intercept. > > To do that, to make this viable, I will need your support: people who are able to > subscribe and sign up for the newsletter attached to this platform will enable my > work to thrive and still be heard, perhaps even more so than before. I began my > journalism career by depending on my readers? willingness to support independent > journalism which they believe is necessary to sustain. It is somewhat daunting at > this point in my life, but also very exciting, to return to that model where one > answers only to the public a journalist should be serving. > > * * * * * * * * > > LETTER OF INTENT TO RESIGN > > -------- Forwarded Message -------- > > Subject: ResignationDate: Thu, 29 Oct 2020 10:20:54 -0300From: Glenn Greenwald > To: Michael Bloom , Betsy > Reed > > Michael - > > I am writing to advise you that I have decided that I will be resigning from First > Look Media (FLM) and The Intercept. > > The precipitating (but by no means only) cause is that The Intercept is attempting > to censor my articles in violation of both my contract and fundamental principles > of editorial freedom. The latest and perhaps most egregious example is an opinion > column I wrote this week which, five days before the presidential election, is > critical of Joe Biden, the candidate who happens to be vigorously supported by all > of the Intercept editors in New York who are imposing the censorship and refusing > to publish the article unless I agree to remove all of the sections critical of > the candidate they want to win. All of that violates the right in my contract with > FLM to publish articles without editorial interference except in very narrow > circumstances that plainly do not apply here. > > Worse, The Intercept editors in New York, not content to censor publication of my > article at the Intercept, are also demanding that I not exercise my separate > contractual right with FLM regarding articles I have written but which FLM does > not want to publish itself. Under my contract, I have the right to publish any > articles FLM rejects with another publication. But Intercept editors in New York > are demanding I not only accept their censorship of my article at The Intercept, > but also refrain from publishing it with any other journalistic outlet, and are > using thinly disguised lawyer-crafted threats to coerce me not to do so > (proclaiming it would be ?detrimental? to The Intercept if I published it > elsewhere). > > I have been extremely disenchanted and saddened by the editorial direction of The > Intercept under its New York leadership for quite some time. The publication we > founded without those editors back in 2014 now bears absolutely no resemblance to > what we set out to build -- not in content, structure, editorial mission or > purpose. I have grown embarrassed to have my name used as a fund-raising tool to > support what it is doing and for editors to use me as a shield to hide behind to > avoid taking responsibility for their mistakes (including, but not only, with the > Reality Winner debacle, for which I was publicly blamed despite having no role in > it, while the editors who actually were responsible for those mistakes stood by > silently, allowing me to be blamed for their errors and then covering-up any > public accounting of what happened, knowing that such transparency would expose > their own culpability). > > But all this time, as things worsened, I reasoned that as long as The Intercept > remained a place where my own right of journalistic independence was not being > infringed, I could live with all of its other flaws. But now, not even that > minimal but foundational right is being honored for my own journalism, suppressed > by an increasingly authoritarian, fear-driven, repressive editorial team in New > York bent on imposing their own ideological and partisan preferences on all > writers while ensuring that nothing is published at The Intercept that contradicts > their own narrow, homogenous ideological and partisan views: exactly what The > Intercept, more than any other goal, was created to prevent. > > I have asked my lawyer to get in touch with FLM to discuss how best to terminate > my contract. Thank you - > > Glenn Greenwald [1] https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-biden-censored [2] https://greenwald.substack.com/p/emails-with-intercept-editors-showing [3] http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/ [4] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-24545344 [5] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/opinion/a-conversation-in-lieu-of-a-column.html [6] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/13/business/media/the-intercept-source-reality-winner.html [7] https://apnews.com/0e998ebedbd64f6d868a3fa570ed1f6c [8] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/world/americas/greenwald-charges-dropped-brazil.html From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Fri Oct 30 19:43:49 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2020 14:43:49 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] censored article at the INTERCEPT news magazine that caused Glenn Greenwald to resign. Message-ID: <002401d6aef5$07744810$165cd830$@comcast.net> Here is the censored article at the INTERCEPT news magazine that caused Glenn Greenwald to resign. Article on Joe and Hunter Biden Censored By The Intercept An attempt to assess the importance of the known evidence, and a critique of media lies to protect their favored candidate, could not be published at The Intercept I am posting here the most recent draft of my article about Joe and Hunter Biden ? the last one seen by Intercept editors before telling me that they refuse to publish it absent major structural changes involving the removal of all sections critical of Joe Biden, leaving only a narrow article critiquing media outlets. I will also, in a separate post, publish all communications I had with Intercept editors surrounding this article so you can see the censorship in action and, given the Intercept?s denials, decide for yourselves (this is the kind of transparency responsible journalists provide, and which the Intercept refuses to this day to provide regarding their conduct in the Reality Winner story). This draft obviously would have gone through one more round of proof-reading and editing by me ? to shorten it, fix typos, etc ? but it?s important for the integrity of the claims to publish the draft in unchanged form that Intercept editors last saw, and announced that they would not ?edit? but completely gut as a condition to publication: TITLE: THE REAL SCANDAL: U.S. MEDIA USES FALSEHOODS TO DEFEND JOE BIDEN FROM HUNTER?S EMAILS Publication by the New York Post two weeks ago of emails from Hunter Biden's laptop, relating to Vice President Joe Biden's work in Ukraine, and subsequent articles from other outlets concerning the Biden family's pursuit of business opportunities in China, provoked extraordinary efforts by a de facto union of media outlets, Silicon Valley giants and the intelligence community to suppress these stories. One outcome is that the Biden campaign concluded, rationally, that there is no need for the front-running presidential candidate to address even the most basic and relevant questions raised by these materials. Rather than condemn Biden for ignoring these questions -- the natural instinct of a healthy press when it comes to a presidential election -- journalists have instead led the way in concocting excuses to justify his silence. After the Post?s first article, both that newspaper and other news outlets have published numerous other emails and texts purportedly written to and from Hunter reflecting his efforts to induce his father to take actions as Vice President beneficial to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, on whose board of directors Hunter sat for a monthly payment of $50,000, as well as proposals for lucrative business deals in China that traded on his influence with his father. Individuals included in some of the email chains have confirmed the contents' authenticity. One of Hunter?s former business partners, Tony Bubolinski, has stepped forward on the record to confirm the authenticity of many of the emails and to insist that Hunter along with Joe Biden's brother Jim were planning on including the former Vice President in at least one deal in China. And GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who appeared in one of the published email chains, appeared to confirm the authenticity as well, though he refused to answer follow-up questions about it. Thus far, no proof has been offered by Bubolinski that Biden ever consummated his participation in any of those discussed deals. The Wall Street Journal says that it found no corporate records reflecting that a deal was finalized and that "text messages and emails related to the venture that were provided to the Journal by Mr. Bobulinski, mainly from the spring and summer of 2017, don?t show either Hunter Biden or James Biden discussing a role for Joe Biden in the venture." But nobody claimed that any such deals had been consummated -- so the conclusion that one had not been does not negate the story. Moreover, some texts and emails whose authenticity has not been disputed state that Hunter was adamant that any discussions about the involvement of the Vice President be held only verbally and never put in writing. Beyond that, the Journal's columnist Kimberly Strassel reviewed a stash of documents and "found correspondence corroborates and expands on emails recently published by the New York Post," including ones where Hunter was insisting that it was his connection to his father that was the greatest asset sought by the Chinese conglomerate with whom they were negotiating. The New York Times on Sunday reached a similar conclusion: while no documents prove that such a deal was consummated, "records produced by Mr. Bobulinski show that in 2017, Hunter Biden and James Biden were involved in negotiations about a joint venture with a Chinese energy and finance company called CEFC China Energy," and "make clear that Hunter Biden saw the family name as a valuable asset, angrily citing his 'family?s brand' as a reason he is valuable to the proposed venture." These documents also demonstrate, reported the Times, "that the countries that Hunter Biden, James Biden and their associates planned to target for deals overlapped with nations where Joe Biden had previously been involved as vice president." Strassel noted that "a May 2017 'expectations' document shows Hunter receiving 20% of the equity in the venture and holding another 10% for 'the big guy'?who Mr. Bobulinski attests is Joe Biden." And the independent journalist Matt Taibbi published an article on Sunday with ample documentation suggesting that Biden's attempt to replace a Ukranian prosecutor in 2015 benefited Burisma. All of these new materials, the authenticity of which has never been disputed by Hunter Biden or the Biden campaign, raise important questions about whether the former Vice President and current front-running presidential candidate was aware of efforts by his son to peddle influence with the Vice President for profit, and also whether the Vice President ever took actions in his official capacity with the intention, at least in part, of benefitting his son's business associates. But in the two weeks since the Post published its initial story, a union of the nation's most powerful entities, including its news media, have taken extraordinary steps to obscure and bury these questions rather than try to provide answers to them. The initial documents, claimed the New York Post, were obtained when the laptops containing them were left at a Delaware repair shop with water damage and never picked up, allowing the owner to access its contents and then turn them over to both the FBI and a lawyer for Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani. The repair store owner confirmed this narrative in interviews with news outlets and then (under penalty of prosecution) to a Senate Committee; he also provided the receipt purportedly signed by Hunter. Neither Hunter nor the Biden campaign has denied these claims. Publication of that initial New York Post story provoked a highly unusual censorship campaign by Facebook and Twitter. Facebook, through a long-time former Democratic Party operative, vowed to suppress the story pending its ?fact-check,? one that has as of yet produced no public conclusions. And while Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey apologized for Twitter?s handling of the censorship and reversed the policy that led to the blocking of all links the story, the New York Post, the nation?s fourth-largest newspaper, continues to be locked out of its Twitter account, unable to post as the election approaches, for almost two weeks. After that initial censorship burst from Silicon Valley, whose workforce and oligarchs have donated almost entirely to the Biden campaign, it was the nation's media outlets and former CIA and other intelligence officials who took the lead in constructing reasons why the story should be dismissed, or at least treated with scorn. As usual for the Trump era, the theme that took center stage to accomplish this goal was an unsubstantiated claim about the Kremlin responsibility for the story. Numerous news outlets, including the Intercept, quickly cited a public letter signed by former CIA officials and other agents of the security state claiming that the documents have the ?classic trademarks" of a ?Russian disinformation? plot. But, as media outlets and even intelligence agencies are now slowly admitting, no evidence has ever been presented to corroborate this assertion. On Friday, the New York Times reported that ?no concrete evidence has emerged that the laptop contains Russian disinformation? and the paper said even the FBI has ?acknowledged that it had not found any Russian disinformation on the laptop.? The Washington Post on Sunday published an op-ed -- by Thomas Rid, one of those centrists establishmentarian professors whom media outlets routinely use to provide the facade of expert approval for deranged conspiracy theories -- that contained this extraordinary proclamation: "We must treat the Hunter Biden leaks as if they were a foreign intelligence operation ? even if they probably aren't." https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcd27e905-5642-4021-a5e4-3f0903eed77d_685x236.png Even the letter from the former intelligence officials cited by The Intercept and other outlets to insinuate that this was all part of some ?Russian disinformation? scheme explicitly admitted that ?we do not have evidence of Russian involvement,? though many media outlets omitted that crucial acknowledgement when citing the letter in order to disparage the story as a Kremlin plot: https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd86880c8-9a11-40d7-b48d-718fade260a4_1320x309.jpeg Despite this complete lack of evidence, the Biden campaign adopted this phrase used by intelligence officials and media outlets as its mantra for why the materials should not be discussed and why they would not answer basic questions about them. ?I think we need to be very, very clear that what he's doing here is amplifying Russian misinformation," said Biden Deputy Campaign Manager Kate Bedingfield about the possibility that Trump would raise the Biden emails at Thursday night?s debate. Biden?s senior advisor Symone Sanders similarly warned on MSNBC: ?if the president decides to amplify these latest smears against the vice president and his only living son, that is Russian disinformation." The few mainstream journalists who tried merely to discuss these materials have been vilified. For the crime of simply noting it on Twitter that first day, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman had her name trend all morning along with the derogatory nickname ?MAGA Haberman.? CBS News? Bo Erickson was widely attacked even by his some in the media simply for asking Biden what his response to the story was. And Biden himself refused to answer, accusing Erickson of spreading a "smear." That it is irresponsible and even unethical to mention these documents became a pervasive view in mainstream journalism. The NPR Public Editor, in an anazing statement representative of much of the prevailing media mentality, explicitly justified NPR?s refusal to cover the story on the ground that ?we do not want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories . . . [or] waste the readers? and listeners? time on stories that are just pure distractions.? https://cdn.substack.com/image/twitter_name/w_36/NPRpubliceditor.jpgNPR Public Editor @NPRpubliceditor Why haven't you seen any stories from NPR about the NY Post's Hunter Biden story? Read more in this week's newsletter?? tinyurl.com/y67vlzj2 https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.substack.com%2Fmedia%2FEk75yADW0AE6kaT.jpg October 22nd 2020 7,781 Retweets20,498 Likes To justify her own show?s failure to cover the story, 60 Minutes? Leslie Stahl resorted to an entirely different justification. ?It can?t be verified,? the CBS reporter claimed when confronted by President Trump in an interview about her program?s failure to cover the Hunter Biden documents. When Trump insisted there were multiple ways to verify the materials on the laptop, Stahl simply repeated the same phrase: ?it can?t be verified.? After the final presidential debate on Thursday night, a CNN panel mocked the story as too complex and obscure for anyone to follow -- a self-fulfilling prophecy given that, as the network's media reporter Brian Stelter noted with pride, the story has barely been mentioned either on CNN or MSNBC. As the New York Times noted on Friday: "most viewers of CNN and MSNBC would not have heard much about the unconfirmed Hunter Biden emails.... CNN?s mentions of ?Hunter? peaked at 20 seconds and MSNBC?s at 24 seconds one day last week." On Sunday, CNN's Christiane Amanpour barely pretended to be interested in any journalism surrounding the story, scoffing during an interview at requests from the RNC's Elizabeth Harrington to cover the story and verify the documents by telling her: "We're not going to do your work for you." Watch how the U.S.'s most mainstream journalists are openly announcing their refusal to even consider what these documents might reflect about the Democratic front-runner: These journalists are desperate not to know. As Taibbi wrote on Sunday about this tawdry press spectacle: " The least curious people in the country right now appear to be the credentialed news media, a situation normally unique to tinpot authoritarian societies." All of those excuses and pretexts ? emanating largely from a national media that is all but explicit in their eagerness for Biden to win ? served for the first week or more after the Post story to create a cone of silence around this story and, to this very day, a protective shield for Biden. As a result, the front-running presidential candidate knows that he does not have to answer even the most basic questions about these documents because most of the national press has already signaled that they will not press him to do so; to the contrary, they will concoct defenses on his behalf to avoid discussing it. The relevant questions for Biden raised by this new reporting are as glaring as they are important. Yet Biden has had to answer very few of them yet because he has not been asked and, when he has, media outlets have justified his refusal to answer rather than demand that he do so. We submitted nine questions to his campaign about these documents that the public has the absolute right to know, including: * whether he claims any the emails or texts are fabricated (and, if so, which specific ones); * whether he knows if Hunter did indeed drop off laptops at the Delaware repair store; * whether Hunter ever asked him to meet with Burisma executives or whether he in fact did so; * whether Biden ever knew about business proposals in Ukraine or China being pursued by his son and brother in which Biden was a proposed participant and, * how Biden could justify expending so much energy as Vice President demanding that the Ukrainian General Prosecutor be fired, and why the replacement ? Yuriy Lutsenko, someone who had no experience in law; was a crony of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko; and himself had a history of corruption allegations ? was acceptable if Biden?s goal really was to fight corruption in Ukraine rather than benefit Burisma or control Ukrainian internal affairs for some other objective. https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F62dd204d-2223-424d-9465-c306e7c03507_720x555.png Though the Biden campaign indicated that they would respond to the Intercept?s questions, they have not done so. A statement they released to other outlets contains no answers to any of these questions except to claim that Biden ?has never even considered being involved in business with his family, nor in any business overseas.? To date, even as the Biden campaign echoes the baseless claims of media outlets that anyone discussing this story is ?amplifying Russian disinformation,? neither Hunter Biden nor the Biden campaign have even said whether they claim the emails and other documents -- which they and the press continue to label "Russian disinformation" -- are forgeries or whether they are authentic. The Biden campaign clearly believes it has no need to answer any of these questions by virtue of a panoply of media excuses offered on its behalf that collapse upon the most minimal scrutiny: First, the claim that the material is of suspect authenticity or cannot be verified -- the excuse used on behalf of Biden by Leslie Stahl and Christiane Amanpour, among others -- is blatantly false for numerous reasons. As someone who has reported similar large archives in partnership with numerous media outlets around the world (including the Snowden archive in 2014 and the Intercept?s Brazil Archive over the last year showing corruption by high-level Bolsonaro officials), and who also covered the reporting of similar archives by other outlets (the Panama Papers, the WikiLeaks war logs of 2010 and DNC/Podesta emails of 2016), it is clear to me that the trove of documents from Hunter Biden?s emails has been verified in ways quite similar to those. With an archive of this size, one can never independently authenticate every word in every last document unless the subject of the reporting voluntarily confirms it in advance, which they rarely do. What has been done with similar archives is journalists obtain enough verification to create high levels of journalistic confidence in the materials. Some of the materials provided by the source can be independently confirmed, proving genuine access by the source to a hard drive, a telephone, or a database. Other parties in email chains can confirm the authenticity of the email or text conversations in which they participated. One investigates non-public facts contained in the documents to determine that they conform to what the documents reflect. Technology specialists can examine the materials to ensure no signs of forgeries are detected. This is the process that enabled the largest and most established media outlets around the world to report similar large archives obtained without authorization. In those other cases, no media outlet was able to verify every word of every document prior to publication. There was no way to prove the negative that the source or someone else had not altered or forged some of the material. That level of verification is both unattainable and unnecessary. What is needed is substantial evidence to create high confidence in the authentication process. The Hunter Biden documents have at least as much verification as those other archives that were widely reported. There are sources in the email chains who have verified that the published emails are accurate. The archive contains private photos and videos of Hunter whose authenticity is not in doubt. A former business partner of Hunter has stated, unequivocally and on the record, that not only are the emails authentic but they describe events accurately, including proposed participation by the former Vice President in at least one deal Hunter and Jim Biden were pursuing in China. And, most importantly of all, neither Hunter Biden nor the Biden campaign has even suggested, let alone claimed, that a single email or text is fake. Why is the failure of the Bidens to claim that these emails are forged so significant? Because when journalists report on a massive archive, they know that the most important event in the reporting's authentication process comes when the subjects of the reporting have an opportunity to deny that the materials are genuine. Of course that is what someone would do if major media outlets were preparing to publish, or in fact were publishing, fabricated or forged materials in their names; they would say so in order to sow doubt about the materials if not kill the credibility of the reporting. The silence of the Bidens may not be dispositive on the question of the material?s authenticity, but when added to the mountain of other authentication evidence, it is quite convincing: at least equal to the authentication evidence in other reporting on similarly large archives. Second, the oft-repeated claim from news outlets and CIA operatives that the published emails and texts were ?Russian disinformation? was, from the start, obviously baseless and reckless. No evidence ? literally none ? has been presented to suggest involvement by any Russians in the dissemination of these materials, let alone that it was part of some official plot by Moscow. As always, anything is possible ? when one does not know for certain what the provenance of materials is, nothing can be ruled out ? but in journalism, evidence is required before news outlets can validly start blaming some foreign government for the release of information. And none has ever been presented. Yet the claim that this was "Russian disinformation" was published in countless news outlets, television broadcasts, and the social media accounts of journalists, typically by pointing to the evidence-free claims of ex-CIA officials. Worse is the ?disinformation? part of the media?s equation. How can these materials constitute ?disinformation? if they are authentic emails and texts actually sent to and from Hunter Biden? The ease with which news outlets that are supposed to be skeptical of evidence-free pronouncements by the intelligence community instead printed their assertions about "Russian disinformation" is alarming in the extreme. But they did it because they instinctively wanted to find a reason to justify ignoring the contents of these emails, so claiming that Russia was behind it, and that the materials were "disinformation," became their placeholder until they could figure out what else they should say to justify ignoring these documents. Third, the media rush to exonerate Biden on the question of whether he engaged in corruption vis-a-vis Ukraine and Burisma rested on what are, at best, factually dubious defenses of the former Vice President. Much of this controversy centers on Biden's aggressive efforts while Vice President in late 2015 to force the Ukrainian government to fire its Chief Prosecutor, Viktor Shokhin, and replace him with someone acceptable to the U.S., which turned out to be Yuriy Lutsenko. These events are undisputed by virtue of a video of Biden boasting in front of an audience of how he flew to Kiev and forced the Ukrainians to fire Shokhin, upon pain of losing $1 billion in aid. But two towering questions have long been prompted by these events, and the recently published emails make them more urgent than ever: 1) was the firing of the Ukrainian General Prosecutor such a high priority for Biden as Vice President of the U.S. because of his son's highly lucrative role on the board of Burisma, and 2) if that was not the motive, why was it so important for Biden to dictate who the chief prosecutor of Ukraine was? The standard answer to the question about Biden's motive -- offered both by Biden and his media defenders -- is that he, along with the IMF and EU, wanted Shokhin fired because the U.S. and its allies were eager to clean up Ukraine, and they viewed Shokhin as insufficiently vigilant in fighting corruption. ?Biden?s brief was to sweet-talk and jawbone Poroshenko into making reforms that Ukraine?s Western benefactors wanted to see as,? wrote the Washington Post?s Glenn Kessler in what the Post calls a ?fact-check.? Kessler also endorsed the key defense of Biden: that the firing of Shokhin was bad for Burima, not good for it. ?The United States viewed [Shokhin] as ineffective and beholden to Poroshenko and Ukraine?s corrupt oligarchs. In particular, Shokin had failed to pursue an investigation of the founder of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky,? Kessler claims. But that claim does not even pass the laugh test. The U.S. and its European allies are not opposed to corruption by their puppet regimes. They are allies with the most corrupt regimes on the planet, from Riyadh to Cairo, and always have been. Since when does the U.S. devote itself to ensuring good government in the nations it is trying to control? If anything, allowing corruption to flourish has been a key tool in enabling the U.S. to exert power in other countries and to open up their markets to U.S. companies. Beyond that, if increasing prosecutorial independence and strengthening anti-corruption vigilance were really Biden's goal in working to demand the firing of the Ukrainian chief prosecutor, why would the successor to Shokhin, Yuriy Lutsenko, possibly be acceptable? Lutsenko, after all, had "no legal background as general prosecutor," was principally known only as a lackey of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, was forced in 2009 to "resign as interior minister after being detained by police at Frankfurt airport for being drunk and disorderly," and "was subsequently jailed for embezzlement and abuse of office, though his defenders said the sentence was politically motivated." https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff79bb0ce-de1e-4581-871a-a1a6b5062e7b_761x622.png Is it remotely convincing to you that Biden would have accepted someone like Lutsenko if his motive really were to fortify anti-corruption prosecutions in Ukraine? Yet that's exactly what Biden did: he personally told Poroshenko that Lutsenko was an acceptable alternative and promptly released the $1 billion after his appointment was announced. Whatever Biden's motive was in using his power as U.S. Vice President to change the prosecutor in Ukraine, his acceptance of someone like Lutsenko strongly suggests that combatting Ukrainian corruption was not it. As for the other claim on which Biden and his media allies have heavily relied ? that firing Shokhin was not a favor for Burisma because Shokhin was not pursuing any investigations against Burisma ? the evidence does not justify that assertion. It is true that no evidence, including these new emails, constitute proof that Biden's motive in demanding Shokhin's termination was to benefit Burisma. But nothing demonstrates that Shokhin was impeding investigations into Burisma. Indeed, the New York Times in 2019 published one of the most comprehensive investigations to date of the claims made in defense of Biden when it comes to Ukraine and the firing of this prosecutor, and, while noting that "no evidence has surfaced that the former vice president intentionally tried to help his son by pressing for the prosecutor general?s dismissal," this is what its reporters concluded about Shokhin and Burisma: [Biden's] pressure campaign eventually worked. The prosecutor general, long a target of criticism from other Western nations and international lenders, was voted out months later by the Ukrainian Parliament. Among those who had a stake in the outcome was Hunter Biden, Mr. Biden?s younger son, who at the time was on the board of an energy company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch who had been in the sights of the fired prosecutor general. The Times added: "Mr. Shokhin?s office had oversight of investigations into [Burisma's billionaire founder] Zlochevsky and his businesses, including Burisma." By contrast, they said, Lutsenko, the replacement approved by Vice President Biden, "initially continued investigating Mr. Zlochevsky and Burisma, but cleared him of all charges within 10 months of taking office." So whether or not it was Biden's intention to confer benefits on Burisma by demanding Shokhin's firing, it ended up quite favorable for Burisma given that the utterly inexperienced Lutesenko "cleared [Burisma's founder] of all charges within 10 months of taking office." The new comprehensive report from journalist Taibbi on Sunday also strongly supports the view that there were clear antagonisms between Shokhin and Burisma, such that firing the Ukrainian prosecutor would have been beneficial for Burisma. Taibbi, who reported for many years while based in Russia and remains very well-sourced in the region, detailed: For all the negative press about Shokhin, there?s no doubt that there were multiple active cases involving Zlochevsky/Burisma during his short tenure. This was even once admitted by American reporters, before it became taboo to describe such cases untethered to words like ?dormant.? Here?s how Ken Vogel at the New York Times put it in May of 2019: "When Mr. Shokhin became prosecutor general in February 2015, he inherited several investigations into the company and Mr. Zlochevsky, including for suspicion of tax evasion and money laundering. Mr. Shokin also opened an investigation into the granting of lucrative gas licenses to companies owned by Mr. Zlochevsky when he was the head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources." Ukrainian officials I reached this week confirmed that multiple cases were active during that time. ?There were different numbers, but from 7 to 14,? says Serhii Horbatiuk, former head of the special investigations department for the Prosecutor General?s Office, when asked how many Burisma cases there were. ?There may have been two to three episodes combined, and some have already been closed, so I don't know the exact amount." But, Horbatiuk insists, there were many cases, most of them technically started under Yarema, but at least active under Shokin. The numbers quoted by Horbatiuk gibe with those offered by more recent General Prosecutor Rulsan Ryaboshapka, who last year said there were at one time or another ? 13 or 14? cases in existence involving Burisma or Zlochevsky. Taibbi reviews real-time reporting in both Ukraine and the U.S. to document several other pending investigations against Burisma and Zlochevsky that was overseen by the prosecutor whose firing Biden demanded. He notes that Shokhin himself has repeatedly said he was pursuing several investigations against Zlochevsky at the time Biden demanded his firing. In sum, Taibbi concludes, "one can?t say there?s no evidence of active Burisma cases even during the last days of Shokin, who says that it was the February, 2016 seizure order [against Zlochevsky's assets] that got him fired." And, Taibbi notes, "the story looks even odder when one wonders why the United States would exercise so much foreign policy muscle to get Shokin fired, only to allow in a replacement ? Yuri Lutsenko ? who by all accounts was a spectacularly bigger failure in the battle against corruption in general, and Zlochevsky in particular." In sum: "it?s unquestionable that the cases against Burisma were all closed by Shokin?s successor, chosen in consultation with Joe Biden, whose son remained on the board of said company for three more years, earning upwards of $50,000 per month." The publicly known facts, augmented by the recent emails, texts and on-the-record accounts, suggest serious sleaze by Joe Biden?s son Hunter in trying to peddle his influence with the Vice President for profit. But they also raise real questions about whether Joe Biden knew about and even himself engaged in a form of legalized corruption. Specifically, these newly revealed information suggest Biden was using his power to benefit his son?s business Ukrainian associates, and allowing his name to be traded on while Vice President for his son and brother to pursue business opportunities in China. These are questions which a minimally healthy press would want answered, not buried ? regardless of how many similar or worse scandals the Trump family has. But the real scandal that has been proven is not the former Vice President?s misconduct but that of his supporters and allies in the U.S. media. As Taibbi?s headline put it: ?With the Hunter Biden Expos?, Suppression is a Bigger Scandal Than the Actual Story.? https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F491cff4b-43e7-4aca-8477-e9b5c74d2252_681x613.png The reality is the U.S. press has been planning for this moment for four years ? cooking up justifications for refusing to report on newsworthy material that might help Donald Trump get re-elected. One major factor is the undeniable truth that journalists with national outlets based in New York, Washington and West Coast cities overwhelmingly not just favor Joe Biden but are desperate to see Donald Trump defeated. It takes an enormous amount of gullibility to believe that any humans are capable of separating such an intense partisan preference from their journalistic judgment. Many barely even bother to pretend: critiques of Joe Biden are often attacked first not by Biden campaign operatives but by political reporters at national news outlets who make little secret of their eagerness to help Biden win. But much of this has to do with the fallout from the 2016 election. During that campaign, news outlets, including The Intercept, did their jobs as journalists by reporting on the contents of newsworthy, authentic documents: namely, the emails published by WikiLeaks from the John Podesta and DNC inboxes which, among other things, revealed corruption so severe that it forced the resignation of the top five officials of the DNC. That the materials were hacked, and that intelligence agencies were suggesting Russia was responsible, not negate the newsworthiness of the documents, which is why media outlets across the country repeatedly reported on their contents. Nonetheless, journalists have spent four years being attacked as Trump enablers in their overwhelmingly Democratic and liberal cultural circles: the cities in which they live are overwhelmingly Democratic, and their demographic ? large-city, college-educated professionals ? has vanishingly little Trump support. A New York Times survey of campaign data from Monday tells just a part of this story of cultural insularity and homogeniety: Joe Biden has outraised President Trump on the strength of some of the wealthiest and most educated ZIP codes in the United States, running up the fund-raising score in cities and suburbs so resoundingly that he collected more money than Mr. Trump on all but two days in the last two months....It is not just that much of Mr. Biden?s strongest support comes overwhelmingly from the two coasts, which it does.... [U]nder Mr. Trump, Republicans have hemorrhaged support from white voters with college degrees. In ZIP codes with a median household income of at least $100,000, Mr. Biden smashed Mr. Trump in fund-raising, $486 million to only $167 million ? accounting for almost his entire financial edge....One Upper West Side ZIP code ? 10024 ? accounted for more than $8 million for Mr. Biden, and New York City in total delivered $85.6 million for him ? more than he raised in every state other than California.... The median household in the United States was $68,703 in 2019. In ZIP codes above that level, Mr. Biden outraised Mr. Trump by $389.1 million. Below that level, Mr. Trump was actually ahead by $53.4 million. Wanting to avoid a repeat of feeling scorn and shunning in their own extremely pro-Democratic, anti-Trump circles, national media outlets have spent four years inventing standards for election-year reporting on hacked materials that never previously existed and that are utterly anathema to the core journalistic function. The Washington Post's Executive Editor Marty Baron, for instance, issued a memo full of cautions about how Post reporters should, or should not, discuss hacked materials even if their authenticity is not in doubt. That a media outlet should even consider refraining from reporting on materials they know to be authentic and in the public interest because of questions about their provenance is the opposite of how journalism has been practiced. In the days before the 2016 election, for instance, the New York Times received by mail one year of Donald Trump's tax returns and -- despite having no idea who sent it to them or how that person obtained it: was is stolen or hacked by a foreign power? -- the Times reported on its contents. When asked by NPR why they would report on documents when they do not know the source let alone the source's motives in providing them, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner David Barstow compellingly explained what had always been the core principle of journalism: namely, a journalist only cares about two questions -- (1) are documents authentic and (2) are they in the public interest? -- but does not care about what motives a source has in providing the documents or how they were obtained when deciding whether to reporting them: https://cdn.substack.com/image/twitter_name/w_36/mikiebarb.jpgMichael Barbaro @mikiebarb Why NYT's David Barstow does not care who leaked us Trump's tax return, or what the motivation was. Listen: https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_600,h_314,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbe961cf1-1d8b-401d-abbe-6cf3ca3c97f9_500x500.jpegThe Journalist Who Broke Open Trump?s Taxes On Why He Doesn?t Care Who The Source IsDavid Barstow, the three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and co-author of the bombshell New York Times investigation of Donald J. Trump?s taxes, was asked whether he cared who had anonymously msoundcloud.com October 4th 2016 418 Retweets812 Likes The U.S. media often laments that people have lost faith in its pronouncements, that they are increasingly viewed as untrustworthy and that many people view Fake News sites are more reliable than established news outlets. They are good at complaining about this, but very bad at asking whether any of their own conduct is responsible for it. A media outlet that renounces its core function -- pursuing answers to relevant questions about powerful people -- is one that deserves to lose the public's faith and confidence. And that is exactly what the U.S. media, with some exceptions, attempted to do with this story: they took the lead not in investigating these documents but in concocting excuses for why they should be ignored. As my colleague Lee Fang put it on Sunday: "The partisan double standards in the media are mind boggling this year, and much of the supposedly left independent media is just as cowardly and conformist as the mainstream corporate media. Everyone is reading the room and acting out of fear." Discussing his story from Sunday, Taibbi summed up the most important point this way: "The whole point is that the press loses its way when it cares more about who benefits from information than whether it's true." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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The live broadcast starts shortly at https://youtube.com/watch?v=wdgdy73RAOI and the title indicates he will indeed cover this. From moboct1 at aim.com Sat Oct 31 02:21:38 2020 From: moboct1 at aim.com (Mildred O'brien) Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2020 02:21:38 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] censored article at the INTERCEPT news magazine that caused Glenn Greenwald to resign. In-Reply-To: <002401d6aef5$07744810$165cd830$@comcast.net> References: <002401d6aef5$07744810$165cd830$@comcast.net> Message-ID: <851802522.800244.1604110899235@mail.yahoo.com> Where the heck did you find it?? (I remember what you told me about the new sellout owners of the Intercept). Midge -----Original Message----- From: David Johnson via Peace-discuss To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net Sent: Fri, Oct 30, 2020 12:45 pm Subject: [Peace-discuss] censored article at the INTERCEPT news magazine that caused Glenn Greenwald to resign. Here is the censored article at the INTERCEPT news magazine that caused Glenn Greenwald to resign. ? Article on Joe and Hunter Biden Censored By The Intercept An attempt to assess the importance of the known evidence, and a critique of media lies to protect their favored candidate, could not be published at The Intercept | | I am posting here the most recent draft of my article about Joe and Hunter Biden ? the last one seen by Intercept editors before telling me that they refuse to publish it absent major structural changes involving the removal of all sections critical of Joe Biden, leaving only a narrow article critiquing media outlets. I will also, in a separate post, publish all communications I had with Intercept editors surrounding this article so you can see the censorship in action and, given the Intercept?s denials, decide for yourselves (this is the kind of transparency responsible journalists provide, and which the Intercept refuses to this day to provide regarding their conduct in the Reality Winner story). This draft obviously would have gone through one more round of proof-reading and editing by me ? to shorten it, fix typos, etc ? but it?s important for the integrity of the claims to publish the draft in unchanged form that Intercept editors last saw, and announced that they would not ?edit? but completely gut as a condition to publication: ? TITLE: THE REAL SCANDAL: U.S. MEDIA USES FALSEHOODS TO DEFEND JOE BIDEN FROM HUNTER?S EMAILS Publication by the New York Post two weeks ago of emails from Hunter Biden's laptop, relating to Vice President Joe Biden's work in Ukraine, and subsequent articles from other outlets concerning the Biden family's pursuit of business opportunities in China, provoked extraordinary efforts by a de facto union of media outlets, Silicon Valley giants and the intelligence community to suppress these stories. One outcome is that the Biden campaign concluded, rationally, that there is no need for the front-running presidential candidate to address even the most basic and relevant questions raised by these materials. Rather than condemn Biden for ignoring these questions -- the natural instinct of a healthy press when it comes to a presidential election -- journalists have instead led the way in concocting excuses to justify his silence. After the Post?s first article, both that newspaper and other news outlets have published numerous other emails and texts purportedly written to and from Hunter reflecting his efforts to induce his father to take actions as Vice President beneficial to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, on whose board of directors Hunter sat for a monthly payment of $50,000, as well as proposals for lucrative business deals in China that traded on his influence with his father. Individuals included in some of the email chains have confirmed the contents' authenticity. One of Hunter?s former business partners, Tony Bubolinski, has stepped forward on the record to confirm the authenticity of many of the emails and to insist that Hunter along with Joe Biden's brother Jim were planning on including the former Vice President in at least one deal in China. And GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who appeared in one of the published email chains, appeared to confirm the authenticity as well, though he refused to answer follow-up questions about it. Thus far, no proof has been offered by Bubolinski that Biden ever consummated his participation in any of those discussed deals. The Wall Street Journal says that it found no corporate records reflecting that a deal was finalized and that "text messages and emails related to the venture that were provided to the Journal by Mr. Bobulinski, mainly from the spring and summer of 2017, don?t show either Hunter Biden or James Biden discussing a role for Joe Biden in the venture." But nobody claimed that any such deals had been consummated -- so the conclusion that one had not been does not negate the story. Moreover, some texts and emails whose authenticity has not been disputed state that Hunter was adamant that any discussions about the involvement of the Vice President be held only verbally and never put in writing. Beyond that, the Journal's columnist Kimberly Strassel reviewed a stash of documents and "found correspondence corroborates and expands on emails recently published by the New York Post," including ones where Hunter was insisting that it was his connection to his father that was the greatest asset sought by the Chinese conglomerate with whom they were negotiating. The New York Times on Sunday reached a similar conclusion: while no documents prove that such a deal was consummated, "records produced by Mr. Bobulinski show that in 2017, Hunter Biden and James Biden were involved in negotiations about a joint venture with a Chinese energy and finance company called CEFC China Energy," and "make clear that Hunter Biden saw the family name as a valuable asset, angrily citing his 'family?s brand' as a reason he is valuable to the proposed venture." These documents also demonstrate, reported the Times, "that the countries that Hunter Biden, James Biden and their associates planned to target for deals overlapped with nations where Joe Biden had previously been involved as vice president." Strassel noted that "a May 2017 'expectations' document shows Hunter receiving 20% of the equity in the venture and holding another 10% for 'the big guy'?who Mr. Bobulinski attests is Joe Biden." And the independent journalist Matt Taibbi published an article on Sunday with ample documentation suggesting that Biden's attempt to replace a Ukranian prosecutor in 2015 benefited Burisma. All of these new materials, the authenticity of which has never been disputed by Hunter Biden or the Biden campaign, raise important questions about whether the former Vice President and current front-running presidential candidate was aware of efforts by his son to peddle influence with the Vice President for profit, and also whether the Vice President ever took actions in his official capacity with the intention, at least in part, of benefitting his son's business associates. But in the two weeks since the Post published its initial story, a union of the nation's most powerful entities, including its news media, have taken extraordinary steps to obscure and bury these questions rather than try to provide answers to them. The initial documents, claimed the New York Post, were obtained when the laptops containing them were left at a Delaware repair shop with water damage and never picked up, allowing the owner to access its contents and then turn them over to both the FBI and a lawyer for Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani. The repair store owner confirmed this narrative in interviews with news outlets and then (under penalty of prosecution) to a Senate Committee; he also provided the receipt purportedly signed by Hunter. Neither Hunter nor the Biden campaign has denied these claims. Publication of that initial New York Post story provoked a highly unusual censorship campaign by Facebook and Twitter. Facebook, through a long-time former Democratic Party operative, vowed to suppress the story pending its ?fact-check,? one that has as of yet produced no public conclusions. And while Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey apologized for Twitter?s handling of the censorship and reversed the policy that led to the blocking of all links the story, the New York Post, the nation?s fourth-largest newspaper, continues to be locked out of its Twitter account, unable to post as the election approaches, for almost two weeks. After that initial censorship burst from Silicon Valley, whose workforce and oligarchs have donated almost entirely to the Biden campaign, it was the nation's media outlets and former CIA and other intelligence officials who took the lead in constructing reasons why the story should be dismissed, or at least treated with scorn. As usual for the Trump era, the theme that took center stage to accomplish this goal was an unsubstantiated claim about the Kremlin responsibility for the story. Numerous news outlets, including the Intercept, quickly cited a public letter signed by former CIA officials and other agents of the security state claiming that the documents have the ?classic trademarks" of a ?Russian disinformation? plot. But, as media outlets and even intelligence agencies are now slowly admitting, no evidence has ever been presented to corroborate this assertion. On Friday, the New York Times reported that ?no concrete evidence has emerged that the laptop contains Russian disinformation? and the paper said even the FBI has ?acknowledged that it had not found any Russian disinformation on the laptop.? The Washington Post on Sunday published an op-ed -- by Thomas Rid, one of those centrists establishmentarian professors whom media outlets routinely use to provide the facade of expert approval for deranged conspiracy theories -- that contained this extraordinary proclamation: "We must treat the Hunter Biden leaks as if they were a foreign intelligence operation ? even if they probably aren't." Even the letter from the former intelligence officials cited by The Intercept and other outlets to insinuate that this was all part of some ?Russian disinformation? scheme explicitly admitted that ?we do not have evidence of Russian involvement,? though many media outlets omitted that crucial acknowledgement when citing the letter in order to disparage the story as a Kremlin plot: Despite this complete lack of evidence, the Biden campaign adopted this phrase used by intelligence officials and media outlets as its mantra for why the materials should not be discussed and why they would not answer basic questions about them. ?I think we need to be very, very clear that what he's doing here is amplifying Russian misinformation," said Biden Deputy Campaign Manager Kate Bedingfield about the possibility that Trump would raise the Biden emails at Thursday night?s debate. Biden?s senior advisor Symone Sanders similarly warned on MSNBC: ?if the president decides to amplify these latest smears against the vice president and his only living son, that is Russian disinformation." The few mainstream journalists who tried merely to discuss these materials have been vilified. For the crime of simply noting it on Twitter that first day, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman had her name trend all morning along with the derogatory nickname ?MAGA Haberman.? CBS News? Bo Erickson was widely attacked even by his some in the media simply for asking Biden what his response to the story was. And Biden himself refused to answer, accusing Erickson of spreading a "smear." That it is irresponsible and even unethical to mention these documents became a pervasive view in mainstream journalism. The NPR Public Editor, in an anazing statement representative of much of the prevailing media mentality, explicitly justified NPR?s refusal to cover the story on the ground that ?we do not want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories . . . [or] waste the readers? and listeners? time on stories that are just pure distractions.? NPR Public Editor @NPRpubliceditor Why haven't you seen any stories from NPR about the NY Post's Hunter Biden story? Read more in this week's newsletter?? tinyurl.com/y67vlzj2 October 22nd 2020 7,781 Retweets20,498 Likes To justify her own show?s failure to cover the story, 60 Minutes? Leslie Stahl resorted to an entirely different justification. ?It can?t be verified,? the CBS reporter claimed when confronted by President Trump in an interview about her program?s failure to cover the Hunter Biden documents. When Trump insisted there were multiple ways to verify the materials on the laptop, Stahl simply repeated the same phrase: ?it can?t be verified.? After the final presidential debate on Thursday night, a CNN panel mocked the story as too complex and obscure for anyone to follow -- a self-fulfilling prophecy given that, as the network's media reporter Brian Stelter noted with pride, the story has barely been mentioned either on CNN or MSNBC. As the New York Times noted on Friday: "most viewers of CNN and MSNBC would not have heard much about the unconfirmed Hunter Biden emails.... CNN?s mentions of ?Hunter? peaked at 20 seconds and MSNBC?s at 24 seconds one day last week." On Sunday, CNN's Christiane Amanpour barely pretended to be interested in any journalism surrounding the story, scoffing during an interview at requests from the RNC's Elizabeth Harrington to cover the story and verify the documents by telling her: "We're not going to do your work for you." Watch how the U.S.'s most mainstream journalists are openly announcing their refusal to even consider what these documents might reflect about the Democratic front-runner: These journalists are desperate not to know. As Taibbi wrote on Sunday about this tawdry press spectacle: " The least curious people in the country right now appear to be the credentialed news media, a situation normally unique to tinpot authoritarian societies." All of those excuses and pretexts ? emanating largely from a national media that is all but explicit in their eagerness for Biden to win ? served for the first week or more after the Post story to create a cone of silence around this story and, to this very day, a protective shield for Biden. As a result, the front-running presidential candidate knows that he does not have to answer even the most basic questions about these documents because most of the national press has already signaled that they will not press him to do so; to the contrary, they will concoct defenses on his behalf to avoid discussing it. The relevant questions for Biden raised by this new reporting are as glaring as they are important. Yet Biden has had to answer very few of them yet because he has not been asked and, when he has, media outlets have justified his refusal to answer rather than demand that he do so. We submitted nine questions to his campaign about these documents that the public has the absolute right to know, including: - whether he claims any the emails or texts are fabricated (and, if so, which specific ones); - whether he knows if Hunter did indeed drop off laptops at the Delaware repair store; - whether Hunter ever asked him to meet with Burisma executives or whether he in fact did so; - whether Biden ever knew about business proposals in Ukraine or China being pursued by his son and brother in which Biden was a proposed participant and, - how Biden could justify expending so much energy as Vice President demanding that the Ukrainian General Prosecutor be fired, and why the replacement ? Yuriy Lutsenko, someone who had no experience in law; was a crony of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko; and himself had a history of corruption allegations ? was acceptable if Biden?s goal really was to fight corruption in Ukraine rather than benefit Burisma or control Ukrainian internal affairs for some other objective. Though the Biden campaign indicated that they would respond to the Intercept?s questions, they have not done so. A statement they released to other outlets contains no answers to any of these questions except to claim that Biden ?has never even considered being involved in business with his family, nor in any business overseas.? To date, even as the Biden campaign echoes the baseless claims of media outlets that anyone discussing this story is ?amplifying Russian disinformation,? neither Hunter Biden nor the Biden campaign have even said whether they claim the emails and other documents -- which they and the press continue to label "Russian disinformation" -- are forgeries or whether they are authentic. The Biden campaign clearly believes it has no need to answer any of these questions by virtue of a panoply of media excuses offered on its behalf that collapse upon the most minimal scrutiny: First, the claim that the material is of suspect authenticity or cannot be verified -- the excuse used on behalf of Biden by Leslie Stahl and Christiane Amanpour, among others -- is blatantly false for numerous reasons. As someone who has reported similar large archives in partnership with numerous media outlets around the world (including the Snowden archive in 2014 and the Intercept?s Brazil Archive over the last year showing corruption by high-level Bolsonaro officials), and who also covered the reporting of similar archives by other outlets (the Panama Papers, the WikiLeaks war logs of 2010 and DNC/Podesta emails of 2016), it is clear to me that the trove of documents from Hunter Biden?s emails has been verified in ways quite similar to those. With an archive of this size, one can never independently authenticate every word in every last document unless the subject of the reporting voluntarily confirms it in advance, which they rarely do. What has been done with similar archives is journalists obtain enough verification to create high levels of journalistic confidence in the materials. Some of the materials provided by the source can be independently confirmed, proving genuine access by the source to a hard drive, a telephone, or a database. Other parties in email chains can confirm the authenticity of the email or text conversations in which they participated. One investigates non-public facts contained in the documents to determine that they conform to what the documents reflect. Technology specialists can examine the materials to ensure no signs of forgeries are detected. This is the process that enabled the largest and most established media outlets around the world to report similar large archives obtained without authorization. In those other cases, no media outlet was able to verify every word of every document prior to publication. There was no way to prove the negative that the source or someone else had not altered or forged some of the material. That level of verification is both unattainable and unnecessary. What is needed is substantial evidence to create high confidence in the authentication process. The Hunter Biden documents have at least as much verification as those other archives that were widely reported. There are sources in the email chains who have verified that the published emails are accurate. The archive contains private photos and videos of Hunter whose authenticity is not in doubt. A former business partner of Hunter has stated, unequivocally and on the record, that not only are the emails authentic but they describe events accurately, including proposed participation by the former Vice President in at least one deal Hunter and Jim Biden were pursuing in China. And, most importantly of all, neither Hunter Biden nor the Biden campaign has even suggested, let alone claimed, that a single email or text is fake. Why is the failure of the Bidens to claim that these emails are forged so significant? Because when journalists report on a massive archive, they know that the most important event in the reporting's authentication process comes when the subjects of the reporting have an opportunity to deny that the materials are genuine. Of course that is what someone would do if major media outlets were preparing to publish, or in fact were publishing, fabricated or forged materials in their names; they would say so in order to sow doubt about the materials if not kill the credibility of the reporting. The silence of the Bidens may not be dispositive on the question of the material?s authenticity, but when added to the mountain of other authentication evidence, it is quite convincing: at least equal to the authentication evidence in other reporting on similarly large archives. Second, the oft-repeated claim from news outlets and CIA operatives that the published emails and texts were ?Russian disinformation? was, from the start, obviously baseless and reckless. No evidence ? literally none ? has been presented to suggest involvement by any Russians in the dissemination of these materials, let alone that it was part of some official plot by Moscow. As always, anything is possible ? when one does not know for certain what the provenance of materials is, nothing can be ruled out ? but in journalism, evidence is required before news outlets can validly start blaming some foreign government for the release of information. And none has ever been presented. Yet the claim that this was "Russian disinformation" was published in countless news outlets, television broadcasts, and the social media accounts of journalists, typically by pointing to the evidence-free claims of ex-CIA officials. Worse is the ?disinformation? part of the media?s equation. How can these materials constitute ?disinformation? if they are authentic emails and texts actually sent to and from Hunter Biden? The ease with which news outlets that are supposed to be skeptical of evidence-free pronouncements by the intelligence community instead printed their assertions about "Russian disinformation" is alarming in the extreme. But they did it because they instinctively wanted to find a reason to justify ignoring the contents of these emails, so claiming that Russia was behind it, and that the materials were "disinformation," became their placeholder until they could figure out what else they should say to justify ignoring these documents. Third, the media rush to exonerate Biden on the question of whether he engaged in corruption vis-a-vis Ukraine and Burisma rested on what are, at best, factually dubious defenses of the former Vice President. Much of this controversy centers on Biden's aggressive efforts while Vice President in late 2015 to force the Ukrainian government to fire its Chief Prosecutor, Viktor Shokhin, and replace him with someone acceptable to the U.S., which turned out to be Yuriy Lutsenko. These events are undisputed by virtue of a video of Biden boasting in front of an audience of how he flew to Kiev and forced the Ukrainians to fire Shokhin, upon pain of losing $1 billion in aid. But two towering questions have long been prompted by these events, and the recently published emails make them more urgent than ever: 1) was the firing of the Ukrainian General Prosecutor such a high priority for Biden as Vice President of the U.S. because of his son's highly lucrative role on the board of Burisma, and 2) if that was not the motive, why was it so important for Biden to dictate who the chief prosecutor of Ukraine was? The standard answer to the question about Biden's motive -- offered both by Biden and his media defenders -- is that he, along with the IMF and EU, wanted Shokhin fired because the U.S. and its allies were eager to clean up Ukraine, and they viewed Shokhin as insufficiently vigilant in fighting corruption. ?Biden?s brief was to sweet-talk and jawbone Poroshenko into making reforms that Ukraine?s Western benefactors wanted to see as,? wrote the Washington Post?s Glenn Kessler in what the Post calls a ?fact-check.? Kessler also endorsed the key defense of Biden: that the firing of Shokhin was bad for Burima, not good for it. ?The United States viewed [Shokhin] as ineffective and beholden to Poroshenko and Ukraine?s corrupt oligarchs. In particular, Shokin had failed to pursue an investigation of the founder of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky,? Kessler claims. But that claim does not even pass the laugh test. The U.S. and its European allies are not opposed to corruption by their puppet regimes. They are allies with the most corrupt regimes on the planet, from Riyadh to Cairo, and always have been. Since when does the U.S. devote itself to ensuring good government in the nations it is trying to control? If anything, allowing corruption to flourish has been a key tool in enabling the U.S. to exert power in other countries and to open up their markets to U.S. companies. Beyond that, if increasing prosecutorial independence and strengthening anti-corruption vigilance were really Biden's goal in working to demand the firing of the Ukrainian chief prosecutor, why would the successor to Shokhin, Yuriy Lutsenko, possibly be acceptable? Lutsenko, after all, had "no legal background as general prosecutor," was principally known only as a lackey of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, was forced in 2009 to "resign as interior minister after being detained by police at Frankfurt airport for being drunk and disorderly," and "was subsequently jailed for embezzlement and abuse of office, though his defenders said the sentence was politically motivated." Is it remotely convincing to you that Biden would have accepted someone like Lutsenko if his motive really were to fortify anti-corruption prosecutions in Ukraine? Yet that's exactly what Biden did: he personally told Poroshenko that Lutsenko was an acceptable alternative and promptly released the $1 billion after his appointment was announced. Whatever Biden's motive was in using his power as U.S. Vice President to change the prosecutor in Ukraine, his acceptance of someone like Lutsenko strongly suggests that combatting Ukrainian corruption was not it. As for the other claim on which Biden and his media allies have heavily relied ? that firing Shokhin was not a favor for Burisma because Shokhin was not pursuing any investigations against Burisma ? the evidence does not justify that assertion. It is true that no evidence, including these new emails, constitute proof that Biden's motive in demanding Shokhin's termination was to benefit Burisma. But nothing demonstrates that Shokhin was impeding investigations into Burisma. Indeed, the New York Times in 2019 published one of the most comprehensive investigations to date of the claims made in defense of Biden when it comes to Ukraine and the firing of this prosecutor, and, while noting that "no evidence has surfaced that the former vice president intentionally tried to help his son by pressing for the prosecutor general?s dismissal," this is what its reporters concluded about Shokhin and Burisma: [Biden's] pressure campaign eventually worked. The prosecutor general, long a target of criticism from other Western nations and international lenders, was voted out months later by the Ukrainian Parliament. Among those who had a stake in the outcome was Hunter Biden, Mr. Biden?s younger son, who at the time was on the board of an energy company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch who had been in the sights of the fired prosecutor general. The Times added: "Mr. Shokhin?s office had oversight of investigations into [Burisma's billionaire founder] Zlochevsky and his businesses, including Burisma." By contrast, they said, Lutsenko, the replacement approved by Vice President Biden, "initially continued investigating Mr. Zlochevsky and Burisma, but cleared him of all charges within 10 months of taking office." So whether or not it was Biden's intention to confer benefits on Burisma by demanding Shokhin's firing, it ended up quite favorable for Burisma given that the utterly inexperienced Lutesenko "cleared [Burisma's founder] of all charges within 10 months of taking office." The new comprehensive report from journalist Taibbi on Sunday also strongly supports the view that there were clear antagonisms between Shokhin and Burisma, such that firing the Ukrainian prosecutor would have been beneficial for Burisma. Taibbi, who reported for many years while based in Russia and remains very well-sourced in the region, detailed: For all the negative press about Shokhin, there?s no doubt that there were multiple active cases involving Zlochevsky/Burisma during his short tenure. This was even once admitted by American reporters, before it became taboo to describe such cases untethered to words like ?dormant.? Here?s how Ken Vogel at the New York Times put it in May of 2019: "When Mr. Shokhin became prosecutor general in February 2015, he inherited several investigations into the company and Mr. Zlochevsky, including for suspicion of tax evasion and money laundering. Mr. Shokin also opened an investigation into the granting of lucrative gas licenses to companies owned by Mr. Zlochevsky when he was the head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources." Ukrainian officials I reached this week confirmed that multiple cases were active during that time. ?There were different numbers, but from 7 to 14,? says Serhii Horbatiuk, former head of the special investigations department for the Prosecutor General?s Office, when asked how many Burisma cases there were. ?There may have been two to three episodes combined, and some have already been closed, so I don't know the exact amount." But, Horbatiuk insists, there were many cases, most of them technically started under Yarema, but at least active under Shokin. The numbers quoted by Horbatiuk gibe with those offered by more recent General Prosecutor Rulsan Ryaboshapka, who last year said there were at one time or another ?13 or 14? cases in existence involving Burisma or Zlochevsky. Taibbi reviews real-time reporting in both Ukraine and the U.S. to document several other pending investigations against Burisma and Zlochevsky that was overseen by the prosecutor whose firing Biden demanded. He notes that Shokhin himself has repeatedly said he was pursuing several investigations against Zlochevsky at the time Biden demanded his firing. In sum, Taibbi concludes, "one can?t say there?s no evidence of active Burisma cases even during the last days of Shokin, who says that it was the February, 2016 seizure order [against Zlochevsky's assets] that got him fired." And, Taibbi notes, "the story looks even odder when one wonders why the United States would exercise so much foreign policy muscle to get Shokin fired, only to allow in a replacement ? Yuri Lutsenko ? who by all accounts was a spectacularly bigger failure in the battle against corruption in general, and Zlochevsky in particular." In sum: "it?s unquestionable that the cases against Burisma were all closed by Shokin?s successor, chosen in consultation with Joe Biden, whose son remained on the board of said company for three more years, earning upwards of $50,000 per month." The publicly known facts, augmented by the recent emails, texts and on-the-record accounts, suggest serious sleaze by Joe Biden?s son Hunter in trying to peddle his influence with the Vice President for profit. But they also raise real questions about whether Joe Biden knew about and even himself engaged in a form of legalized corruption. Specifically, these newly revealed information suggest Biden was using his power to benefit his son?s business Ukrainian associates, and allowing his name to be traded on while Vice President for his son and brother to pursue business opportunities in China. These are questions which a minimally healthy press would want answered, not buried ? regardless of how many similar or worse scandals the Trump family has. But the real scandal that has been proven is not the former Vice President?s misconduct but that of his supporters and allies in the U.S. media. As Taibbi?s headline put it: ?With the Hunter Biden Expos?, Suppression is a Bigger Scandal Than the Actual Story.? The reality is the U.S. press has been planning for this moment for four years ? cooking up justifications for refusing to report on newsworthy material that might help Donald Trump get re-elected. One major factor is the undeniable truth that journalists with national outlets based in New York, Washington and West Coast cities overwhelmingly not just favor Joe Biden but are desperate to see Donald Trump defeated. It takes an enormous amount of gullibility to believe that any humans are capable of separating such an intense partisan preference from their journalistic judgment. Many barely even bother to pretend: critiques of Joe Biden are often attacked first not by Biden campaign operatives but by political reporters at national news outlets who make little secret of their eagerness to help Biden win. But much of this has to do with the fallout from the 2016 election. During that campaign, news outlets, including The Intercept, did their jobs as journalists by reporting on the contents of newsworthy, authentic documents: namely, the emails published by WikiLeaks from the John Podesta and DNC inboxes which, among other things, revealed corruption so severe that it forced the resignation of the top five officials of the DNC. That the materials were hacked, and that intelligence agencies were suggesting Russia was responsible, not negate the newsworthiness of the documents, which is why media outlets across the country repeatedly reported on their contents. Nonetheless, journalists have spent four years being attacked as Trump enablers in their overwhelmingly Democratic and liberal cultural circles: the cities in which they live are overwhelmingly Democratic, and their demographic ? large-city, college-educated professionals ? has vanishingly little Trump support. A New York Times survey of campaign data from Monday tells just a part of this story of cultural insularity and homogeniety: Joe Biden has outraised President Trump on the strength of some of the wealthiest and most educated ZIP codes in the United States, running up the fund-raising score in cities and suburbs so resoundingly that he collected more money than Mr. Trump on all but two days in the last two months....It is not just that much of Mr. Biden?s strongest support comes overwhelmingly from the two coasts, which it does.... [U]nder Mr. Trump, Republicans have hemorrhaged support from white voters with college degrees. In ZIP codes with a median household income of at least $100,000, Mr. Biden smashed Mr. Trump in fund-raising, $486 million to only $167 million ? accounting for almost his entire financial edge....One Upper West Side ZIP code ? 10024 ? accounted for more than $8 million for Mr. Biden, and New York City in total delivered $85.6 million for him ? more than he raised in every state other than California.... The median household in the United States was $68,703 in 2019. In ZIP codes above that level, Mr. Biden outraised Mr. Trump by $389.1 million. Below that level, Mr. Trump was actually ahead by $53.4 million. Wanting to avoid a repeat of feeling scorn and shunning in their own extremely pro-Democratic, anti-Trump circles, national media outlets have spent four years inventing standards for election-year reporting on hacked materials that never previously existed and that are utterly anathema to the core journalistic function. The Washington Post's Executive Editor Marty Baron, for instance, issued a memo full of cautions about how Post reporters should, or should not, discuss hacked materials even if their authenticity is not in doubt. That a media outlet should even consider refraining from reporting on materials they know to be authentic and in the public interest because of questions about their provenance is the opposite of how journalism has been practiced. In the days before the 2016 election, for instance, the New York Times received by mail one year of Donald Trump's tax returns and -- despite having no idea who sent it to them or how that person obtained it: was is stolen or hacked by a foreign power? -- the Times reported on its contents. When asked by NPR why they would report on documents when they do not know the source let alone the source's motives in providing them, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner David Barstow compellingly explained what had always been the core principle of journalism: namely, a journalist only cares about two questions -- (1) are documents authentic and (2) are they in the public interest? -- but does not care about what motives a source has in providing the documents or how they were obtained when deciding whether to reporting them: Michael Barbaro @mikiebarb Why NYT's David Barstow does not care who leaked us Trump's tax return, or what the motivation was. Listen: The Journalist Who Broke Open Trump?s Taxes On Why He Doesn?t Care Who The Source IsDavid Barstow, the three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and co-author of the bombshell New York Times investigation of Donald J. Trump?s taxes, was asked whether he cared who had anonymously msoundcloud.com October 4th 2016 418 Retweets812 Likes The U.S. media often laments that people have lost faith in its pronouncements, that they are increasingly viewed as untrustworthy and that many people view Fake News sites are more reliable than established news outlets. They are good at complaining about this, but very bad at asking whether any of their own conduct is responsible for it. A media outlet that renounces its core function -- pursuing answers to relevant questions about powerful people -- is one that deserves to lose the public's faith and confidence. And that is exactly what the U.S. media, with some exceptions, attempted to do with this story: they took the lead not in investigating these documents but in concocting excuses for why they should be ignored. As my colleague Lee Fang put it on Sunday: "The partisan double standards in the media are mind boggling this year, and much of the supposedly left independent media is just as cowardly and conformist as the mainstream corporate media. Everyone is reading the room and acting out of fear." Discussing his story from Sunday, Taibbi summed up the most important point this way: "The whole point is that the press loses its way when it cares more about who benefits from information than whether it's true." ? _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 122797 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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