There needs to be a strategy to deal with this

salon

There are two facets at least. The first is that while this is a bit early, it is how the news will be portrayed as long as Trump, or any other Republican, is president. The laughable bit is that there would never be such a post with the intention of criticising Obama.

The second part is that while it has its funny part, this is not actually just for laughs. We treat this as just another example of how ridiculous the left is. The left here is just practising and will do this day after day once Trump really is president. He will never be given credit for anything positive and will be continuously criticised for everything that the media thinks they can use to undermine his authority. There needs to be a strategy that goes beyond showing our own side what a bunch of fools the left is made up of.

Fake news and real totalitarians

How do such liars get away with it. Because they have no shame in lying right to your face and the established left – in the press, within political parties and throughout social media – are willing to fall instantaneously into line the minute the latest news narrative is stated. A low-information voter is someone whose only source of news are the large conglomerate news organisations. By definition, almost the whole of the population in any of our societies are the products of fake news. If you get your facts only from The New York Times or ABC news, you are as ignorant and possibly more ignorant than if you had not paid any attention at all to what they report.

Think of this which is right now the headline at Drudge:


FAKEBOOK TO LABEL ‘NEWS’
RISE OF TRUTH POLICE!

They label truth as fake news and will do all they can to see it suppressed. They have no shame, but the very fact that we must discuss this and work out ways to push these vile, deceitful scum away from influencing the societies in which we live, means we are losing. How many people might watch the video. Maybe half a million. Meanwhile there are tens of millions on facebook who have no ability, and often no desire, to look outside what they find there. Zuckerberg and others like him are evil people, who like the Lenins and Castros of the world, are trying to guide you to a better future which they can run for your own good, and to protect you from yourself. The big issue for us is to work out how to fight back.

It is becoming impossible to trust any official source of information in the West and not just the media

A follow-up from The Russians are Coming!. This is titled, Former UK Ambassador Blasts “CIA’s Blatant Lies”, Shows “A Little Simple Logic Destroys Their Claims”. The writer is Craig Murray, a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, who was the Rector of the University of Dundee. Who can you trust, but certainly he seems more credible than any of the official sources who imply everything but provide evidence for nothing.

I have watched incredulous as the CIA’s blatant lie has grown and grown as a media story – blatant because the CIA has made no attempt whatsoever to substantiate it. There is no Russian involvement in the leaks of emails showing Clinton’s corruption. Yes this rubbish has been the lead today in the Washington Post in the US and the Guardian here, and was the lead item on the BBC main news. I suspect it is leading the American broadcasts also.

A little simple logic demolishes the CIA’s claims. The CIA claim they “know the individuals” involved. Yet under Obama the USA has been absolutely ruthless in its persecution of whistleblowers, and its pursuit of foreign hackers through extradition. We are supposed to believe that in the most vital instance imaginable, an attempt by a foreign power to destabilise a US election, even though the CIA knows who the individuals are, nobody is going to be arrested or extradited, or (if in Russia) made subject to yet more banking and other restrictions against Russian individuals? Plainly it stinks. The anonymous source claims of “We know who it was, it was the Russians” are beneath contempt.

As Julian Assange has made crystal clear, the leaks did not come from the Russians. As I have explained countless times, they are not hacks, they are insider leaks – there is a major difference between the two. And it should be said again and again, that if Hillary Clinton had not connived with the DNC to fix the primary schedule to disadvantage Bernie, if she had not received advance notice of live debate questions to use against Bernie, if she had not accepted massive donations to the Clinton foundation and family members in return for foreign policy influence, if she had not failed to distance herself from some very weird and troubling people, then none of this would have happened.

The continued ability of the mainstream media to claim the leaks lost Clinton the election because of “Russia”, while still never acknowledging the truths the leaks reveal, is Kafkaesque.

I had a call from a Guardian journalist this afternoon. The astonishing result was that for three hours, an article was accessible through the Guardian front page which actually included the truth among the CIA hype:

The Kremlin has rejected the hacking accusations, while the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has previously said the DNC leaks were not linked to Russia. A second senior official cited by the Washington Post conceded that intelligence agencies did not have specific proof that the Kremlin was “directing” the hackers, who were said to be one step removed from the Russian government.

Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, who is a close associate of Assange, called the CIA claims “bullshit”, adding: “They are absolutely making it up.”

“I know who leaked them,” Murray said. “I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are different things.

“If what the CIA are saying is true, and the CIA’s statement refers to people who are known to be linked to the Russian state, they would have arrested someone if it was someone inside the United States.

“America has not been shy about arresting whistleblowers and it’s not been shy about extraditing hackers. They plainly have no knowledge whatsoever.”

But only three hours. While the article was not taken down, the home page links to it vanished and it was replaced by a ludicrous one repeating the mad CIA allegations against Russia and now claiming – incredibly – that the CIA believe the FBI is deliberately blocking the information on Russian collusion. Presumably this totally nutty theory, that Putin is somehow now controlling the FBI, is meant to answer my obvious objection that, if the CIA know who it is, why haven’t they arrested somebody. That bit of course would be the job of the FBI, who those desperate to annul the election now wish us to believe are the KGB.

It is terrible that the prime conduit for this paranoid nonsense is a once great newspaper, the Washington Post, which far from investigating executive power, now is a sounding board for totally evidence free anonymous source briefing of utter bullshit from the executive.

In the UK, one single article sums up the total abnegation of all journalistic standards. The truly execrable Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian writes “Few credible sources doubt that Russia was behind the hacking of internal Democratic party emails, whose release by Julian Assange was timed to cause maximum pain to Hillary Clinton and pleasure for Trump.” Does he produce any evidence at all for this assertion? No, none whatsoever. What does a journalist mean by a “credible source”? Well, any journalist worth their salt in considering the credibility of a source will first consider access. Do they credibly have access to the information they claim to have?

Now both Julian Assange and I have stated definitively the leak does not come from Russia. Do we credibly have access? Yes, very obviously. Very, very few people can be said to definitely have access to the source of the leak. The people saying it is not Russia are those who do have access. After access, you consider truthfulness. Do Julian Assange and I have a reputation for truthfulness? Well in 10 years not one of the tens of thousands of documents WikiLeaks has released has had its authenticity successfully challenged. As for me, I have a reputation for inconvenient truth telling.

Contrast this to the “credible sources” Freedland relies on. What access do they have to the whistleblower? Zero. They have not the faintest idea who the whistleblower is. Otherwise they would have arrested them. What reputation do they have for truthfulness? It’s the Clinton gang and the US government, for goodness sake.

In fact, the sources any serious journalist would view as “credible” give the opposite answer to the one Freedland wants. But in what passes for Freedland’s mind, “credible” is 100% synonymous with “establishment”. When he says “credible sources” he means “establishment sources”. That is the truth of the “fake news” meme. You are not to read anything unless it is officially approved by the elite and their disgusting, crawling whores of stenographers like Freedland.

The worst thing about all this is that it is aimed at promoting further conflict with Russia. This puts everyone in danger for the sake of more profits for the arms and security industries – including of course bigger budgets for the CIA. As thankfully the four year agony of Aleppo comes swiftly to a close today, the Saudi and US armed and trained ISIS forces counter by moving to retake Palmyra. This game kills people, on a massive scale, and goes on and on.

We really do live in frightening times. Who can you trust? And it is madness to find that WikiLeaks are more authoritative than the actual authorities. Because even if you and I have a counter-source of information, 99% of the people we deal with do not, and don’t want it either.

The link was provided by OldOzzie with thanks.

If only we were as smart as they are

The reality is that the left is more obtuse, less informed and cruelly indifferent to the social and political fates of those into whose hands entire nations fall. Vide Cuba and Venezuela for recent examples. What follows is typical snide and superior non-humour from the left: Conan’s Spoof Phone Calls Between Barack Obama And Donald Trump Will Never Get Old

What if Donald Trump kept bugging Barack Obama for advice?

Conan O’Brien imagines the kind of things the president-elect may be asking the current commander in chief in a series of hilarious spoof telephone calls.

From questioning whether Kazakhstan is a meat dish to complaining about the length of the Mexican border, Obama is luckily on hand to answer each of Trump’s queries.

These are the headings of the issues Trump will need assistance from Obama to deal with. The list is typical of the left’s ideological vision since they must imagine these are areas Obama has handled with aplomb and distinction.

1 On Presidential Medals Of Honor And Kazakhstan
2 On Gifts, Candy And The Mexican Border
3 On The Nuclear Codes, Iran And Jackie Chan
4 On Taiwan And The State Of The Union Address
5 On Time’s ‘Person Of The Year’ And The Mexican Wall

They have lost for now, but their self-contained ignorance makes them perennially dangerous. They have no sources of information outside their self-constructed bubbles and refuse to let any shards of reality disturb their information flow.

The most depressing part is that this article has been sent to me by an old school friend who has lived in California for the past thirty year or so, and sees this as a perfect representation of the actual Donald Trump. I have been trying to warn him off this stuff but he has continued it through since the election of GWB, always assuming I am in complete agreement with the things he sends. It is, in itself, their inability even to slightly appreciate that there are other points of view that may be the most tragic part in dealing with such people.

Albrechtsen F

Since the editorial page of The Australian began its aversion therapy I no longer find it possible to read the centrally directed messages from RM. Today, apparently, Janet Albrechtsen is continuing her adventures in fantasy politics by doing a report card on the Liberals, and has given Malcolm a B+! I know this only because it came up on Andrew Bolt: Albrechtsen’s report card: Turnbull B+, Bishop A+.

She lost me slowly at first and then completely when she went for Malcolm. And then, again by behaving in an appropriate corporate way, by slagging Trump time and again. She is part of the reason that Murdoch journalists are becoming so mistrusted. Their biases are to the left while pretending to be partial to the right side of politics. Our Megan Kelly, I guess. Think I might go and see what’s in The Age.

Not very intelligent if you ask me

I have seen some pretty disgraceful things since the election, but this must rise to the top. This is from The Economist Intelligence Unit, sent to me by an undercover agent who will remain unknown, but does have my thanks. Even to raise the question is near enough beyond the pale – Do you think China has a better system for political transition than the US? – but the fellow who has asked it, their Chief Economist, must at least entertain the idea as a possibility, if it is not actually his own personal belief. If you were ever in doubt of the necessity in electing Trump as president, have doubts no more.

 

From Our Chief Economist
Not an election
November 24th 2016

After the recent surprises brought about by Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, many are questioning whether democracy is an effective system. In last year’s edition of our annual Democracy Index, The Economist Intelligence Unit’s analysts identified public anxiety as a stress point for democracies in 2016 (watch out for the next edition of the Democracy Index, due in January). For the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), electoral travails in some of the world’s leading democracies provide succour and reinforce its message to the people of China that democracy is not desirable. However, there is no avoiding messy politics; it is just a matter of the means through which it happens and to what extent it does so in public view.

China has its own messy elections. Fluid power alliances within the CCP, combined with certain set-piece events, fulfil a role similar to multi-party electoral processes in democracies. One critical such event is the reshuffling of the politburo, which will take place at the end of 2017. Just as in the US election, punditry here is based on speculation and gossip, along with occasional facts. The CCP election process can be just as messy as a democratic election, and China is not immune to the risk of unexpected outcomes.

Do you think China has a better system for political transition than the US? [My bolding.] How might the leadership changes affect your business? Let me know your thoughts via Twitter @Baptist_Simon or email on simonjbaptist@eiu.com.
Best regards,


Simon Baptist
Chief Economist

“Dishonest, deceitful liars”

Here’s a new world: TRUMP SLAMS MEDIA ELITE, FACE TO FACE.

“Trump kept saying, ‘We’re in a room of liars, the deceitful dishonest media who got it all wrong.’ He addressed everyone in the room calling the media dishonest, deceitful liars. He called out Jeff Zucker by name and said everyone at CNN was a liar, and CNN was [a] network of liars,” the source said.

“Trump didn’t say [NBC reporter] Katy Tur by name, but talked about an NBC female correspondent who got it wrong, then he referred to a horrible network correspondent who cried when Hillary lost who hosted a debate – which was Martha Raddatz who was also in the room.”

Whether it can do any good is still to be seen. The process for the media is to try one attack mode after another – eg “fake news” – and when that doesn’t resonate go onto another until they create a storm. If you are on the left, you get the pass. If you are not, you don’t.

Reading political journalists is like talking to your daughter’s Grade 3 teacher

Nothing against Grade 3 teachers, who are not necessarily plugged in to much of the world around them and have no special expertise on political events. And the reason for that is that there is no expertise on politics. No one has anything other than knowledge, opinion and belief. I read the papers to find out what’s going on, not to find out what to think. The media no doubt shapes our views with its coverage, or lack of coverage, but there is no expertise of any kind they have to offer.

Here’s a case in point. It’s from the Weekend Australian which I have just gotten around to read, which tells you something about how useless these papers now are. And there is this article by Paul Kelly, Donald Trump will further polarise our politics. His point:

The challenge for the government is immense. With a US president elected on values unacceptable to many Australians, Turnbull’s task as PM is to ensure effective Australia-US ties in this new and erratic order, hardly a trouble free job. Shorten, by contrast, is having a happy and cynical time exploiting Trumpism.

Where was this goose during the last eight years? Reading such opinion is truly a chore, which is why I tend not to. Just a reminder of how useless the opinions of journalists are on anything. The alternative media is here, and unless they can find some way to suppress blogs and other outlets, the Paul Kellys of the world may continue baying at the moon with their ignorant rants.

It’s a new world out there

First, here’s what’s changing:

IRAQIS CHEER ‘TRUTH-TELLER’ TRUMP…
SISI PRAISES…
Putin to ask for help bombing Syria…

French conservatives rally voters in tightening primaries race…
POLL: Europeans Turning Against EU…

BALZ: America’s first independent president…
TRUMP UN SHOWDOWN…
Outsiders take power…
CABINET PICKS SHORTLIST…
Romney Meet… Developing…
Silicon Valley makes nice…

And here’s what’s not. Still as dangerous as ever but perhaps with the poison drained, for the moment:

Obama races to regulate before Trump takes reins…

‘HAMILTON’ DISSES PENCE
BITTER ON B’WAY
PRO-TRUMP FLASH MOB AT THEATER
FLASHBACK: Show Issued ‘Non-White Actors Only’ Casting Call…
Netanyahu was heckled…
Push To Boycott…

Zuckerberg plan to battle ‘fake news’…
‘Journalistic ethics’…Mass TWITTER Hack…
CEO restricted Trump ads…
Alternative Rises After Purge…
Nobody has real friends anymore…

FBI Alert Police Of Thanksgiving Terror Attacks…
Shopping Malls, Special Events…
ISIS leader in first interview…

The left remains as crazed as ever and they still have the media along with the remnants of American pop culture. But there is a new middle ground and even in spite of it all, there is a genuine possibility that it will become the centre. A political miracle of the most miraculous kind.