Cliff Varnell
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Posts posted by Cliff Varnell
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48 minutes ago, David Andrews said:
Next time, I'm just going to write, "FRIST!"
Firedoglake!
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14 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:
Discredited by the Mueller Report's Introduction to Volume 1 p2:
"the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."
You're taking the quote out of context.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/full-text-mueller-reports-executive-summaries
Mueller, emphasis added:
The social media campaign and the GRU hacking operations coincided with a series of contacts between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government. The Office investigated whether those contacts reflected or resulted in the Campaign conspiring or coordinating with Russia in its election-interference activities. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities. </q>
Mueller catalogued the Trump collusion without finding grounds for charging conspiracy.
That's a long, long way from a "discredit."
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Kishan, how did it go? I'm assuming you've already given your presentation.
I almost jumped in when you posted this thread, but I advocate a totally different approach to the case. You seemed to have a strong idea of how you wanted to approach it, and you got good advice from others.
You probably didn't get an argument from anyone in the audience -- but you never know about some tosser trying to take the piss out.
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Not all of us feel we have to wear our remembrances on our sleeve.
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Anyone who posits a "loyal opposition" to Donald Trump doesn't understand the man.
In Trump world "loyalty" to Trump equals loyalty to country, while "disloyalty" to Trump equals disloyalty to the United States.
Loyalty to the United States is a form of disloyalty to the wanna-be Mussolini.
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1 hour ago, Jeff Carter said:
I see where you are going with this, but you have it all backwards. I’ve never claimed “ the ‘reality-based community’ has proven there was no Russian hack” - I’ve consistently said that such theory was in dispute and the actual evidence is lacking. The New York Times et al are the ones who have claimed that the issue is factually settled.
Jeff Carter on pg 38 of this thread, Nov. 15:
Just my observation, but the embrace of a now discredited narrative of “Russian collusion”, led by factions of the intelligence agencies and pushed hard by Congressional Democrats, is largely responsible for the current insanity. </q>
Discredited by what? How can you ignore the fact that Trump openly colluded with the Russians when he asked them to get ahold of Hillary's e-mails?
Or Don Junior admitting her tried to get dirt on Clinton from Russian sources?
Or Manafort and Gates giving internal polling data to a Russian oligarch thru Kilimnik?
You ignore what the FBI did to take down Clinton's campaign -- and you ignore Trump's outright fascism. You know where you can stick that "loyal" opposition.
The discredit is all yours, Jeff.
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11 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:
TechDirt claims the necessary downloading speed is achieved with a 180 Mbps connection, while others disagree (there are long rebuttals to the article you linked).
Citations please. Tell us why you find these rebuttals so compelling.
VICE News contributor Karl Bode also wrote the following:
Stories Claiming DNC Hack Was 'Inside Job' Rely Heavily On A Stupid Conversion Error No 'Forensic Expert' Would Make
22.7 megabytes per second (MB/s) sounds impossibly fast if you don't know any better. But if you do the simple conversion from megabytes per second to megabits per second necessary to determine the actual speed of the connection used, you get a fairly reasonable 180 megabits per second (Mbps). While the report proclaims that "no internet service provider" can provide such speeds, ISPs around the world routinely offer speeds far, far faster -- from 500 Mbps to even 1 Gbps.
And despite the report oddly pooh pooh'ing Romanian broadband's "delivery overheads," many Romanian cities actually have faster internet connectivity than either Russia or in the States (check out Akamai's global broadband rankings). Bernie Sanders learned this last year when he unintentionally pissed off many Romanians when trying to highlight the dismal state of U.S. connectivity. Even then, the hacker in question could have used any number of tricks to hide his or her location and real identity from a high-bandwidth vantage point, so the claim that the hacker couldn't achieve 180 Mbps through a VPN is simply nonsense.
</q>
11 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:So it’s an ongoing dispute.
It is?? If the subject isn't settled why do you report the work of Bill Binney as a fact?
You have claimed that the "reality-based community" has proven there was no Russian hack, haven't you?
11 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:Logically, even if something were possible it doesn’t mean it actually happened that way.
That hasn't stopped you from making claims of fact.
11 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:Doubts of the alleged Russian hack are not limited to the download speeds, but include. 1) Crowdstrike’s inexplicable delays dealing with the original breaches.
Crowdstrike reported the Russian hack to the DNC, their client, within a day. It took the DNC several weeks to get together with the FBI. What's so "inexplicable" about that?
11 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:2) Guccifer 2.0’s identity still in dispute.
And yet you have repeatedly claimed as a fact that Guccifer 2.0 had no connections to the GRU.
11 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:3) Wikileaks says it ain’t so.
Assange has repeatedly said he didn't get the e-mails from the Russian gov't.
11 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:4) refusal of US officials to interview Wikileaks or associates.
And that proves the Russians didn't hack the DNC?
11 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:5) Crowdstrike only source of allegation, and produced only draft reports
And that proves the Russians didn't hack the DNC?
11 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:6) no credible evidence of hack in official US reports.
And yet Robert Mueller indicted 12 GRU officials for hacking the DNC.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/russia-indictment-20-what-make-muellers-hacking-indictment
The indictment alleges a detailed and wide-ranging conspiracy to hack into the computers of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and others and to reveal information in order to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The special counsel charges 12 officials of the Russian military intelligence agency (“GRU”) with targeting more than 300 individuals affiliated with the Democratic Party or the campaign and leaking tens of thousands of stolen documents. </q>
11 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:Assange and associates have consistently said the official “hack” theory is bogus.
Direct quote from Assange that Russians didn't hack the DNC, please. "We didn't get it from the Russian gov't" is a non-denial denial.
11 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:The appropriate denunciation is to any charges whatsoever, and both administrations deserve contempt and admonishment for the recent day in court as described by Craig Murray. Pretty appalling by any measure, and it will continue to be appalling as it continues.
I knew you couldn't denounce Trump specifically. Such are Trumpenlinks.
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5 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:
A year-old entry in a partisan flame-war doesn’t prove anything.
Your deflections grow less deft, Jeff.
Are you trying to knock Techdirt? On what basis?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techdirt
Are you knocking the author, Karl Bode, a contributor to VICE News?
https://www.vice.com/en_us/contributor/karl-bode
I suspect you especially didn't like this bit.
Bode:
Roughly a year ago you might recall that numerous outlets happily parroted claims that the DNC wasn't hacked by Russian intelligence (as latter reports would make clear), but had somehow actually hacked itself. The theory was never particularly well cooked, though outlets like The Nation ran with it anyway, claiming that "forensic investigators, intelligence analysts, system designers, program architects, and computer scientists of long experience and strongly credentialed" had all collectively unearthed undeniable evidence that the DNC had committed cyber-seppuku.
The widely-circulated report leaned heavily on a published memo by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a collection of former intelligence experts and whistleblowers like William Binney and Ray McGovern. It also leaned heavily on the input of several, anonymous, self-professed "computer forensics investigators" who, the news outlet informed readers, had "split the DNC case open like a coconut," providing incontrovertible evidence that Russian intelligence played no role in the now-legendary breach.
But the entire claim was little more than fluff and nonsense.
As we noted at the time, The Nation story relied heavily on the allegation the stolen files must have been copied locally to USB by a DNC insider because, as The Nation claimed, "no Internet service provider was capable of downloading data at this speed" (22.7 megabytes per second). In reality, 22.7 megabytes per second was simply a 180 Mbps connection, widely available around the world at the time the DNC hack took place. That includes Romania, the country that the Russian cutout Guccifer 2.0 pretended (at the time) to have originated from. </q>
QuoteWikileaks, and associated go-betweens such as Craig Murray, have consistently and strenuously refuted the “Russian hack” theory, and they have a long track record of accuracy and integrity.
Assange has continuously denied he got the e-mails from the Russian gov't.
A non-denial denial.
QuoteAn honest investigation would have sought to hear from them, but that hasn’t happened. Instead, Assange rots in a UK super-max, faced with a dubious legal process which is more properly associated with soviet “dissidents” in the dismal past.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/10/assange-in-court/
Jeff, I'm looking forward to your full-throated denunciation of the Trump Justice Department indicting Assange on 17 additional charges -- charges the Obama DOJ expressly did not make.
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As 'DNC Hacked Itself' Conspiracy Theory Collapses, Key Backer Of Claim Exposed As UK T-r-o-l-l
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52 minutes ago, Robert Wheeler said:
This was published Oct. 23, 2017
Link to full article - Most People Believe In JFK Conspiracy Theories
2001 was the high water mark. The grand old days of rhetorically kicking nutter ass in the newsgroups.
Not satisfied with making the simple case for conspiracy, the JFKA Critical Master Class at the various conferences began to emphasize inferior, highly complex proofs of conspiracy.
The last conference I attended was the Cracking the Case event at Bethesda in 2005. A lot of emphasis on the acoustics and the NAA. I attended the event initially as a proud member of Research Community but by the time I got back home I was a devoted critic of the JFKA Master Class.
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As Sondland testified, a misleading Ukraine story spread among conservatives on social media
The article offered conservatives and Trump loyalists a welcome alternative to the day’s news.Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who researches kleptocracy in Russia, called the two Ukrainian members of parliament, Oleksandr Dubinsky and Andriy Derkach, who pushed the new allegations, “not credible.”
“These two both are professional disinformers,” Aslund said. “This is generally known in Ukraine. This is not outstanding news. Anybody who’s anybody knows about these two. They are not credible.” </q>
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Erstwhile Bush-boy Bob Wheeler supported the Iraq War, a conflict in which Lt. Col. Vindman was wounded.
Someone ask Mr. Wheeler if he were wounded in a war he supported.
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35 minutes ago, Mark Knight said:
One time a few years ago I asked my son, now age 39, why he didn't seem to show much interest in the JFK assassination.
He said, "Dad, this is old news. While I might, care, most people my age and younger simply don't care. The JFK assassination was your generation's 9/11. You remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard the news. Most people my age haven't heard a JFK speech, and don't have a good idea what he stood for, and consequently we just don't care. If you do figure out who really killed JFK, will it matter, except as history? At this point, nobody's going to go to jail for it. Basically, they got away with murder. But my generation has enough current stuff to occupy our time and our minds, so we don't care because we can't. It serves no purpose to my generation."
Looking on the JFK assassination as I look upon the Lincoln assassination, I get where he's coming from.
Mark, I get that reaction a lot from younger people. I answer, "It's relevant because the mainstream media continue to lie about it. They don't continuously lie about the Lincoln or Garfield assassinations, right? But they continue to lie about the JFK assassination. Fact-checking what's in the MSM or what's on-line is an honorable pursuit for lots and lots of issues, the JFK assassination being one of them."
Sometimes I get a thoughtful reaction, and sometimes I get the cue to change the subject.
There is one factor in our favor going forward -- JFK, like Marilyn Monroe, is an enduring icon of ultimate celebrity.
Awhile back I was at an eatery here in town when a couple of young guys took the table next to mine. One guy pulls up a pant leg to show off a sock adorned with colorful pictures of Jack Kennedy's face. "I had a choice -- either go gay or JFK."
I think people in general like a good mystery. But when younger people go to on-line forums to look into the mystery of JFK's death they run into a bunch of boomers bickering over bs.
The failure of the JFK Critical Master Class to reach a consensus on JFK's T3 back wound and throat entrance wound dooms our best intentions.
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On 11/15/2019 at 8:42 AM, Lawrence Schnapf said:
The percentage of those who believe in the official story is slowing creeping up as those who lived through the event pass away. students are being taught the official explanation.
Lawrence, I write this post in the spirit of constructive criticism.
Students have always been taught the official explanation.
The US gov't and the mainstream media have always preached the official explanation.
Remember the scene in JFK where Garrison debunks the single bullet theory with a diagram showing the back wound at the level of T3? Keep It Simple Stupid, right?
In an age where simplicity and repetition are the keys to getting people's attention, the JFK Critical Master Class stresses complex proofs of conspiracy which require advance college degrees to verify.
QuoteLHO is increasingly not referred to as the "alleged" assassin but as the actual assassin. In the 2017 CAPA mock trial, it was the Millennials on the jury who were the least receptive to a conspiracy.
It wasn't just the Millennials, Lawrence. You and Bill only convinced 5 out of 12 people that Oswald was innocent. And you spent two days to do it.
The acoustics? The NAA? The provenance of CE399? The head wound/s? Duds.
Why not approach the JFKA like any other cold case murder? Start with a robust inspection of the first day evidence -- the physical evidence found with the body, the properly prepared and verified/authenticated contemporaneous medical documents, and the contemporaneous notes of witnesses in position of authority.
To wit:
The bullet hole in the shirt is 4" below the bottom of the collar. The bullet hole in the jacket is 4.125" below the bottom of the collar.
The verified Death Certificate properly prepared by Kennedy's personal physician Admiral George Burkley listed the back wound at T3, consistent with the bullet holes in the clothes. The properly prepared portion of the autopsy face sheet -- signed off as verified -- shows a back wound location consistent with the holes in the clothes. The cervical autopsy x-ray -- authenticated by Dr. David Mantik -- shows a hairline fracture of the right T1 transverse process.
Two doctors at Parkland wrote contemporaneous notes describing the throat wound as an entrance. Two Secret Service men made contemporaneous notes putting the back wound in a location consistent with the holes in the clothes. Two FBI men sent a written message to FBI HQ soon after the autopsy which described the back wound as shallow, A couple of lawmen took notes of an interview with Oswald and made a written record his alibi -- he was outside for the parade.
Conclusions:
The shot in the back at T3 was too low to have caused the T1 fracture or the wound in the throat, which was an entrance. This proves at least 2 shooters and thus -- conspiracy.
Oswald stood accused of firing 6.5mm Full Metal Jacket rounds. 6.5mm FMJ don't leave shallow wounds in soft tissue. He wasn't one of the shooters unless he knowingly took part in his own frame job. His alibi holds water in the absence of any evidence he wasn't outside.
QuoteThe mainstream media now frequently equates conspiracy theorists with fringe groups. So to answer your question, my prediction is that in 2063, a majority of americans will believe the official story. IMHO
If the JFKA Critical Master Class get back to basics -- a la Vincent Salandria and Gaeton Fonzi -- there's a chance that fate can be avoided.
K.I.S.Ss
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27 minutes ago, Kirk Gallaway said:
Let me count the ways. You were silent in Charlottesville, you were silent about tax cuts to the rich. Silent about the wall. For an aspiring foreign policy wonk, silent about abandoning the peace treaty with Iran, and leaving the Paris accords. Total silence until after midterms. This is the first I remember even about "deceit."
In all fairness to Jim, he has denounced Trump's tax cuts more than once.
But he's been silent on Trump's white supremacist advisor Stephen Miller, for one example.
DiEugenio's denunciation of Ukrainian fascists is well and good but where is the Kennedys and King article about Trump's fascism?.
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28 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:
Doug:
That film has about forty people in it, but Stone is not one of them.
I know about Florida in 2000.
That indictment is about Stone lying about his contacts with Randy C and Jerome Corsi. There is no proof advanced about Stone's direct connections with Wikileaks. Or if there is, I missed it. But beyond that, both of those characters deny ever meeting with Assange or having direct communications with him.
So it sure looks to me that Stone is convicted about lying about something he never had.
Steve Bannon and Rick Gates testified that the Trump campaign gave Stone credit for having access to Wikileaks, and lots of circumstantial evidence indicates Stone had foreknowledge of impending Wikileaks releases.
Is Jim DiEugenio the Baghdad Bob of RussiaGate denial?
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46 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:
You are getting pretty close to Varnell Land. At that point I will be putting you on ignore.
Jim DiEugenio putting me on ignore has been mutually liberating.
He's liberated from reading critiques of his posts for which he has no fact based rebuttal, and I'm liberated from his shrill ad hominem. Win-win!
There is nothing inane, obtuse or false about my critiques of DiEugenio's posts.
This is the thread in which Jim DiEugenio found out he couldn't match my arguments. Fun starts on page 3...
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1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:
William:
Again, with all due respect, you buy Robert Conquest and Dick Pipes.
I don't.
I prefer Mark Tauger and Steve Cohen.
The first two advanced their careers by citing the Neocon aims and abandoning true historical research and analysis.
The second two have not done that and it has hurt them career wise.
The Neocons won. The winners write history for the masses.
https://www.newcoldwar.org/stephen-f-cohen-on-the-u-s-russiaukraine-history-the-media-wont-tell-you/
Maybe there are fascists in Russia, but we’re not backing the Russian government or Russian fascists. The question is, and it’s extremely important, “Is there a neo-fascist movement in Ukraine that, regardless of its electoral success, which has not been great, is influencing affairs politically or militarily, and is this something we should be worried about?”
The answer is 100 percent yes. But admitting this in the United States has gotten a 100 percent no until recently, when, finally, a few newspapers began to cite Kiev’s battalions with swastikas on their helmets and tanks. So you’ve gotten a little more coverage. Foreign journalists, leaving aside Russians, have covered this neo-fascist phenomenon, which is not surprising. It grows out of Ukraine’s history. It should be a really important political question for Western policy makers, and I think it is now for the Germans. German intelligence is probably better than American intelligence when it comes to Ukraine—more candid in what it tells the top leadership. Merkel’s clearly worried about this. </q>
4 and a half years later we should still be concerned with Ukrainian fascists. And Russian fascists. And American fascists.
Zelensky seems worthy of our support.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/ukrainian-pm-minister-attended-neo-nazi-concert-in-kyiv/
Zelensky has clashed with members of the far-right, including the Azov-linked National Corps, over his decision to allow a troop withdrawal as part of efforts to reach a negotiated peace in the long-simmering conflict in Ukraine’s east.
“Listen, I’m the president of this state. I’m 42. I’m not some loser,” Zelensky snapped at a soldier affiliated with the group during a visit to the front-lines this weekend.
Last month, Zelensky’s government fired controversial historian Volodymyr Viatrovych, the head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory and one of the driving forces behind Ukraine’s policy of rehabilitating World War Two-era nationalists who had collaborated with the Nazis. </q>
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26 minutes ago, Robert Wheeler said:
Her parents Gehlen connection is coming. The crowd is working on it.
The fascists are desperately buzzing as their Dear Leader slowly goes down.
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46 minutes ago, Jeff Carter said:
Ambassador Yovanovitch made very clear US policy has been focussed on moving Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit - that is, remove it from, as Stephen Cohen describes, “a civilization shared for centuries by Russia and large parts of Ukraine” - and attach it to the EU economically, and militarily to NATO’s “security architecture” so to serve as a “force multiplier” (her words) against Russia. In other words, it was a deliberate conscious policy to, on the other side of the world, upend an ages-old status quo and replace it with tension and simmering conflict. That’s extremely bad policy and I don’t know how anyone can defend it.
Ages old status quo? Like when Ukrainian nationalists fought the Red Army during the Russian Civil War?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_War_of_Independence
Status quo like the forced starvation of millions?
https://www.britannica.com/event/Holodomor
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Stone lied when he claimed his contact with Wikileaks was Randy Credico. If Credico didn't go along with his story Stone threatened to get his dog.
Robert Gates and Steve Bannon testified that Roger Stone was considered by the Trump campaign as a direct link to Wikileaks, with much evidence of Stone's foreknowledge of Wikileaks releases.
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2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:
C'mon Bob.
The USA sends special forces all over the world to conduct proxy actions.
The US doesn't mass it's forces on the border of Mexico or Canada.
2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:That does not mean the USA is invading the country.
The way to threaten an invasion is mass forces on the border.
Why is Zelensky so intent on arming his troops with anti-tank missiles?
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On 11/15/2019 at 12:31 AM, Jeff Carter said:
Ukraine was a region of Russia for far far longer than it has ever been a separate identity. The history is more complicated and fluid than simplistic “ethnic cleansing” narratives. Current NATO policy is based entirely on ignoring Russian identity in Crimea. Internal Ukraine politics in 2014 were akin to red state/blue state divide. The blue states overthrew the elected red state government and demanded the red states fall in line, and one red state region held a referendum and left, and two red state regions took up arms and declared federated autonomous powers but are not seeking separation.
Jeff, your ability to mis-characterize historical fact is astonishing.
The Ukraine has had a separate ethnic identity and language for centuries. Their culture is arguably more influenced by the Poles than the Russians.
And how do you dismiss the Holodomor slaughter of millions of ethnic Ukrainians 1932-3 as "simplistic 'ethnic cleansing' narratives"?
Red state/blue state?
https://geovisualist.com/2013/12/09/regional-differences-in-ethnicity-and-language-in-ukraine/
The only ethnic Russian majority province in Ukraine is Crimea. They don't crack 40% in eastern Ukraine.
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Trump is targeting our most vulnerable allies. The Kurds, the Ukrainians...and now the South Koreans.
Trump hikes price tag for US forces in Korea almost 500% as Seoul questions alliance
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/14/politics/trump-south-korea-troops-price-hike/index.html
Trump is a sociopath sadist who loves to make life miserable for the most vulnerable.
critic of the Rehe
Mark Zaid, JFK and Trump
in JFK Deep Politics
Posted · Edited by Cliff Varnell
Sophistry is equating "did not establish" with "discredit," and equating "conspiracy" with "collusion."
Sophistry is mischaracterizing half a sentence in the Mueller Report and then dismissing the key conclusion -- "a series of contacts between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government
First you erroneously claimed the Mueller Report "discredited" Russian collusion, now you're dismissing without evidence a key finding of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.
"Collusion" is not a legal term, not a chargeable crime.
Pure sophistry. Jeff Carter waves his magic wand over Natalia Veselnitskaya and Konstantin Kilimnik and voila! -- no connection to the Russian gov't!
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/mueller-report-release-latest-news/card/1555615741
Mr. Mueller said he decided not to pursue criminal campaign-finance charges against Mr. Trump Jr. or other members of the campaign related to the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer linked to the Kremlin, because he believed it would be difficult to prove both that the campaign officials knew their conduct was unlawful and that the value of the information promised to the campaign in the meeting exceeded the $2,000 threshold for a criminal violation.
</q>
Ignorance of the law is not supposed to be an excuse in the American judicial system.
Shows how far Robert Mueller bent over backwards to treat the Trumps with kid gloves.