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from the I-just-don't-know-what-to-believe-anymore dept.
From rt.com:
Facing threats of legal action, the Washington Post has been forced to add an editor's note distancing the paper from a dubious website, PropOrNot, which it had initially endorsed as a group of nonpartisan experts on "Russian propaganda."
The Post came under fire on social media for its provocative hit piece which claimed that "Russia's increasingly sophisticated propaganda campaign" actually influenced the US presidential election.
[...] Jim Moody, an attorney representing the website, stressed in a letter to the Washington Post on Sunday that the newspaper "did not provide even a single example of 'fake news' allegedly distributed or promoted by Naked Capitalism or indeed any of the 200 sites on the PropOrNot blacklist."
From fair.org:
That a group of Cold Warrior hacks would publish such a blacklist is not a surprise; that one of the most established names in American news would uncritically parrot it was. Its reporting, writing-up and referencing is a prime example of how fake real news on real fake news spreads without question.
USA Today (11/25/16), Gizmodo (11/25/16), PBS (11/25/16), The Daily Beast (11/25/16), Slate (11/25/16), AP (11/25/16) The Verge (11/25/16) and NPR (11/25/16) all uncritically wrote up the Post's most incendiary claims with little or minimal pushback. Gizmodo was so giddy its original headline had to be changed from "Research Confirms That Russia Played a Major Role in Spreading Fake News" to "Research Suggests That Russia Played a Major Role in Spreading Fake News," presumably after some polite commenters pointed out that the research "confirmed" nothing of the sort.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Saturday December 10 2016, @04:27PM
Suppose Russian interference caused Trump to be elected instead of Clinton. What does Russia get out of that? Discovery that they rigged the US election is a huge negative. Could a secret like that be kept for 4 or 8 years? Better have a bigger payoff to justify such a move.
Could Trump have cut a deal with Putin? That why they're such good buddies? Like, in exchange for winning the election, he'll dump NATO, let Russia do whatever it wants in the Ukraine, buy lots of Russian hydrocarbons, get nastier with China (hello Taiwan!), and open up some business opportunities. How's Gazprom drilling for oil offshore in Alaskan waters sound?
All that is small, short term thinking of the sort Wall Street greedsters understand. Long term, we still have this teensy little problem known variously as Global Warming, Climate Change, and Climate Disruption. It's the height of folly to be working a swindle when the house is on fire. All the worse that the occupants are armed to the teeth. Lions don't stop to kill and eat when every animal is fleeing from a wildfire. Running a con during an emergency can only undermine the trust and cooperation needed to deal with the problem, as well as put the con artist on very shaky ground. It's as if the people in one of the lifeboats of the Titanic had decided to wait for everyone else to freeze so they could pick the pockets of the dead afterwards, and hadn't considered how they were going to be rescued, and if they were rescued, how they were going to explain the boat happening to contain more loot than survivors. How will Russia explain rigging the election when they are eventually caught, or could they really think they can cover it up forever? So maybe they never did it.
How's this conspiracy notion sound? Maybe Wall Street rigged the election, planning to frame Russia for it all along. The stock market has done amazingly well since the election. And seems Wall Street does have plenty of immoral money grubbers capable of stooping that low.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 10 2016, @04:56PM
> What does Russia get out of that? Discovery that they rigged the US election is a huge negative.
Its win, win either way.
If it isn't discovered, Trump has been loudly more friendly to Russia. He even changed the official GOP platform to be softer on Russia. [politifact.com]
If it is discovered the US is thrown into chaos and neutralized on the world stage until all the shit gets worked out of the system. That gives Russia way more latitude to pursue their agenda unopposed.
Here's the thing about the russia theory -- it doesn't exist in a vacuum. Reporting on Russia's Troll Army started before the election and coverage has come from many sources. If russia is going to the effort of running a covert propaganda operation, doing a hack-and-grab and then only releasing material useful to their goals isn't even a leap, its expected.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 10 2016, @06:09PM
Now we just have to somehow pretend that Hillary didn't sign off a bunch of uranium to Russia in exchange for a nice big Russian bribe.
When we pretend that didn't happen, our special Russian conspiracy theory is complete!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 10 2016, @07:04PM
> Now we just have to somehow pretend that Hillary didn't sign off a bunch of uranium to Russia in exchange for a nice big Russian bribe.
No need to pretend. All you gotta do is resume your membership in the reality-based community.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/30/donald-trump/donald-trump-inaccurately-suggests-clinton-got-pai/ [politifact.com]
http://www.factcheck.org/2015/04/no-veto-power-for-clinton-on-uranium-deal/ [factcheck.org]
http://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-uranium-russia-deal/ [snopes.com]
The author of “Clinton Cash” falsely claimed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State had “veto power” and “could have stopped” Russia from buying a company with extensive uranium mining operations in the U.S. In fact, only the president has such power.
At the time of the sale, Clinton was a member of the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, which is required by law to investigate all U.S. transactions that involve a company owned or controlled by a foreign government. Federal guidelines say any one of nine voting members of the committee can object to such a foreign transaction, but the final decision then rests with the president.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 10 2016, @09:10PM
Federal guidelines say any one of nine voting members of the committee can object to such a foreign transaction, but the final decision then rests with the president.
There's your veto power. If Clinton had chosen to object, then the transaction is blocked until the president looks at it. Sure, it's not as extreme as presented by the author selling the book, but it is there.
Also it's worth noting that most of the donations happened when she was running for president in 2008. If she had become president, she would have had the ability to veto such a transaction, by having one or more of her underlings (the entire committee was such) object as above and then block it herself. Funny, how a group with a huge interest that potentially could go in front of Hillary Clinton thought it was a good idea to donate $145 million to the Clinton Foundation.
What I find particularly embarrassing about this whole episode is the behavior of the fact-checkers. They were willing to dispute relative minor issues like the characterization of the veto power that Clinton wielded as Secretary of State, and completely ignore the obvious conflicts of interest that arise from someone giving $145 million to your personal non profit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 10 2016, @09:44PM
> There's your veto power. If Clinton had chosen to object, then the transaction is blocked until the president looks at it.
The obvious rebuttal is that none of the other 8 members of the cabinet chose to object. None of whom were her "underlings."
> Also it's worth noting that most of the donations happened when she was running for president in 2008. If she had become president
That makes no sense at all. She was 'bribed' because she was going to be president and then when she wasn't president she's still guilty for not objecting when none of the other 8 independent agencies saw any reason to object either?
The obvious rebuttal is that you are a connoisseur of conspiracy theory logic where she's obviously guilty so anything that backfits into that conclusion is damning evidence and anything that says otherwise is of no import.
> your personal non profit.
She;s not trump. His is a "personal non profit" that actively spent money on his interests and utterly failed to qualify as a charity in any way beyond the legal fig leaf of the paperwork. The clinton foundation is top rated by charity watchdogs like Charity Navigator [charitynavigator.org] and Charity Watch. [charitywatch.org]
And most damning of all: Russia doesn’t have the licenses to export uranium outside the United States So the uraniaum wasn't going anywhere no matter who owned the mining rates.
You are welcome to return the reality-based community any time you want callow. All you gotta do is stop beating yourself in the head with the stupid stick.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 10 2016, @05:22PM
> we still have this teensy little problem known variously as Global Warming,
Oil is 70% of Russia's total exports. Over 50% of the russian federal budget is funded by oil revenues.
The country's lack of economic diversity puts it at the head of the line to support climate change denialism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 10 2016, @07:08PM
Maybe Wall Street rigged the election, planning to frame Russia for it all along.
If putin did it and gets caught, the downside is practically zero. What is the US going to do? Impose more sanctions? After the crimea invasion sanctions are pretty much maxxed out.
But if wallstreet gets caught the downside is federal prison. Even if they don't go to prison, they are going to burn years of their life fighting it in court. That's a major opportunity cost. It could also bring harsh scrutiny of the businesses themselves. And wallstreet is so corrupt they can't afford that.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 10 2016, @09:32PM
If putin did it and gets caught, the downside is practically zero.
And the upside is considerable. It sows distrust of the Trump administration and internal conflict in the US. There's the possibility for a huge weakening of the US in the long term from this, if Putin plays his cards right and reveals in a believable way Russian manipulation of the election.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Saturday December 10 2016, @11:13PM
If it is true that the Russians hacked both the Democrats' and the Republicans' servers, and gave the Democrat data to Wikileaks, then the Republicans know that the Russians already have their election campaign "dirty laundry" and can get bits of it published at any opportune time.
It will hang like a sword of Damocles over their heads.
By the way, how do the ministries get handed out in the USA?? Is there some kind of auction (only billionaires need apply)?
"Do I hear more than 30 million for the Energy Ministry? No? Sold to the fracking tycoon on the third row!"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 11 2016, @07:37AM
It will hang like a sword of Damocles over their heads.
Well, how sharp is that sword going to be? It wasn't very impressive for the Democrat side once you got past the DNC carrying water for the Clinton campaign.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday December 10 2016, @08:25PM
I don't know what's in it for Russia. I've heard conjectures, but actual motives are uncertain. What isn't uncertain is that they (well, Putin) admit attempting to influence the election in Trump's favor. Of course, he could be lying.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 10 2016, @09:25PM
How will Russia explain rigging the election when they are eventually caught, or could they really think they can cover it up forever?
They wouldn't give a shit. They don't have to explain a thing, unless it's to their advantage. And it doesn't matter if they're caught or not. There are no consequences.
And seems Wall Street does have plenty of immoral money grubbers capable of stooping that low.
And money grubbers are obviously adept at espionage and propaganda, because if you're good at one thing, you're automatically good at another. But they also like Clinton who you might recall has given them a lot of special treatment. Why would they expect a better deal from Trump?
My view is let's use Occam's razor here. What's more likely some nebulous batch of Wall-streeters with little experience in espionage hires the right people to push the right buttons. Or Putin, who has been a spook longer than a fair number of us have been alive has decided to apply the same tactics to this race which he has used for his entire tenure at the top in Russia? Fake news is his propaganda MO.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 10 2016, @09:51PM
> Why would they expect a better deal from Trump?
Because he promised to give them a better deal while campaigning. What little his platform actually said, it did say a ton of great things about wallstreet. But it only said that on the website and in restricted-access events he had with the wallstreet billionaire boys club. None of his (so far) 3 goldman sachs and 1 jp morgan appointees is a surprise, he said he was going to do it - he just didn't say it during his rallies.
Meanwhile Clinton had sanders and warren and the entire progressive wing of the party to keep her honest. While nobody in the republican party is going to say no to big banks.