The Craven Journalist

Reading the major newspapers today has become almost exclusively an exercise in studying cowardice and illogic.  And despite contributing to massive ignorance, irresponsible and incompetent journalists posture as if they are some kind of social benefactor.  Of course, craven journalists will never take responsibility for contributing to social problems.

For example, consider the dishonest and completely absurd language here in a piece by Dave Weigel of 'The Washington Post'.   Weigel would like his readers to believe that 'anarchists' (i.e. those who favor complete freedom of action, and no government), are rioting to stop people from hearing a talk —

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/02/03/milo-yiannopoulos-is-returning-to-white-house-briefing.../
https://archive.is/Fx4NR

...
The Leslie Jones incident was rocket fuel for Yiannopoulos's image. He toured college campuses ahead of the 2016 election, live-streaming each speech. Several speeches were canceled by security concerns; the ones that went forward often carried a whiff of danger, as students walked though metal detectors to enter and Yiannopoulos sometimes theatrically ripped off a bulletproof vest onstage.

But the situation in Berkeley, where anarchists using “black bloc” tactics turned a mass protest into a violent conflagration — with made-for-TV images of garbage fires — has been an even bigger boon to Yiannopoulos. On Thursday night, his trip to D.C. began with a friendly interview on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” a show that has ridden anger at left-wing activism into best-in-class prime time ratings.

There was no discussion of what the peaceful protesters in Berkeley had objected to — namely, Yiannopoulos's kick off of a campaign against “sanctuary campuses.”  According to a promotional Breitbart story that ran before the event, Yiannopoulos was set to “call for the withdrawal of federal grants and the prosecution of university officials who endanger their students with their policies,” and the ex-radical David Horowitz would keep up the campaign on other campuses.
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According to a professional journalist, the rioters are 'anarchists', as opposed to supporters of statist government policies, and extensive government control of the lives of individuals — such as, what can be said to whom, and when.

And notice the denigrating dismissal of the 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' show in the quote above — according to Weigel, the show's appeal comes from "anger at left wing activism", and has nothing to do with providing any useful content to viewers.  Perhaps the 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' show is bad, or perhaps it has ridden to "best-in-class prime time ratings", as Weigel put it, because it provides a refutation of incompetent journalists like Dave Weigel — whatever the reason, you will not learn what it is from the likes of Dave Weigel.

And, of course, you will certainly not get an acknowledgement from Dave Weigel of the possibility that the content he provides is much worse than that provided by the 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' show — however bad that show may be.

It is also fascinating that many seem to believe, including Dave Weigel, that public universities that are largely funded with tax dollars, should be 'sanctuaries' for violating immigration law — Weigel's description implies that any criticism of violating immigration law is somehow grounds for a protest.

Now consider this definition of 'anarchism' from 'Merriam-Webster' —

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https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anarchism

Definition of anarchism

1. 1 :  a political theory holding all forms of governmental authority to be unnecessary and undesirable and advocating a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups
2. 2:  the advocacy or practice of anarchistic principles

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If you believe Weigel, 'anarchists' now oppose freedom of speech and freedom of association.

It is so odd that all of the supposed 'anarchists' at the Berkeley protest forgot that anarchism is based on the belief that all forms of governmental authority are harmful, and that all human interaction should be voluntary.  The notion that any individuals who actually held those beliefs would violently protest a talk is absurd on its face.

It is polite to call Weigel's description here pathetic.  Who does he think he is going to fool?  Will any honest readers with any familiarity with left leaning protesters believe that violence was not their intention?   Protesters who are constantly attempting to silence those they disagree with, while also crying out for government to give them something at the expense of others?

As opposed to those 'anarchists' Weigel is so confused about, who want everyone to be able to freely associate without any government control.

Also notice that the supposed subject of the Berkeley riots — the journalist Milo Yiannopoulos — is a British national, and so has nothing to do with U.S. Government policy.   You could not make this up — there could not be a more absurd target for a protest regarding law or government policy in one country, than a foreign national from another, who is a journalist.

And notice Weigel's use of the phrase 'mass protest', as if the intention of these so-called 'protesters' was not to provoke violence — that is why they cover their faces Dave, so they can commit crimes while avoiding being identified, so they can escape penalty.  Of course, a journalist like Weigel would like readers to believe that a small group of rioters (Weigel's supposed 'anarchists') were able to take over "a mass protest" by "peaceful protesters", but how would that have been possible, if the rioters were only a trivial minority?

Here are photos from the 'East Bay Times' of that trivial minority, that supposedly took over a peaceful protest.   The original captions are included in the images below to show that they contain the usual level of dishonesty, in that they repeatedly refer to the rioters as 'protesters', as if those rioting are somehow victims, and that stopping a talk is somehow a legitimate goal for a protest, never mind a riot —

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http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/02/01/uc-berkeley-cancels-breitbart-provocateur-milo-yiannopoulos-event/
https://archive.is/vXZIn

Rioters tear down a barricade at UC Berkeley, California, February 1, 2017.

Rioters about to tear down a barricade at UC Berkeley, California, February 1, 2017.

So-called 'peaceful protesters' surround a car at Berkeley, California, February 1, 2017, supposedly in response to Milo Yiannopoulos.

So-called 'peaceful protesters' march at Berkeley, California, February 1, 2017, supposedly in response to Milo Yiannopoulos.  Notice what looks like a woman on the left carrying a baseball bat.

A rioter dancing around a fire at Berkeley, California, February 1, 2017, supposedly in response to Milo Yiannopoulos.  Does it appear that the large crowd behind the fire approves or disapproves — or do they even know why they are there?

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Perhaps all the protesters should be defined by their tactics and what they fight for, rather than what some of them call themselves (anarchist, or otherwise).   Perhaps all the protesters are more aligned with the typical Democrat, and even a good number of Republicans — that is, those who favor government subsidies and restrictions on free speech — i.e. statism.

Perhaps those, such as journalists like Dave Weigel, who wish to pretend that violent rioters are aligned with supporters of freedom of speech and association (i.e. anarchists), do not want to acknowledge that they themselves are most aligned with what the violent rioters are actually doing — trying to put down the people that they disagree with.

That is, associating a movement that supports freedom with violent rioting is an expression of an agenda.  It is an attempt to dissociate oneself from the most basic expression of one's beliefs — the pretense that your initiation of force is moral.  The rioters are perfectly aligned with all of the statists among us — they just have the consistency to commit the acts of violence required by their agenda themselves.

Statism requires the initiation of force, not anarchism, so it is no surprise that many would attempt to conceal the glaring fact that the rioters are an expression of statism.

In that regard, notice what happened to Eddy Bruck, who had the courage to challenge some of the rioters for trying to silence others.  Not surprisingly, Bruck was assaulted.

Eddy Bruck stated what may be the most insightful characterization of the Berkeley rioters that you will hear — good luck finding such honest assessments from most journalists —

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http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/02/01/uc-berkeley-cancels-breitbart-provocateur-milo-yiannopoulos-event/
https://archive.is/vXZIn

Eddy Bruck — "They are afraid of free speech, so what do they do? They want to silence it all."

Notice the absurdity of the original caption from the 'East Bay Times' — it reads as if Bruck's face just happens to bleed.

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To add to the absurdity of Dave Weigel's 'Washington Post' piece, partially quoted at the top of this post, here is a quote from Weigel's blog from January 2, 2017.  Notice that Dave Weigel fancies himself as dispensing some kind of wisdom to the rest of the world, and "rumbling their worldview" —

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http://daveweigel.com/
https://archive.is/JDEyk

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The arrogance in the quote above deserves to be emphasized —

"But 2016 was, as the documentarian Adam Curtis put it, a defeat for journalism, in which people like me were reminded how little people want to hear information that rumbles their worldview."

That is what it means to be inside the mind of Dave Weigel — he is 'rumbling those worldviews' with his dishonest euphemisms about world events, such as when people are assaulted, because they wanted to attend a talk by someone a group of rioters disagree with.

And notice that when you challenge Weigel's obvious ignorance, he wants no part of it.  I re-tweeted his misrepresentation regarding what it means to be an 'anarchist', and of course, just as you would expect from a craven, agenda driven journalist from a newspaper like the 'Washington Post', he immediately blocked me.   This from a journalist who fancies himself as 'rumbling worldviews' —

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https://twitter.com/MaxAutonomous/status/823021137902780419

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And it is no surprise that Weigel — a professional journalist at a major U.S. newspaper — is not alone in attempting to pretend that the tactics of the rioters are diametrically opposed to the political label being used to describe them.

Here is an article from the 'San Francisco Chronicle', dated February 5, 2017, entitled 'Why UC police let anarchists run wild in Berkeley' —

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http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/Why-UC-police-let-anarchists-run-wild-in-Berkeley-10908034.php
https://archive.is/AvgFw

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Here is an article from 'The New York Times', dated February 2, 2017, entitled 'Anarchists Respond to Trump’s Inauguration, by Any Means Necessary' —

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/us/anarchists-respond-to-trumps-inauguration-by-any-means-necessary.html
https://archive.is/NPkEp

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At least the article from 'The New York Times' included a photo of a rioter painting the anarchism symbol on the wall, indicating that at least one rioter actually thinks he is supposedly fighting for an end to state power, even though the photo was taken at a protest to end freedom of speech — so obviously that rioter is either lying, or profoundly confused (not to mention the journalist that wrote the title for the article).

And this article from a local television station, 'CBS 6' in Richmond, Virginia, is even more ridiculous.  Here a government employee — a female firefighter — is described as being a member of an 'anarchist group'.  I guess she still has not discovered that anarchists oppose all government —

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http://wtvr.com/2017/01/26/henrico-firefighter-reassigned-after-being-arrested-for-rioting-in-dc/
http://archive.is/8oubH

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If you are at all interested in the truth in any of this, you will not get it from journalists at any of the major newspapers — and certainly not from someone such as Dave Weigel at 'The Washington Post'.

If someone built a large Peace sign with steel pipe, and attached it to the end of a baseball bat, and then went around clubbing people to death with it, would journalists at all the major newspapers describe that person as a 'protesting pacifist'?

Here is the story from two victims, of what intrepid journalists like Dave Weigel like to call 'anarchists'.  Notice that one woman was pepper sprayed while giving an interview to a journalist — she was fortunate that she was turning away just as it happened, so the spray largely missed her eyes.  But did anyone among those 'peaceful protesters', or the journalist and his crew try to stop it, or express any concern afterward?   Well, of course not —

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIFYTYNl7ng

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And here is J.D. Tuccille, Contributing Editor at Reason, pointing out that the tactics of the rioters at Berkeley align them solidly with Nazis — as much as that label has been projected onto Milo Yiannopoulos, among others —

"It’s tough being a heroic anti-Nazi street fighter when you’re the closest thing to a Nazi around."
http://reason.com/archives/2017/02/07/thugs-indulge-their-weimar-dreams-and-be

We Love A Conspiracy

Everyone is now aware of the claims that the Russians (i.e. the Kremlin under Valdimar Putin) supposedly attempted to influence the 2016 U.S. Presidential election in favor of Donald Trump.

'The Washington Post' reported on this back in June of 2016, in this story entitled 'Russian government hackers penetrated DNC, stole opposition research on Trump' —
     https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-government-hackers-penetrated-dnc-stole-..._story.html

And here is a later story from 'The Washington Post', dated December 9, 2016, entitled 'Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House' —
     https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-orders-review-of-russian-hacking-..._story.html

But notice this paragraph from the later story, explicitly acknowledging that a connection could not be made to the Russian government — in direct contradiction to the titles of both 'Washington Post' stories —

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-orders-review-of-russian-hacking-..._story.html

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The CIA presentation to senators about Russia’s intentions fell short of a formal U.S. assessment produced by all 17 intelligence agencies.  A senior U.S. official said there were minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency’s assessment, in part because some questions remain unanswered.

For example, intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin “directing” the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks, a second senior U.S. official said.  Those actors, according to the official, were “one step” removed from the Russian government, rather than government employees.  Moscow has in the past used middlemen to participate in sensitive intelligence operations so it has plausible deniability.
...

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So it needs to be repeated — 'The Washington Post' openly acknowledges that they have nothing to prove their basic claim that the Russian government attempted to manipulate the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, but they make that assertion anyway — it is a conspiracy theory, and the 'Washington Post' just expects its readers to believe it.

Here is an article by Glenn Greenwald, dated December 10, 2016, entitled 'Anonymous Leaks to the WashPost About the CIA’s Russia Beliefs Are No Substitute for Evidence', where he attacks 'The Washington Post' article quoted above —

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https://theintercept.com/2016/12/10/...leaks-to-the-washpost-about-the-cias-russia-beliefs-are-no-substitute-for-evidence/

THE WASHINGTON POST late Friday night published an explosive story that, in many ways, is classic American journalism of the worst sort: The key claims are based exclusively on the unverified assertions of anonymous officials, who in turn are disseminating their own claims about what the CIA purportedly believes, all based on evidence that remains completely secret.
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Needless to say, Democrats — still eager to make sense of their election loss and to find causes for it other than themselves — immediately declared these anonymous claims about what the CIA believes to be true, and, with a somewhat sweet, religious-type faith, treated these anonymous assertions as proof of what they wanted to believe all along: that Vladimir Putin was rooting for Donald Trump to win and Hillary Clinton to lose and used nefarious means to ensure that outcome.  That Democrats are now venerating unverified, anonymous CIA leaks as sacred is par for the course for them this year, but it’s also a good indication of how confused and lost U.S. political culture has become in the wake of Trump’s victory. ...

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And here is an article at 'Esquire', dated October 20, 2016, entitled 'How Russia Pulled Off the Biggest Election Hack in U.S. History'.  Notice that not a single thing in this article is documented, including a claim that the Russians "even hacked satellites to cover their tracks" —
     http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a49791/russian-dnc-emails-hacked/

Other than as an exercise in testing your credulity, that article is not worth reading, but here are just a couple of quotes to demonstrate that point —

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http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a49791/russian-dnc-emails-hacked/
https://archive.is/SemNi

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The most effective outlet by far, however, was WikiLeaks.  Russian intelligence likely began feeding hacked documents to Julian Assange's "whistleblower" site in June 2015, after breaching Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry.  A group called WikiSaudiLeaks, probably a Guccifer-like front for Fancy Bear, claimed that "WikiLeaks have been given access to some part of these documents."  The so-called Saudi Cables showed princes buying influence and monitoring dissidents.  They became a major news story, proving that the old methods worked even better in the twenty-first century.
...

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Notice the uses of the words 'likely' and 'probably' in the quote above.  Should we thank the author for his honesty in at least not pretending that he had real knowledge that what he wrote is true?  It would have been more honest, if he had begun that paragraph with: "I'm going to make some stuff up here, because I want to ..."

And for one more example, consider this quote from the same 'Esquire' article —

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http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a49791/russian-dnc-emails-hacked/
https://archive.is/SemNi

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Using cloud services such as OneDrive was a clever but risky move—it was a little like taking the bus to make off with stolen goods from a burglary.  Though the widespread use of the services by legitimate users offered a degree of cover for the hackers, data provided by Microsoft also helped America's elite digital spies identify the DNC intruders "with confidence" as Russian.  It is even possible that the U. S. government has been able to identify the names and personal details of individual operators.  The Russians knew they'd been caught.  On July 30, an FSB press release announced that twenty government and defense organizations had been hit by high-powered spying tools.
...

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I assume the link below is the FSB (i.e. the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation) press release the author is talking about, but how on earth does it prove "the Russians knew they'd been caught", as the author wrote in the quote above?   It took some digging to find the memo, since the author did not provide a link to it, and it is in Russian, so the author had to translate it to make use of it at all (maybe the author reads Russian, and just neglected to point that out) —
     https://archive.is/sNSWu
     http://www.fsb.ru/fsb/press/message/single.htm%21id%3D10437870%40fsbMessage.html
     https://www.scmagazineuk.com/fsb-spotted-malware-on-20-government-org-networks/article/529964/

Here is the Google translation — for what it is worth — I cannot attest to its accuracy, since I do not read Russian.  In any case, the only thing this translation of the press release indicates is what it contains — that the Russians believe they were targeted by professionals, and that the attack was similar to operations 'previously identified'.  Anything else is conjecture —

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FSB press release from July 30, 2016, regarding cyber espionage.

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Here is a tweet from the author of the article at 'Esquire' quoted above, in response to skeptics who think that those making this accusation of a supposed 'Russian Connection' should provide proof, as opposed to their speculations —

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https://twitter.com/RidT/status/810114356797210624
http://archive.vn/Sszch

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Notice the tweet that the author is responding to demands that critical readers prove a negative.  This is a common fallacy where one attempts to shift the burden of proof in order to avoid their own responsibility for providing evidence and proof when making an accusation.  The individual making the assertion has the burden of proof, since, strictly speaking, it is impossible to prove a claim cannot be true.

How would you prove that no reindeer can fly, for example?   Dropping as many reindeer as you could catch out of an airplane only proves that those you dropped could not fly — it does not prove that no reindeer can fly.  In short, there is no end to the claims that must be believed, if we could only eliminate those claims that we must prove are false.  Did I tell you about my aunt who lives on Pluto, and survives on Limburger cheese?   Oh, I can't prove she exists, but we communicate via mental telepathy.  What evidence do you have to prove my claim is false?

Thomas Rid is correct in the tweet above — "The burden of proof is inversing."  It is just that he is the one who is attempting to 'inverse' it.  He is responsible for proving his speculations, and no one should believe them until he has done so — readers have no obligation to prove his claims are false —
     http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/burden-of-proof.html
     https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/145/Proving-Non-Existence

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has repeatedly denied that Russia had any hand in the leaks that were damaging to the Clinton campaign.  Here is Assange in an interview denying that accusation —

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sbT3_9dJY4
https://www.rt.com/news/365164-assange-interview-wikileaks-russia/

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And here is Assange's statement regarding the 2016 U.S. Election on wikileaks.org —

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https://wikileaks.org/Assange-Statement-on-the-US-Election.html
https://archive.is/Z7uTQ

Assange Statement on the US Election

8 November 2016

By Julian Assange

In recent months, WikiLeaks and I personally have come under enormous pressure to stop publishing what the Clinton campaign says about itself to itself.  That pressure has come from the campaign’s allies, including the Obama administration, and from liberals who are anxious about who will be elected US President.

On the eve of the election, it is important to restate why we have published what we have.

The right to receive and impart true information is the guiding principle of WikiLeaks – an organization that has a staff and organizational mission far beyond myself. Our organization defends the public’s right to be informed.

This is why, irrespective of the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election, the real victor is the US public which is better informed as a result of our work.

The US public has thoroughly engaged with WikiLeaks’ election related publications which number more than one hundred thousand documents.  Millions of Americans have pored over the leaks and passed on their citations to each other and to us.  It is an open model of journalism that gatekeepers are uncomfortable with, but which is perfectly harmonious with the First Amendment.

We publish material given to us if it is of political, diplomatic, historical or ethical importance and which has not been published elsewhere.  When we have material that fulfills this criteria, we publish.  We had information that fit our editorial criteria which related to the Sanders and Clinton campaign (DNC Leaks) and the Clinton political campaign and Foundation (Podesta Emails).  No-one disputes the public importance of these publications.  It would be unconscionable for WikiLeaks to withhold such an archive from the public during an election.

At the same time, we cannot publish what we do not have.  To date, we have not received information on Donald Trump’s campaign, or Jill Stein’s campaign, or Gary Johnson’s campaign or any of the other candidates that fufills our stated editorial criteria.  As a result of publishing Clinton’s cables and indexing her emails we are seen as domain experts on Clinton archives.  So it is natural that Clinton sources come to us.

We publish as fast as our resources will allow and as fast as the public can absorb it.

That is our commitment to ourselves, to our sources, and to the public.

This is not due to a personal desire to influence the outcome of the election. The Democratic and Republican candidates have both expressed hostility towards whistleblowers. I spoke at the launch of the campaign for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, because her platform addresses the need to protect them. This is an issue that is close to my heart because of the Obama administration’s inhuman and degrading treatment of one of our alleged sources, Chelsea Manning. But WikiLeaks publications are not an attempt to get Jill Stein elected or to take revenge over Ms Manning’s treatment either.
Publishing is what we do. To withhold the publication of such information until after the election would have been to favour one of the candidates above the public’s right to know.

This is after all what happened when the New York Times withheld evidence of illegal mass surveillance of the US population for a year until after the 2004 election, denying the public a critical understanding of the incumbent president George W Bush, which probably secured his reelection.  The current editor of the New York Times has distanced himself from that decision and rightly so.

The US public defends free speech more passionately, but the First Amendment only truly lives through its repeated exercise. The First Amendment explicitly prevents the executive from attempting to restrict anyone’s ability to speak and publish freely.  The First Amendment does not privilege old media, with its corporate advertisers and dependencies on incumbent power factions, over WikiLeaks’ model of scientific journalism or an individual’s decision to inform their friends on social media. The First Amendment unapologetically nurtures the democratization of knowledge. With the Internet, it has reached its full potential.

Yet, some weeks ago, in a tactic reminiscent of Senator McCarthy and the red scare, Wikileaks, Green Party candidate Stein, Glenn Greenwald and Clinton’s main opponent were painted with a broad, red brush.  The Clinton campaign, when they were not spreading obvious untruths, pointed to unnamed sources or to speculative and vague statements from the intelligence community to suggest a nefarious allegiance with Russia.  The campaign was unable to invoke evidence about our publications—because none exists.

In the end, those who have attempted to malign our groundbreaking work over the past four months seek to inhibit public understanding perhaps because it is embarrassing to them – a reason for censorship the First Amendment cannot tolerate. Only unsuccessfully do they try to claim that our publications are inaccurate.
...

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Those who believe that Assange has a special penchant for attacking Democrats have a short memory.  It was routine for Republicans to call for his execution after the leaks regarding the Iraq war in 2010 —
     https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org/
     http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8172916/WikiLeaks-guilty-parties-should-face-death-penalty.html
     http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/12/the-shameful-attacks-on-julian-assange/67440/

But the real problem here, is that none of this 'Russian Connection' conspiracy makes any sense.

Would the Russians really go to all this trouble to help Donald Trump?   Why?

Because Hillary Clinton seemed more hawkish toward Russia than Trump in their public statements prior to the election?   If this is what people believe, again, it is just more unsubstantiated speculation.  And it is only barely plausible, because it is too vague to be taken seriously.   Could it be true?   Maybe, but no one knows, and certainly no one can prove it is true.

But even if this were true, how did the Russians supposedly help Trump?   By revealing corruption within the competing political party, by releasing their private correspondence to the public.  So it was revealed that the Democratic Party is corrupt, and supporters want to pretend that that corruption does not matter, because someone stole their correspondence.   Oh brother.   Are Republicans similarly corrupt?  Maybe.  But even if so, how would that absolve the Democrats?

This attempt to avoid responsibility by Democrats is just further proof of Democratic corruption.  What matters is the authenticity of the damning communications that were released, and no one has disputed that.

Here is more on the absurdity of all this from Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie at reason.com —
     https://reason.com/blog/2016/12/12/did-russia-really-hack-the-election
     https://reason.com/blog/2016/12/12/cia-and-fbi-should-make-public-evidence

And of course, it is no surprise that Paul Krugman would run with this unsubstantiated story.  Here is the 'Contra Krugman' podcast with Tom Woods and Robert Murphy, tearing apart another of Paul Krugman's asinine columns —
     http://contrakrugman.com/ep-65-did-the-russians-hack-the-election/