Jeff Carter

David House had nothing to do with Wikileaks. He got upset about the Manning prosecution in 2012 and made public comments against Assange related to that, but has no direct knowledge of any matters covered by the indictments. The information about Thordarson is rather damning and extensive, as published in the Icelandic press and covered in the link I shared. Which you didn’t read, obviously. You are simply repeating incorrect mainstream media talking points. As well, despite your poorly informed assertion, Wikileaks has never revealed sources or methods. Wikileaks publishes official documents which have been leaked to the organization by individuals not directly associated with them. No government has ever questioned the authenticity of the published documents. No individual has knowingly been harmed by the publication of documents by Wikileaks, as senior officials from the Pentagon conceded. Julian Assange’s legal jeopardy is entirely due to the fact that very powerful persons, who assume they are not answerable or accountable for criminal or unethical behaviour, have been embarrassed by Wikileaks releases. As former CIA head and Obama admin SecDef Leon Panetta stated to German television: ““All you can do is hope that you can ultimately take action against those that were involved in revealing that information so you can send a message to others not to do the same thing.” Which reveals both the revenge motive for the officially sanctioned torture of Assange ( as determined by UN Rapporteur), and also the essentially political nature of his persecution. It's a shame you have invested yourself in such a travesty.

The sources for the “Assange recruited hackers” indictment presented by the US Department of Justice, to which you refer, were two highly compromised individuals who became FBi informants to escape their own legal difficulties - namely Sigurdur “Siggi” Thordarson and Hector Xavier Monsegur (“Sabu”). Monsegur attempted to entrap Wikileaks in a cash-for-leaks scheme, while Thordarson was fired from Wikileaks after he attempted to embezzle about $50,000 from the organization. Are you aware of that? You seem very certain that “prosecution's version of events in this case isn't in dispute” and yet Thordarson made public statements just weeks ago that everything he told the FBI re: Assange was made up. Do you know that? This is the context by which you anticipate Assange’s “taxi” - yet another participant in this thread relishing punishment for persons they disagree with. “Key Witness Against Assange Admits To Lying In Exchange for US Immunity” https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/06/28/assa-j28.html https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/07/02/the-kafkaesque-imperium-julian-assange-and-the-second-superseding-indictment/

Julian Assange did not write the email message Matt feels should land him in a SuperMax for the remainder of his life, someone else at his organization Wikileaks did. The email dates from 2016, not last year as Kirk seems to think. The correct information is clearly articulated in my original post and the attendant links. But if anything is crystal clear - the most opinionated persons on this thread often don’t know what they are talking about, don’t feel compelled to seek out the facts themselves, and harbour express desires to inflict punishment on those they disagree with. Hey Bob - is that your opinion on the Panama Papers too? What about journalists cultivating sources to get confidential information? Isn’t that what they do? What about the Ukraine ”whistleblower” or the Facebook “whistleblower” - didn’t they reveal confidential information? Why aren’t you mad at them? Was Chelsea Manning a “hacker”? Do you feel that “stealing” information which reveals the commission of war crimes is worse than the actual war crimes? That’s what it sounds like. Did you not notice that you have quoted the DOJ’s (i.e. the prosecution's) presentation and version of events and formed a strong opinion about it without even considering the other side’s version of events or interpretation of what they were doing? Do you think Julian Assange should spend the rest of his life in a Super Max prison for publishing truthful information? The United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer said today in his opinion Assange is being tortured to death in London’s Belmarsh Prison. Are you cool with that? Assange suffered a stroke during the start of the appeal in late October and the prison officials withheld medical assistance to ensure he remained on the video link for the duration of the session. Are you down with that? It sure sounds like it.

Michael Paine’s 1993 revisionist history re: Oswald showing him a backyard photo entirely contradicts two key facets of his Warren Commission testimony from 1964, both of which he spoke in great detail at the time. First, recounting the initial meet with Lee, at Neely Street, when Paine arrived to drive the Oswalds to a dinner engagement at the Paine home in Irving, he describes a half-hour conversation in detail which fills ten transcript pages (WCH II, pp. 393-398). It is this encounter at which Paine would later claim Oswald showed him the photograph, but that incident is not recalled at all in 1964. Is his memory lapse, a year instead of thirty years after the fact, credible, particularly considering the weight or gravitas he would later apply to the supposed presentation? Second, Paine spoke of the “camping equipment” or a “folding shovel” during seven pages of transcript (WCH IX, pp. 437-443) over-describing his thought patterns regarding the rolled blanket which he had unloaded from Ruth’s station wagon, carried into the garage, and had to move from time to time during the ensuing two months. While later accounts by members of the DPD that the blanket had the obvious form of a “rifle”, such thought does not even occur to Paine even though, should one take his 1993 revision seriously, he not only had direct knowledge that Oswald had been photographed holding a rifle the previous spring but also, according to his revisionist take, the photograph expressed Oswald’s deepest personal view of himself. It doesn’t really add up. Note also that Marina Oswald was directly advised of a poor outcome concerning her U.S, residency should she not “cooperate” with a Secret Service interviewer on Nov 28/63, a threat which immediately followed the interviewer articulating details of Marina’s previous activities back in Leningrad, including specifically at a locale called the “Inter Club” (CE1792).

The quote you share was featured in an article by Julia Ioffe and published in The Atlantic in November 2017. The correspondence the article was based on was conducted by individuals at the Wikileaks organization, not Assange personally. In fact, Assange’s internet connectivity had been cut months before the communications in question. So what’s your trip, Matt? Why do you seem to support, if not relish, the prospect of a life-sentence in an American Super-Max prison for a journalist / publisher who never worked inside the United States, based on, in your formulation, quotations he was not even personally responsible for? I thought your utterly naive comment that Powell’s 2003 UN misrepresentation was simply his being “fooled” by “contemporaneous intelligence” was peak credulity, but here you expose a disturbingly casual sadistic streak as well. Do you know that The Atlantic piece from which the quote you provide appeared, was ripped by other journalists for deliberately editing materials to mislead the readers of the story as to the “actual meaning and purpose of the exchanges with Donald Jr. remain at least somewhat open to interpretation.” https://reason.com/2017/11/14/did-the-atlantic-prove-wikileaks-knew-it/ As analyst Caitlin Johnstone pointed out, Ioffe edited one of the messages to infer that Wikileaks was seeking to deflect attention from its self-perception as a “pro-Trump pro-Russia” source - an inference which immediately was widely re-tweeted and reported in the US mainstream media - when in fact the organization was noting that the inference was instead something “the Clinton campaign is constantly slandering us with.” Big difference. Journalistic malpractice: “If you exclude important information while communicating that you have not, you are blatantly lying to your readers.” “WikiLeaks comes off looking weird and sleazy in a way that will likely damage its reputation even further than the mainstream media campaign to smear the outlet already has. WikiLeaks is seen asking for favors Trump never fulfilled, making recommendations Trump Jr. didn't act upon, and asking for leaks Trump Jr. never gave them, which when you step back and think about it are actually fairly normal things for a leak outlet to do, all things considered.” https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/the-atlantic-commits-malpractice-selectively-edits-to-smear-wikileaks-65ecd7c2468f Julian Assange published factual information which revealed high crimes and misdemeanours of elite persons who act with impunity under cover of official secrecy. He did a service for all of us, and will unfortunately have his head metaphorically mounted on a pike as an example to any who might think to follow. This travesty of justice demeans and cheapens our society’s heritage and legal traditions, even as it empowers the very worst amongst us. It will be a historic marker for the rapid degeneration into the end stage of whatever it is we have become.

I think it is true - Michael Paine was shown a backyard photo on Friday evening. He identified the Neely Street house from the photo, and one can then trace the interest in that address through Fritz the following day. I speculate that the photo in possession on Friday night was the version later labelled 133-C, not generally known until the 1970s, and that 133-C was hidden from the official record for so long because the means by which it came into possession of the DPD would harm the official story. I believe someone handed that photo to the DPD early Friday evening, and either that person’s identity or how they initially came into possession of the photo would open a can of worms best left sealed.

re: the suggestion of a rifle at the Paine’s house in irving - my opinion is that there is something fishy, as Steve said. I also agree with Joe - Oswald never owned the rifle or handgun. My opinion is there was a blanket that was an Oswald family possession. It might be seen in a couple of photos from the Neely St house, laid out on the balcony beneath young June. It likely travelled to New Orleans and back again and ended up in the Paine’s garage - but it did not ever hide a rifle. My assumption is that either someone rearranged the rolled blanket to form something like a rifle shape, probably during the day of Nov 22, or else there was some suggestive verbal element at play on its discovery which led to a consensus among the officers present that its shape was “rifle-like”. Michael Paine, in my opinion, lied in 1993 about being shown a backyard photo by Oswald, and did so to help bolster the official story. Similarly, in my opinion, his laboured testimony about camping equipment in the blanket was also a lie told for the same reason.

I’m applying deductive reasoning. Gus Rose’s testimony doesn’t really have corroboration, yet neatly establishes “Oswald’s rifle” as fact. The officers at the Paine house left for Irving before Oswald was tied to the JFK slaying, so a telephone call to Fritz was necessary to even know to ask such a question - if it even happened that way. Rose’s testimony checks the necessary boxes for sure. If the blanket in the garage had the “distinct impression” of a rifle, which seems to imply it had held the object for some period of time, how does it move with Ruth Paine and be placed in the garage with Oswald’s seabag without comment from Ruth or Michael? Michael Paine’s testimony on the matter to the Warren Commission goes on for seven strained pages (WCH IX, pp. 437-443) in which he claims to have pondered intellectually what the blanket could have contained, including a folding shovel or camping equipment, yet several Dallas police officers on Nov 22 note the “distinct impression” of a rifle. By 1993, Michael Paine started claiming that Oswald had showed him a backyard photo in the Spring of 1963 - yet seven months later could not identify or suspect the “distinct impression” of a rifle in a wrapped blanket. Ruth Paine claimed she would never allow a firearm in her home because of the children, but does not overtly react when the supposed presence of such, associated with a house guest no less, is made by police officers several hours after the President had been shot near a building where the guest worked. If Oswald removed the rifle, why would he leave the blanket with the “distinct impression” still intact, or even the string ties still in place on either end?

The story that Marina responded to the direct question if her husband owned a rifle by leading the police officers to a rolled-up blanket in the Paine garage appears in the Warren Commission testimony of DPD officer Gus Rose. He said that he was directed to ask the question during a telephone call with Fritz while the officers were at the Paine residence. Note that Ruth Paine, in her role as Marina’s interpreter, was the person who directly “asked” the question and interpreted the answer. Buddy Walthers was also part of the police contingent and his Warren Commission testimony does not mention overhearing the question/answer or that Marina led police to the blanket. DPD officer Harry Weatherford made a contemporaneous statement which says he “stayed with Mrs Oswald and Mrs Payne while the rest of the men searched the house” and doesn’t mention any conversation about a rifle. (Decker Exhibit 5323, 19H) The officers present do agree a rolled up blanket was present in the garage, tied at both ends (one end loosened), and specifically that the blanket had a distinct impression which matched the form of an intact rifle with stock and tapering barrel. That is not consistent with a notion that an alleged rifle had been removed and presumably returned several times during October/November. It is also not consistent with Michael Paine’s WC testimony of assuming the blanket contained “camping equipment”. Or Ruth Paine’s obliviousness, as the officer’s claimed the rifle imprint was obvious.

Kirk - establishing the factual record is not the same as “defending” a corrupt politician. And again, constitutional democracies have established procedures for the lawful removal of elected officials - procedures which do not include angry mobs storming legislatures and declaring new governments. The record shows that Yanukovych’s corruption problems did not provide the agency for the coup. It was the mediated agreement made the day before: New York Times February 21, 2014: “A deal aimed at ending a lethal spiral of violence in Ukraine began to show serious strains late Friday just hours after it had been signed, with angry protesters shouting down opposition members of Parliament who negotiated the accord and a militant leader threatening armed attacks if President Viktor F. Yanukovych did not step down by morning… Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of Right Sector, a coalition of hard-line nationalist groups, reacted defiantly to news of the settlement, drawing more cheers from the crowd. “The agreements that were reached do not correspond to our aspirations,” he said… New York Times February 22, 2014: “Gone on Saturday, along with President Viktor F. Yanukovych, who had fled to eastern Ukraine, was any trace of a Friday peace deal that had sought to freeze the country’s tumult by trimming the powers of the president while allowing him to stay in office until the end of the year… With protesters now in control of the presidential compound in Mezhgorye and the government district of Kiev, the (mediated agreement) lies in ruins…”

Kirk - the persons who stormed the Kiev legislature were not expressing dismay over Ukraine’s corrupt political culture, they were specifically acting to prevent a vote accepting the internationally mediated agreement to resolve the political crisis sparked by the Maidan protests. The mediated compromise would have moved up Ukraine’s next scheduled election to December 2014, which would have allowed a full debate over the actual terms of the EU Association Agreement, which were not presented to the negotiators until September 2013. That is when Yanukovych started to have doubts, because of language dealing with exclusivity (the EU would become Ukraine’s primary trading partner by law) and the requirement of severe austerity measures which would eliminate fuel subsidies and other social programs. That is why I became interested in this issue (in December 2013), when the Maidan started to shift from generalized corruption concerns towards support for the EU agreement, because I couldn’t fathom how a citizen-based protest movement could be advocating an austerity program - I wasn’t aware of that ever happening before. The coup not only removed the constitutionally elected government, it forestalled any public debate on the Association Agreement, which was signed by the new unelected government.

You’re the one calling people names for posting information you don’t like. Accurately presenting events does not add up to “ceaseless demonization” or even “propagandizing”. You still have yet to offer factual information discounting anything I have said other than Yanukovych’s single conviction, for robbery and assault when he was 17, which was later designated “unlawful” by Ukraine’s Prosecutor General. It had nothing to do with “corruption”, and did not impede his political career. The other charges directed at Yanukovych all followed the Feb coup, were filed by his political enemies and have never been tested in a court. Again, in democracies there is both legal due process and established constitutional procedures to handle the removal from office of corrupt officials, (angry mobs storming the legislature are not included in those). The situation in Ukraine fortunately was not entirely mirrored on 1/6. The constitutional government was not chased out of office, and a new government under Trump was not proclaimed let alone recognized as “legitimate” by other nations. As thought experiment, if such an event had occurred, it is not implausible to imagine, say, the state of California refusing to recognize or obey an unconstitutional Trump regime. To mirror Ukraine, the Trump regime would then move military assets to Oregon and Nevada and proceed to attack L.A. and San Francisco with heavy artillery. That’s what happened in eastern Ukraine - the people refused to obey or recognize the “new government” and they were attacked. The position of US and NATO, then and now, is that those people “have to” accept the coup and the following governments that they never voted for, otherwise the Ukraine government is fully justified in forcing them to do so through the application of military violence. The US and NATO are even providing the weaponry and training to help that process along. This is not widely understood due to relentless information management which has produced a false consciousness on this issue, and a full scale shooting war with the Russian Federation may yet occur due to these misrepresentations.

There is a historical documented record of the events in Ukraine, and my account accurately matches that record. Your arrogant dismissal of the facts is therefore rather amusing. Further, Yanukovych - whatever one may feel about him - was not ever “convicted” and no finding regarding his personal corruption, or lack thereof, was ever established or even really investigated, and, most pertinently, in constitutional democracies, there are set procedures for the impeachment of elected officials. In other words, an angry mob “kicking him out” has no legal basis - which you seem to understand re: the 1/6 events, but in this instance you seem to believe otherwise. As well, the presence and influence of "far-right", or "historical nationalist", agitators in Ukraine is well documented, and the denial of such is truly an example of "nonsensical propaganda".

Hi Kirk. The voting in Kiev on Feb 22, 2014 was about accepting an internationally mediated agreement arrived at the previous evening, which set out a political compromise to resolve the political crisis which the Maidan protests sparked. This compromise included moving up the date of the next presidential election to the December 2014. The ”far-right protesters” stormed the parliament to specifically prevent the mediated compromise from receiving official approval. The Maidan protests were not initially about the EU association deal, they reflected a more generalized frustration with a corrupt political culture. The EU Association agreement, which Yanukovych supported and negotiated, became controversial months previously after the fine print of the deal was revealed, featuring several problematic issues such as clauses demanding exclusivity and the requirement of a harsh austerity program regulating government spending. Holding a presidential election later in the year would have allowed ample time for a proper public debate on the pros and cons of the deal, but the coup forestalled this process. The hasty recognition of a “new government” as somehow ”legitimate”(by USA, UK, and Canada) ruined any chance to reverse the outcome. Protesters against the unconstitutional change of government soon came under violent attack (most gruesome in Odessa where dozens of persons were literally burned to death), and a flurry of repressive legislation aimed at Russian speaking persons within the country was enacted. This led to the controversial referendum in Crimea, and the refusal of the Donest-Lugansk regions to recognize the new regime. Those events were portrayed by the NATO military alliance as a “Russian invasion”. The “historical nationalist” faction to which you refer have a power base within the Ukraine government centered on the state security apparatus, which the Zelensky government does not control or influence. The negotiated Minsk accords, which was meant to find a political way forward between Kiev and the regions which refused to accept the coup, has never been carried through. The “historical nationalist” faction believes adamantly that the breakaway regions must be brought to heel through military force. The Russian Federation has said that they will not permit such to happen, and that has been portrayed by NATO as “Russian aggression”.

On February 22, 2014 the following things happened in Kiev, Ukraine: 1) a far-right mob stormed the parliament building 2) inside, the legislators were voting on the acceptance of an EU mediated plan to resolve the political impasse associated with the Maidan protests 3) the mob prevented the vote. legislators were chased from the building. politicians allied with the far right mob declared a new government. 4) within a few hours, the Obama administration recognized the new government as “legitimate” If you can establish even one of the above points as being incorrect / mistaken then you can assert that I am sharing “nonsensical propaganda”. But you won’t be able to. W. Niederhut - Can you give us some examples of "principled" politicians and media supporting violent right wing mobs? I did. Again, it’s not to make a “gotcha” point. It’s to emphasize that we should try to understand the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. The Obama administration also supported and “legitimized” a right wing coup in Honduras, and advisors from the Obama Justice Department, it is now known, were key to initiating the Lava Jato “anti-corruption” witch hunt in Brazil - which hobbled the left-leaning democratically elected government, led to its leaders being jailed, and ultimately resulted in the election of proto-fascist Bolsanaro.

Both Ukraine and Hong Kong were “democracies” in the sense that political representatives were voted into office by the citizenry based on constitutional procedure. But you are certainly correct re: “a few more cracked ribs among the plebs”. The vicious response to the Catalan independence referendum - taken as a sort of insurrection by Spanish authorities - is Exhibit A for that. The French authorities too have been extremely violent towards the "yellow vest" protest movement. It's interesting in contrast that the 1/6 mob were not met with overwhelming force on the day but with heavy judicial sanction after the fact.

The coup in Kiev in 2014 was virtually an exact mirror event, with far-right “protesters” storming the legislature, chasing away the constitutionally elected legislators who were voting on an important bill, and then proclaiming a new government. In that case, the Obama administration within a few hours recognized the protester’s political allies as the new “legitimate government”. Right wing protesters in Hong Kong, who in the summer of 2019 rallied support using events in Ukraine as a model for insurrection, demanded the right to “petition the government” directly in front of the civic legislature - a demand echoed by a bipartisan cross-section of senior US politicians, who portrayed previous attempts stymied by police as grave violations of the human right to protest. When the authorities relented, the protesters smashed their way into the legislature chamber and proceeded to utterly trash the place. Nancy Pelosi, remarking on that event, made the well publicized comment that it was a “beautiful sight to behold”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvz7SO3Ppos I point this out not to excuse the 1/6 events or extol some kind of “gotcha” moment, but it is important to recognize when politicians and the media are situational rather than principled, especially when supporting / condemning violent right wing mobs.

Is it certain the question was so precise? i.e. did he have “rifle” on the premises as opposed to did he have “possessions” on the premises.

I would say one of the main problems with this line of approach is that many persons are justifiably skeptical of the notion that there ever was a rifle sitting in a rolled up carpet in the Paine's garage to begin with.

Every single point in your silly list of speculations, hearsays, boastings , stonewallings, and kowtowings was basically neatly dissected, identified and catalogued in the Aaron Mate piece which was linked but obviously not read by yourself. Mate's dissection is framed by an analysis of the awful now mostly retracted and yet Pulitzer prize winning reporting served up by America's legacy media, the same institution another poster here has praised as the blue ribbon standard for the world. You yourself should get a prize for your faithful regurgitation of these now retracted monuments to credulity over these past five years. Even so, your lack of self-awareness allowed you to write "I'm the last person around here who would trust M$M coverage of intel or military black ops..." And yet... I'm fairly certain that David Frum doesn't really believe any of his "incontrovertible facts" either, as he is as much an influence peddler as anyone else in this sordid tale and playing a zero sum game where notions of "truth" or accountability can be very malleable depending on the situation. Is this morass of stupidity the "inevitable end result" of this past half century of sinister information management programs? It is and it isn't - i.e. it doesn't have to be. There are methods embedded within our enlightenment frameworks of knowledge and justice which encourage rational disposition, but they must be committed to.

Frum , at best, has assembled a laundry list of “talking points” rather than “facts”. He explicitly bemoans that professional journalists are now carving up the basic premises of “Russiagate”, particularly as new information regarding its origins is uncovered. Looks like the final redoubt - the Alamo of the true believers - is the Senate Subcommittee Report which, as noted at the time of its release, is an extremely poor product characterized by unsupported allegations and weak speculations. Frum’s “indisputable facts” wither on examination: 1-3. Entirely irrelevant. It was not illegal for Americans to have contact or business with citizens from the Russian Federation. The Trump Tower deal was almost entirely the initiative of Felix Sater - nothing was built, no money was exchanged. 4 - The Committee do not possess any kind of intercept revealing any kind of Putin directive authorizing any kind of operation directed at US politicians. They instead utilize backward reasoning i.e. the emails were purloined by a “GRU hack” (a contentious supposition to begin with), therefore Putin “must have” ordered it. 5 - Papadopoulos allegedly learned of a so-called “active measures campaign” from Josef Misud. Mifsud was not subject to anything but an early cursory interview which did nothing to clarify the issue, and there was no follow up. No follow up, despite the presumed importance of the contact. 6 - The offer of “harmful information” was a pretence to arrange a meeting about other matters. The Trump campaign may have desired “dirt” on their opponent, but clearly so did their opponent want dirt on them, and was much more successful in obtaining it. The Russian lawyer also dined with associates of Clinton (Fusion GPS) at the same time. 7 - Wikileaks has consistently denied receiving the emails from Russians or participating in any kind of “intelligence campaign”. No one from Wikileaks was ever interviewed by representatives of the FBI, the Senate Subcommittee, or the Mueller investigation. Again - no one from Wikileaks was ever interviewed. 8 - Roger Stone had at best extremely limited communications with Wikileaks representatives, and his “predictions” were merely the repetition of publicly available open source information. 9 - Denying something that probably did not ever happen is not exactly a “cover up”. 10 - Manafort’s longtime right-hand man Kilimnik worked over a decade for an offshoot of the NED in Moscow, and was a valued information source for the US Embassy in Kiev. Neither Mueller or the Senate Subcommittee has been able to actually explain what they think he did, not has it been revealed what exactly led to his designation of “Russian intelligence officer”. Kilimnik, as well as most persons who knew or worked with him, denies the allegation. 11 - Policies associated with the Trump campaign “supporting Putin” were based on a notion of turning the Russians towards the US and away from China, so as to better pursue a Cold War against the latter - as was clearly articulated by those involved in promoting these notions in the weeks ahead of the Republican convention. 12 - Yes, but as has been seen since, so have persons “close to Clinton”. Seems like there was a lot of lying going around on both sides of the fence.

In his Atlantic piece, David Frum argues the practice of journalism is essentially partisan, as it invariably serves the interest of one or another party. By this formula, Frum repudiates professional journalism’s codes of ethics and practice, which include the principles of truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness, and public accountability. (See https://guides.lib.uw.edu/research/commstudies/ethics) It’s like arguing that seeking the truth of the JFKA should be discouraged because of the potential reputational harm to various institutions. So why should anyone consider Frum’s version of the “factual record” as anything but a cherry-picked partisan prosecutor’s brief? - which it in fact is. The Senate Intelligence Committee Report is hardly definitive, and the other linked Atlantic writer concedes as much (“Russiagate was not a Hoax” https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/russiagate-wasnt-a-hoax/615373/). While acknowledging the report’s allegations are “incendiary”, the writer also manages to allow that it “doesn’t definitely settle the question”, doesn’t provide a “comprehensive understanding”, only “fills in the gaps somewhat”, is “maddeningly elliptical”, and finally “the truth remains elusive.” Here’s a take on the poor performance of the MSM by an actual journalist: https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/11/24/five_trump-russia_collusion_corrections_we_need_from_the_media_now_-_just_for_starters_804205.html

Satire, right? Sending up the combination of naïveté and credulity necessary to make blanket assertions in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, right? Just this past week the NY Times has headlined obviously false stories about Uganda’s national airport and local crime rates in NYC. Two weekends ago, basically all of the legacy media in U.S. published mea culpas conceding that all of their breathless reporting re: the Steele dossier was in fact textbook “hack” journalism. In fact, the reporting on Russiagate in general has been one of the worst journalistic performances in recent history, although not as devastatingly consequential as the torrent of fake news which accompanied the WMD lies and attendant invasion of Iraq - which is by far the biggest international crime perpetrated this young century. Here’s a fun challenge: Within a couple of minutes, without having to think hard, I can easily come up with a dozen false stories published by legacy media (many of which resulting from planted information pushed by unnamed national security figures to pliant reporters). Can you identify a single fake news story published by RT? As to Paul’s point, infiltration of leftist/antiwar organizations by government agents is usually downplayed when they are revealed, which is usually in court. During the 2010 G20 meet in Toronto, for example, members of black bloc were allowed to run wild one afternoon resulting in the city virtually coming under martial law. It later turned out the organization was thoroughly infiltrated by police, who were actually forefront in planning the rampage. This of course also happened back in Chicago ’68, when just about all of the most strident and confrontation-minded Yippies showed up as prosecution witnesses during the later trial. While the smarter organizers know that the loudest advocates of violent protest are probably cops, the ensuing paranoia over infiltrators itself is harmful - as histories of New Left, Black Panthers, etc show.

Thanks, Kirk. You have clarified your position: 1) you do not believe there is an “Establishment” in the United States. 2) you feel the need to sarcastically demean anyone who does. The instances of sponsorship and orchestration supporting campaigns to uphold the Warren Commission and denigrate the critics is long-standing and has a material record which can be referred. You are of course free to argue that this is merely the activity of individuals acting on their own personal initiatives, and that commonality with intent and practice is simply coincidence, but that’s not exactly what you are doing.

Fear and feelings? WTF… Back in the 1960s, CBS News twice put together programs supporting the Warren Commission which purported to be objective analysis but were actually coordinated with representatives of the Commission. The Garrison-Shaw trial featured nightly briefings to coordinate press coverage and talking points, in addition to the prior NBC hatchet job (se DiEugenio’s “Destiny Betrayed” for detail). At time of Stone’s “JFK”, Random House sponsored an obscure writer with no history of interest in the case to author an “Oswald did it” book which became lauded across the MSM and provided the talking points used to attack the film. Bugliosi’s book too was sponsored. Now, as the “JFK Revisited” film is released, three separate authors publish work attacking the film, all using the same historical event filtered through the exact same lens (Garrison’s alleged homophobia). So suggesting this fits a pattern is not a paranoid projection, nor is it an observation devoid of facts. Demanding the names of supposed “paymasters” or an exact chart of how this process unfolded is a reductionist position which basically echoes the lone-nutters final demand to “name the shooters”.