Obama… Out Not With a Bang, But a Whimper

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This is the way the Obama administration ends… not with a bang, but a pathetic whimper. Queen of War Hillary “We Came, We Saw, He Died” Clinton’s campaign (fully supported by President Obama) spent a whopping 1.2 billion USD (73.21 billion Roubles. 8.29 billion Renminbi. 81 billion INR. 1.58 billion CAD. 1.61 billion AUD. 1.13 billion Euros. 944 million UK Pounds), but floundered ignominiously in the US presidential election. Therefore, Obama decided that the consolation “prize” was to order the “intelligence community” (a contradiction in terms) to conduct a “full review” of how the evil Russians handed out the Big Prize to Donald Trump. Famously, the Queen of War insisted throughout the campaign that “17 US intelligence agencies” confirmed Russian hacking of the Podesta emails, then, she claimed that WikiLeaks slow-dripped them (Chinese torture-style) day after day, revealing the slimy inner workings of the DNC. In fact, there was no damning verdict  from 17 intel agencies, just a dodgy comment by further disgraced Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper offering no evidence whatsoever.

Now, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos’ two-bit neocon-infested rag (the Washington Post… once-upon-a-time a decent newspaper) pipes up, mouthing sensationalist CIA spin that Langley has proof the Russians did manoeuvre to install their Trumpian Manchurian Candidate. This was right after the same rag went the full McCarthy, promoting a long black list remix of websites/news agencies (Sputnik included) denounced as fifth columnists and/or propaganda ops. Further enhancing its already negative credibility… constantly boosted by the neocon/neoliberal ravings of its editorial pages… to this day, the Post hasn’t retracted its infantile bogus “report”. The New McCarthyism’s intersection with the CIA at the Post couldn’t be more predictable; after all, Bezos’ Amazon is a major contractor with the CIA, thus, configuring the Post as a key US deep-state asset. Therefore, welcome to Washington’s alleged newspaper of record regurgitating a US government blacklist of American and foreign journalists.

One False Flag Too Many

As for the CIA’s intel breakthrough, it amounts to the proverbial “senior US official” reassuring US public opinion that the “consensus view” of the “intelligence community” is that “individuals with connections with the Russian government” provided WikiLeaks with the Podesta emails. Back in October, WikiLeaks had already debunked this narrative. Now, Langley hacks “secretly” briefed senators on Capitol Hill last week, breathlessly reassuring them the Russians did it. Yet, even the Post’s shoddy report had to acknowledge the proverbial “senior US official” saying “there were minor disagreements about the agency’s assessment”… as in no solid evidence of “the Kremlin ‘directing’ the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks”. Therefore, this is essentially old debunked news repackaged (with no supporting facts) as a powerful indictment planted by the CIA on Washington’s alleged paper of record. No wonder the Trump transition team (under White House chief strategist Steve Bannon) duly punctured the CIA strategic balloon:

These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Case closed. Go back to play with your plastic toys. Even kindergarten hopefuls know, based on the historical record, that the US government (and the CIA, as well) specialise in lying non-stop. Sometimes the lies are cumulative; sometimes they contradict each other. Take the sarin gas attack in Ghouta in August 2013… this propelled the US government to the brink of a renewed Shock and Awe on Syria. US intel at the time was sure that Jabhat al-Nusra (AKA al-Qaeda in Syria… or “moderate rebels”, according to the Beltway “consensus”) could produce sarin gas. Yet, Obama insisted Assad had done it, thus, violating Obama’s silly self-proclaimed red line. Straight out of the neocons-do-Iraq playbook, Obama cherry-picked intel to justify what would’ve been a war on Syria. fact is, the sarin gas went to al-Nusra because of the influence wielded by the notorious Prince Bandar… then tasked by the House of Saud to provoke régime change in Damascus by all means necessary. In fact, Bandar was even more influential than the CIA; he was directly coordinating the handout of tons of cash and weaponising to jihadists in Syria, as well as concocting false flags such as Ghouta. All this after Obama himself ordered, in early 2012, a CIA rat-line through the Turkish-Syrian border of Libyan weapons destined to supply the “moderate rebels”.

The bottom line is that Nobel Peace Prize Obama… lying through his teeth like a lowly neocon… was on the brink of launching a full-scale war on Syria for a “crime” about which there was no evidence.  Moreover, the lies accumulate as the Obama administration’s elaborate Syrian plans flounder in the East Aleppo cauldron. This (in Arabic) is how the “moderate rebels” were expelled… revealing, in parallel, how Damascus profited from inside intel as myriad “rebel” outfits were fighting among themselves. This is about facts on the ground… not the relentless US government propaganda/psy-ops campaign about evil Russians bombing hospitals. The whimpering Obama administration isn’t over yet. Expect more sensational CIA exploits, more demonisation of Russia, more weaponising of “moderate” Syrian “rebels”, and even the odd false flag

12 December 2016

Pepe Escobar

Sputnik International

https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201612121048449616-obama-administration-intelligence-russian-hackers/

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9 June 2015. STOP THE PRESSES! NY Times/Langley Misinformation Apparat Caught in Blatant Lie… READ ALL ABOUT IT! Proudly Brought to You By Potapov, Schmemann, Kishkovsky, and Webster, et al…

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Firstly, read this lying piece of bullshit dezinformatsiya from the NY Times/Langley apparat (the Moscow Times is part of the NYT/Langley bullshit machine). I traced this story back to the Moscow Times… the Christian Post put this up without vetting it, of course:

Jesus Sculpture Made of Garbage Is Demolished After Russian Orthodox Church Complains

The Russian Orthodox Church successfully saw the removal of a controversial 9.8-feet-tall (3-metre) sculpture of Jesus Christ made out of garbage in the Siberian city of Omsk, which was supposed to be part of an art festival. The Moscow Times reported that the MVD Anti-Extremism Department ordered the demolition of a sculpture after the Orthodox Church complained. Local news site BK55 quoted festival director Vasili Melnichenko as saying, “I received a call from the anti-extremism centre. The Omsk diocese indignantly appealed to [the authorities] about the sculpture”. The artists behind the sculpture, Mariya Shinkevich and Alyona Pozhilenko, said that they did not mean to cause offense, but their idea was to draw attention to the destruction of cultural and historical heritage. The Orthodox Church in Russia has shut down a number of productions or displays that it has said cause offense to people of faith.

Back in December 2014, plans for a skyscraper art installation inspired by the “Eye of Sauron” from the Lord of the Rings books and movies were shelved after the Church branded it a “demonic symbol”. The Church’s head of public affairs, Vsevold (sic (!)) Chaplin, told Govorit Moskva radio station at the time “Such a symbol of the triumph of evil is rising up over the city, becoming practically the highest object in the city. Is that good or bad? I’m afraid it’s more likely bad. Just don’t be surprised later if something goes wrong with the city”. Orthodox followers got theatrical director Boris Mezdrich fired earlier this year after protesting against a production of Richard Wagner’s opera Tannhauser, staged at the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre, after they said it was offensive to religious believers. The Oscar-nominated film Leviathan has also apparently been banned in a number of Russian regions because of its portrayal of a provincial man’s struggles against a corrupt mayor and Church officials.

The CIA World Factbook notes that about 15 to 20 percent of the Russian population are practicing Orthodox worshipers, making it the largest religious group in the country… although the nation also has a large number of non-practicing believers and nonbelievers. Patriarch Kirill I of Moscow, leader of the country’s Orthodox Church, regularly speaks out on social issues. He slammed for instance the “international campaign” behind same-sex marriage on a number of occasions, calling the preservation of traditional marriage vital for the “survival of mankind”.

8 June 2015

Stoyan Zaimov

Christian Post

http://www.christianpost.com/news/controversial-jesus-sculpture-made-of-garbage-in-russia-demolished-after-orthodox-church-complains-140108/

This is a crock o’ shit from stem to stern… they misquoted V A Chaplin by the way. Everybody knows that Vsevolod Anatolyevich has an active sense of humour and that he LOVES spoofing journalists when he can. The Govorit Moskvy idiots (there’s no love lost between that radio station and VAC, by the way… they’re a “drive-time” oldies/talk station, only founded in 2014) took the bait and swallowed it whole!

Now, that we’ve seen the bullshit, let’s look at the righteous truth, an official statement of the Diocese of Omsk:

Statement by the Diocese of Omsk on the Overblown Media Scandal around the Festival ” Multiplicity of Space”

OFFICIAL

The media published false information about the alleged discontent of the Diocese of Omsk with works presented at the art festival “Multiplicity of Space”. Therefore, we must issue a rebuttal. The material published in a number of federal, foreign, and regional media outlets is incorrect. The Diocese of Omsk didn’t issue a protest with the police regarding this festival or any individual work. For our part, we couldn’t assess this festival or any individual art object, as the Diocese didn’t receive an invitation to this event. There is no conflict between the diocese and the representatives of the creative community there. This current statement is the first official reaction of the Diocese of Omsk about the festival and any information in the media about it.

8 June 2015

Official website of the Diocese of Omsk

http://omsk-eparhiya.ru/2015/06/08/%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%8F%D0%B2%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5-%D0%BE%D0%BC%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9-%D0%B5%D0%BF%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%85%D0%B8%D0%B8-%D0%BF%D0%BE-%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%83-%D1%81%D0%BA/

The truth will set you free. The Christian Post is a bullshit rightwing “Evangelical” Republican propaganda outlet funded by such Hard Right sugar daddies as Scaife and Olin. It’s the Fox News of religious reporting. They had this ignoranus named Scott Lively claim that he influenced V V Putin! I’m NOT making that up… they actually claimed that! A friend in Moscow wrote me, “Scott who? I’ve never heard of him, actually”. Well… first, we had the supposed “Eye of Sauron”… a lie. We had Lively’s claims that he influenced V V Putin on homosexuality… a lie. We had an allegation that Russia was banning transsexuals from driving… a lie. Now, this.

You can believe the Christian Post, the Moscow Times, and the NYT/Langley misinformation machine… or you can believe the Diocese of Omsk. You KNOW where I stand! Do you stand with me, or do you stand with lying sacks o’ shit like Potapov, Serge Schmemann, Alexander Webster, Terrence Mattingly, Rod Dreher, and Kishkovsky & daughter? You can’t stand with both… do you believe the Church and Holy Rus… or do you believe “Exceptional Anglo America” and its Orthodox whores in the American media machine? I truly thought that I’d seen it all. I was wrong. Remember this… the foulest flowers of evil grow in the shadow of the altar. God do have mercy on us all.

BMD

It’s Worse Than You Thought: The “Kremlin Troll Army” Exposed

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Editor:

It’s time for Victor Potapov to quit Radio Liberty and to condemn it on the “front-page” of the official ROCOR website. It’s issuing egregious lies about the Rodina and about the Church. I didn’t believe that I could think lower of Potapov (a man hated by most of his brother-priests for his arrogance), but he’s hitting new lows. He aids the enemies of Christ’s Church… full stop. I don’t believe that he’s going to quit… draw the appropriate conclusions. He holds a knife to the back of Russian patriots and to the throats of all Russian Orthodox Christians by working for such a theomachistic organisation. I’d say, “Look at what he does, don’t listen to what he says. He makes his money as a Judas”. Don’t fight with such sorts… but do avoid their company… they have spiritual “cooties”.

This article below proves that RFE/RL issues black propaganda of the vilest sort… Potapov must leave it. He won’t… that speaks volumes.

BMD

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As an alleged Kremlin troll army continues its apparent octopus-like spread across the globe, the US government’s international broadcaster RFE/RL has courageously struck back by exposing it right in its lair. However, would that be enough? In the past few days, articles have been popping up around the web, providing explicit details about a “Kremlin troll army” which operates out of a St Petersburg suburb, a scary place where laughter is prohibited and 400 professional trolls toil day and night to convert public opinion in Russia and abroad. There is only one problem with the article… there’s no pro-Kremlin “trolling” taking place in the evidence the authors provide. Whilst employees of these “troll farms” do allegedly make hundreds of political posts, they’re made on local forums with tiny membership, rarely over 500 users, and even tinier posting activity at most, 5 posts per person, most of which appears to be from the “trolls”.

Considering the extremely low impact of such posting, the goal appears to be not to convert public opinion, but rather search engine optimisation (SEO)… search engines such as Google crawl the web for keywords and links, which are then used to give weight to certain web pages when search terms are entered. The interviewee even admits it himself, “There are keywords, tags that are needed for search engines. We’re given five keywords… for example, “Shoigu”, “Defence Minister”, “Russian Army”. All three of us have to make sure these keywords appear all over the place in our comments. You can’t even conjugate or decline them. Sometimes, it’s very hard to write when you can’t use any declensions!” The bit about declensions is important because Google doesn’t work well with Russian morphology; for example, processing the keyword “armies” separately from the keyword “army”, unlike Russian search engines such as Yandex. Keywords give weight to certain words when used in Google searches. Then, there’s the question of “fake discussion”. Of course, no forum moderator would be happy if they discovered that their forums are used to post link spam. However, if the articles do generate some discussion, which seems to be limited to 2-5 replies, and do seem to be expressing different points of view, forum moderators would be more likely to keep them. The use of tiny forums with low readership is also important for this, as that allows the posts to remain on the websites for months or years, without deletion, because there are other threads discussing the same topics or being archived.

The US government’s international broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) did discover something, but it’s quite the opposite from an ominous troll army working around the clock to convert the entire world to a Putin-based religion. They found a search engine optimisation (SEO) company, likely subcontracting for a political consultancy firm. The history of SEO… in particular, “Google bombs“… as well as their use by businesses and politicians goes back to the 1990s. Google and other search engines combat their use by blocking their most obvious use, but hundreds, if not thousands of SEO companies continue working to promote business and political interests around the world.

However, some use fear of “Russian propaganda trolls” to whip up hysteria, which they then use to push through funding increases for RFE/RL and other foreign broadcasters. This coincides with the very poor journalism of the article reporting on the “troll army”, as the authors don’t attempt to corroborate the story. There doesn’t appear to be security risks involved, as it publishes the first and last name, as well as a photo of the interviewee, and considering advancements in modern technology, hidden camera investigations have become one of the easier things in the world.

In this sense, the sensationalism of the story, the poor quality of the research, and the lack of definite information about the “troll army” somewhat ironically contributes to the decline of government-controlled international broadcasters, which now ring the alarm about the rising popularity of networks such as RT. The sentiment is also echoed in Europe, where politicians such as German parliamentarian Norbert Rottgen claim that “Russian propaganda” presents itself as a “source alternative to Western media”, which must be countered by “strengthening European international media, Deutsche Welle, BBC International, and RFI (Radio France International)”.

28 March 2015

Sputnik International

http://sputniknews.com/politics/20150328/1020147102.html

Snowden Better Stay in Russia… “Betray-Us” Gets Slap on Wrist

Eddie Snowden is a hero… David “Betray Us” Petraeus is a pig. Note well that all of the rightwing punditocracy loved him… it shows you the depth of their character, doesn’t it? Depressingly shallow, isn’t it?

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Read this. Petraeus got the velvet-glove treatment. He knows much about Langley and the inner workings of the District… so, IF he goes to prison, it’ll be to a “country club” facility where he won’t have to worry about Bubba cornholing him without vaseline on the first night. This proves that “justice” in the USA depends on who and what you know, and who you blow. Eddie… stay in Moscow… you’d disappear, killed in the shower in some fed pen. Use your brains… this travesty should be a lesson to you. THERE IS NO JUSTICE IN ANGLO AMERICA.

BMD