Two Questions For James DiEugenio

[Paz Marverde]

Oh, politics is dirty … Really nothing to add, after reading what you wrote

[Thomas Graves]

19 minutes ago, Paz Marverde said:

Oh, politics is dirty … Really nothing to add, after reading what you wrote

Yeah,  life is a bummer, huh.

Hope I didn't offend your sensibilities.  Would you prefer that I use the word "cutthroat," instead? 

Case in point: I am very pro-JFK myself, but I think it's been pretty well established that his dad, Joe Sr., pulled a few strings, etc, etc, to help his son get elected.  Bottom line: BFD in JFK's and Hillary's case.  But (arranged?) help from a hostile country that's been trying to take us down since at least the 1930s is another thing altogether.

I mean, I mean, I mean ... wouldn't you agree?

 

Have you watched this video from that evil, evil, evil "Neocon" / "MSM" outlet known as PBS?

http://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-putins-way/

 

--  Tommy 

Edited February 4, 2018 by Thomas Graves

[James DiEugenio]

Paz, I think you live in Italy.

Therefore, I need to clarify a point that TG is trying to obfuscate.

If you recall it was PBS which gave us the Cold Case Nova show at the fiftieth with the father and son team, the Haags.

And what did they tell us? Short version: the WC was correct.  On the PBS bandwagon, pushing the show in advance, was none other than John McAdams.

The Neocon influence over all of Washington has been quite pervasive.  It controls the editorial pages of the Washington Post and the NY Times. And as PBS has gotten their funding cut, year after year, they have had to go to private sources.  The Koch brothers being one of them.

 

[Thomas Graves]

11 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Paz, I think you live in Italy.

Therefore, I need to clarify a point that TG is trying to obfuscate.

If you recall it was PBS which gave us the Cold Case Nova show at the fiftieth with the father and son team, the Haags.

And what did they tell us? Short version: the WC was correct.  On the PBS bandwagon, pushing the show in advance, was none other than John McAdams.

The Neocon influence over all of Washington has been quite pervasive.  It controls the editorial pages of the Washington Post and the NY Times. And as PBS has gotten their funding cut, year after year, they have had to go to private sources.  The Koch brothers being one of them.

 

James,

With all due respect, are you suggesting, in your inimical round-about way, that "Putin's Way" is an inaccurate portrayal of Vladimir Putin?

How so?

 

Did Oliver "Fast-And-Loose-With-The-Facts" Stone or Julian Assange or Edward Snowden tell you that he's really quite a nice guy, and we can trust him?

 

Secondary question: Regarding that evil, evil, evil John McAdams, have you "debunked" him yet?

 

--  Tommy 

 

Edited February 4, 2018 by Thomas Graves

[James DiEugenio]

Again, I mean where does this guy come from?

If someone does not know about my writings on McAdams, yet is interested in the JFK case, I mean have you been hiding in the upper Andes for the last couple of decades? And while there subscribing by air drop to  The Weekly Standard and National Review?

And my God, if you need me to discredit McAdams for you, then hey, you are beyond saving.

As per Putin, my touchstone on this whole Russia episode was always the late Robert Parry.  He was the only guy in Washington who was actually centered on the facts of the case.  That is why he was the main talking head in Ukraine on Fire.

Edited February 4, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[Thomas Graves]

9 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Again, I mean where does this guy come from?

If someone does not know about my writings on McAdams, yet is interested in the JFK case, I mean have you been hiding in the upper Andes for the last couple of decades? And while there subscribing by air drop to  The Weekly Standard and National Review?

And my God, if you need me to discredit McAdams for you, then hey, you are beyond saving.

As per Putin, my touchstone on this whole Russia episode was always the late Robert Parry.  He was the only guy in Washington who was actually centered on the facts of the case.  That is why he was the main talking head in Ukraine on Fire.

 

James,

With all due respect (and I sincerely mean that), in concomitant juxtaposition to your apparent disinterest in the works of Tennent H. Bagley (have you even read his list of "thirty unavoidable questions" about Nosenko that John Simkin posted on this forum back in the day, and which I recently bumped?), I am not interested in reading the propaganda-istic works of people whom I consider, after having read some of their "essays" and far too many of their posts, to be (undoubtedly well meaning but nevertheless) misguided "Tinfoil Hat Conspiracy Theorists" to such an extent as to effectively be unwitting "agents of influence" of the FSB and the SVR (formerly collectively known as the KGB). 

 

Sorry if I've hurt your feelings, James. I really am.

 

--  Tommy 

 

 

Edited February 5, 2018 by Thomas Graves

[Kirk Gallaway]

Don says:

Whatever money Trump might have accepted from Russians over the years in no way differentiates him from any other corporate One Percenter.

 

Don, Cliff's right. I appreciate your general comments about the compulsions of billionaires, but you're clearly wrong, not every billionaire is heavily invested in Russia, or was driven by credit problems to seek relief by dubious foreign sources, among those Russian Oligrachs.

 

Talk about Trump lowering expectations, I guess we should thank him for being a parody of the corruption that already exists.

 

It's strange now seeing the Republican party which was always the unabashed corporate party, until only relatively recently since Clinton, having that corporate party  infiltrated by the Democrats. And now watching the Republicans  get usurped by a populist wave that really has nothing in common with the Republicans of the post war era, but identifies with White identity issues, and has learned to become indifferent as to having any hope of any politician actually being held to task, and implementing policies that could ever help them. So they won't hold Trumps feet to the fire.

What a strong base!

 

Don says,

We are able to "choose" between an establishment left that loves war, and the Establishment right that loves War.

 

I know that historical recall is talked about quite a bit by Oliver and Roger Stone, for example, but also a lot of Democrats who were disappointed by Obama's foreign policy..

 

That's almost right, but a bit too broad a brush.. It's true, All the military actions taken this century: the invasion of Afghanistan after 911.  The relative reactions to the false U.S. enthusiasm of the Arab Spring, and  the bombing and subversion  in Libya, the increased use of drones, (which has increased further under Trump), the increased military presence in Africa. The political reality at the time is all of them would have been done by either party in power. Except for one action, and that was the Iraq War. This was GW's elective war, he was under no political pressure to enter a war in Iraq.

 

And wasn't  that a doozy of a war! The entire Middle East has never been the same. The loss of a million lives, refugee problems, with estimates of 1.7 million displaced from Iraq, 6 million from Afghanistan, and now 5 million from Syria.  (You could in part blame Putin for that, but I guess you could  argue what choice did he really have to instill order other than bomb the major cities North of Damascus into the Stone age!) And since the Iraq War, there's been  the creation of Isis and all the destruction they've done, largely caused by the dislocation of the ruling Sunni Iraqi majority after our invasion. And 5000 of our own lives, not to mention all the injured. At a cost of between 1 and 2 trillion dollars to us!

 

And not to make apologies for the Dems, but just to get the record straight, they voted 128 to 82 in the House against going to that war. The Republicans voted 215 to 6. In the Senate the Republicans were 48 to 1, and the Democrats were in favor 39 to 21, including Hillary Clinton.

My point being is that however much you think both parties are "War" parties, it's not irrevocable.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 5, 2018 by Kirk Gallaway

[Thomas Graves]

50 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Again, I mean where does this guy come from?

If someone does not know about my writings on McAdams, yet is interested in the JFK case, I mean have you been hiding in the upper Andes for the last couple of decades? And while there subscribing by air drop to  The Weekly Standard and National Review?

And my God, if you need me to discredit McAdams for you, then hey, you are beyond saving.

As per Putin, my touchstone on this whole Russia episode was always the late Robert Parry.  He was the only guy in Washington who was actually centered on the facts of the case.  That is why he was the main talking head in Ukraine on Fire.

James,

With all due respect, as regards Putin, have you read Masha Gessen's book "Man Without A Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin." or her new book, "The Future is History"?

--  Tommy 

[Paz Marverde]

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Paz, I think you live in Italy.

Dear friend, whoever with a brain wherever in the world is able to understand that talking with TG is an absolute waste of time 

[Thomas Graves]

4 hours ago, Paz Marverde said:

Dear friend, whoever with a brain wherever in the world is able to understand that talking with TG is an absolute waste of time 

Paz,

With all due respect, why do you say that?

If it makes you feel any better, if Birdie had come out against Russia's 2007 cyber warfare campaign against NATO member Estonia, Russia's 2008 invasion of Georgia, Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine, Russia's sending an eleven-person network to the U.S. (which was uncovered in 2010), Russia's 2016 hacking of our elections, etc. etc.etc., and if he'd been five or ten years younger, I might have voted for him.

--  Tommy 

Edited February 5, 2018 by Thomas Graves

[Lawrence Schnapf]

why is this post/question relevant tot his group?

[Thomas Graves]

11 minutes ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:

why is this post/question relevant tot his group?

Lawrence,

With all due respect, which of my two original questions for James DiEugenio are you referring to?

--  Tommy 

[Jeff Carter]

I agree with Lawrence, and suspect the initiator of this thread just enjoys needling certain people. 
There is a sort of distant relevancy though.

Q 1)  What is your theory as to how we ended up with an anti-EU, anti-NATO, anti-CIA, anti-FBI, Russian mobbed-up, blackmail-able, expendable, "useful idiot" of VladimirVladimirovich Putin for President?

A noticeable trend across much of the West in 2016 was electoral success by candidates perceived to be outside the prevailing establishment. Trump’s victory in the Republican primary was fully in keeping with that trend, and arguably the federal election to some extent as well. Clinton was a quintessential establishment candidate with huge negative ratings to boot.

Q 2)  Do you agree with our intelligence services that Kremlin operatives Cozy Bear, Fancy Bear, and Guccifer 2.0 (I should add Julian Assange, too, but I don't want to be overly "sarcastic") not only hacked DNC's and Podesta's and RNC's e-mails, but parceled out during the campaign only e-mails from the first two of those organizations, and only those e-mails which were perceived by many as being damaging to Hillary Clinton?

The intelligence services haven’t actually made any conclusions with which to agree or disagree with.

The intelligence community’s assessment, often referred as representing the views of all 17 US intelligence agencies, was “drafted and coordinated” by three agencies - CIA, FBI, and NSA. Further clarification revealed the assessment was more accurately described as drafted by a few “handpicked” individuals from those three agencies. The assessment features the following information:  “Judgments are not intended to imply we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents.” This means the assessment represents simply the opinions of handpicked agents, opinions which are not necessarily factual. And although the agents from the CIA and FBI expressed “high confidence” in their opinions, the report goes on to say: “High confidence in a judgment does not imply that the assessment is a fact or certainty; such judgments might be wrong.”

Here is the document, and the above quotes can be found on page 13:
https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf

To my knowledge, actual facts about purported “Russian hacking” or other election meddling have not yet been conclusively established and the much referred intelligence assessment makes no claim to accuracy. So there is no basis to claim “our intelligence services” have made any conclusions, despite what the CIA, New York Times, MSNBC, Tommy   or anyone else might say.   

Aren’t we aware from the JFK case of parsed language and fake news? Or the preference to consult original documentation rather than rely on received wisdom?

[Thomas Graves]

58 minutes ago, Jeff Carter said:

I agree with Lawrence, and suspect the initiator of this thread just enjoys needling certain people. 
There is a sort of distant relevancy though.

Q 1)  What is your theory as to how we ended up with an anti-EU, anti-NATO, anti-CIA, anti-FBI, Russian mobbed-up, blackmail-able, expendable, "useful idiot" of VladimirVladimirovich Putin for President?

A noticeable trend across much of the West in 2016 was electoral success by candidates perceived to be outside the prevailing establishment. Trump’s victory in the Republican primary was fully in keeping with that trend, and arguably the federal election to some extent as well. Clinton was a quintessential establishment candidate with huge negative ratings to boot.

Q 2)  Do you agree with our intelligence services that Kremlin operatives Cozy Bear, Fancy Bear, and Guccifer 2.0 (I should add Julian Assange, too, but I don't want to be overly "sarcastic") not only hacked DNC's and Podesta's and RNC's e-mails, but parceled out during the campaign only e-mails from the first two of those organizations, and only those e-mails which were perceived by many as being damaging to Hillary Clinton?

The intelligence services haven’t actually made any conclusions with which to agree or disagree with.

The intelligence community’s assessment, often referred as representing the views of all 17 US intelligence agencies, was “drafted and coordinated” by three agencies - CIA, FBI, and NSA. Further clarification revealed the assessment was more accurately described as drafted by a few “handpicked” individuals from those three agencies. The assessment features the following information:  “Judgments are not intended to imply we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents.” This means the assessment represents simply the opinions of handpicked agents, opinions which are not necessarily factual. And although the agents from the CIA and FBI expressed “high confidence” in their opinions, the report goes on to say: “High confidence in a judgment does not imply that the assessment is a fact or certainty; such judgments might be wrong.”

Here is the document, and the above quotes can be found on page 13:
https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf

To my knowledge, actual facts about purported “Russian hacking” or other election meddling have not yet been conclusively established and the much referred intelligence assessment makes no claim to accuracy. So there is no basis to claim “our intelligence services” have made any conclusions, despite what the CIA, New York Times, MSNBC, Tommy   or anyone else might say.   

Aren’t we aware from the JFK case of parsed language and fake news? Or the preference to consult original documentation rather than rely on received wisdom?

Jeff,

With all due respect, what level of proof do you require, given the fact that high-level cyber crime "attribution" is a rather tricky business to begin with?

You don't expect there to be 100 percent confidence on this sort of thing, do you?

Are you, Jeff,  perhaps politically predisposed to disagree with and challenge and (paranoiacally?) suspect anything and everything the CIA or the FBI or the NSA says?

Are you hoping that it will  eventually be determined, "with 100 percent confidence," that it was a disgruntled DNC or NSA employee who gave the e-mails to (Russian-speaking) Guccifer 2.0 to pass on to Julian Assange and DNCLeaks for distribution?

Why weren't any of the hacked e-mails allegedly hacked from RNC released to the public, as well?
 

https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/comey-republicans-hacked-russia/index.html

 

--  Tommy 

Edited February 5, 2018 by Thomas Graves

[James DiEugenio]

“Judgments are not intended to imply we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents.” This means the assessment represents simply the opinions of handpicked agents, opinions which are not necessarily factual. And although the agents from the CIA and FBI expressed “high confidence” in their opinions, the report goes on to say: “High confidence in a judgment does not imply that the assessment is a fact or certainty; such judgments might be wrong.”

 

Nice one Jeff.  That has been laying out there for a long time and no one wants to quote it.  Only Bob Parry had the chutzpah to do it.

BTW, Paz and Larry, you are both correct about TG.  And I am glad others have seen this.