>This is unbelievable, and yet completely believable at the same time.
That's why all the squawking about "The Russians! The Russians!" is so hilarious.
The kind of work Cambridge Analytica and these boiler rooms in Russian are doing isn't very sophisticated, and certainly doesn't require the backing of a foreign State. A couple of savvy tech people can (and do) inflict the same pain for reasonable sums of money.
Russian military intelligence broke into DNC servers, stole emails, then gave them to a fake media cutout (wikileaks) to present in the most damaging way possible.
Insofar as "Russian military intelligence" is Seth Rich and "fake media cutout" is an independent publisher not beholden to the political interests that prevail upon large American media companies, then sure.
You can dislike Trump all you want, but invoking the Russian boogeyman and smearing honest people like Assange is pretty low. The fact that political parties and major media outlets feel obliged to hide behind such transparently flimsy excuses is commentary on both how far the moral standard has fallen and the empty desperation of our cultural power brokers.
Comments like this make me lose faith in humanity. You don't seem like a stupid person, but are willing to believe in an unbelievably complex cover-up that would require hundreds of career public servants to lie for some unknown benefit, as opposed to the obvious scenario: Russia doesn't give the slightest damn about meddling in elections. They're willing to murder people with exotic poisons on foreign soil on a regular basis, why would election meddling be any different?
I'm not sure what you mean because I didn't say anything about a "complex cover-up", and I'm certain that Russia (and most other states, including America) is continuously running operations to sway things in their favor all over the world -- that's what spies and intelligence agencies do.
But I don't see how that's relevant here. Seth Rich provided the emails to Wikileaks and Assange is nobody's puppet, and Wikileaks definitely does not deserve to be called a "fake media cutout". Trump won the election because he appealed to a large number of Americans who voted for him because they thought he was the better candidate. Everything else is denial and excuse-making. Who said anything about a conspiracy requiring the coordination of "hundreds of career public servants"?
I'd say the publisher explicitly naming the deceased in the context of a potential source counts as some evidence, at least.
If you believe that Assange is a Russian agent, then sure, maybe it's not slam dunk, and it's just a very convenient situation for him that this unfortunate DNC staffer was gunned down under suspicious circumstances and now he can tell everyone that was the source and Rich isn't alive to deny it.
But it's not "no evidence" nor is it "personal reasons". If anything, the instantaneous flip against Wikileaks and Assange after they published documents implicating the establishment's favored candidate has a much more arbitrary feel.
> If you believe that Assange is a Russian agent, then sure, maybe it's not slam dunk
He had a TV show on the Russian state propaganda network where he tore into Hillary Clinton all day. How much more gift-wrapped would you like his intentions to be?
> this unfortunate DNC staffer was gunned down under suspicious circumstances
> I'd say the publisher explicitly naming the deceased in the context of a potential source counts as some evidence, at least.
See, no it doesn't. It proves absolutely nothing. They can claim whatever they want as a way of distracting from their partnership with the GRU. And they know people like you will accept it as long as it fits their narrative. No evidence needed, hardly any effort either. Just mention his name on Fox News and run with it.
I don't care if you can code, only people lacking in critical thought capacity (being diplomatic) believe conspiracy theories with no proof other than it fits their worldview.
> Not only bullshit, but harmful, debunked bullshit.
Debunked in the opinion section? He was gunned down under suspicious circumstances. It's not less suspicious if you believe a gangster did it rather than a hired assassin, and regardless, giving Assange documents doesn't cast a magical force field protecting one from street robberies.
Did Russians hack the DNC? Probably -- Russian botnets attempt to brute-force basically every internet-exposed endpoint around the clock, just check your logs. It's neither here nor there.
>He had a TV show on the Russian state propaganda network where he tore into Hillary Clinton all day. How much more gift-wrapped would you like his intentions to be?
>I don't care if you can code, only people lacking in critical thought capacity (being diplomatic) believe conspiracy theories with no proof other than it fits their worldview.
Right, because "Assange is a Russian operative" is apparently not a conspiracy theory, because allowing RT to broadcast your TV series is apparently all the proof we need. Larry King, Jesse Ventura, and the late Ed Schultz are therefore also Putin lackeys, because there's no other explanation for cooperating with a television network that claims penetration into 700M households worldwide, just like there's no reason to ever have any business dealings or attend any meetings in a country that hosts two of the world's largest cities (Moscow home to 12M and St. Petersburg home to 6M). True Americans work only with local network affiliates and never venture outside of their small towns.
If you actually read the link I gave you, it's the murder victims parents saying there was no suspicious circumstance in their son's murder, and bad actors are using it for their own destructive political narratives.
Like you.
This is why you don't engage conspiracy theorists even causally. If you don't insist that all opinions are evidence-based, literally anything can be true and anything can be false. The car that backfired outside my flat is a gunshot from a deep-state operative and here we go i'm blogging.
> Did Russians hack the DNC? Probably
Perfect example. "Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. We can never know." Yes we can. Unless we want to believe something else, then all it takes is a conspiracy theory about a murdered DNC staffer with no evidence and we have confirmation of what we believed all along. "Who is to say i'm wrong?" Right?
This is a never-ending rabbit-hole of shit that you apparently love to be in, I don't.
America is far from perfect, there is much to criticize of it, but they aren't waging an all-out war on objective reality to keep populations confused and infighting so a corrupt few and keep power. That's Russia. That's increasingly China. And you are gladly helping in their efforts, whether you realize it or not.
What do you think of his parents saying he was excited to be working for the Clinton campaign? That there was no suspicious anything found on any of his documents? That he didn't even have access to any of the emails?
They gave a mountain of evidence why his death has been turned into a political conspiracy theory. There is next to no evidence in favor of your theory. The idea that Assange's comments are in favor of it is incredibly weak - he was receiving additional information after Seth Rich was already dead.
First, it's tragic and sad that Seth Rich's parents needed to publish an op-ed to discourage "reporters" from calling incessantly for anything, let alone harassing them over whether they think he may've sent a copy of some emails to someone. I have kids and if one of them was killed on the street, the only emails I'd care about would be those that implicate their killer.
But that's how I read that article -- a plea to stop harassing them, and their official on-the-record statement which, yes, indicates they don't believe he would've been a source, so that people will reference that instead of continuing to harass them.
As for "a mountain of evidence", the only substantive statement as to whether or not Rich actually provided the mails is that investigators apparently told them that they didn't find any evidence of communication with Wikileaks or Assange on any of his computers, but of course, if someone is providing documents to Wikileaks, the fact that they didn't leave evidence of that sitting around on their known workstations isn't really a shocker (nor would it be a shocker if there was evidence on his known workstations and DC police just don't know how to do computer forensics).
I don't think his parents are really equipped to understand whether or not he would've had access to emails -- as most of us here know, most moderately-capable technical people can access virtually anything in a company's network. Remember that Podesta's Twitter was "hacked" during this whole affair because his password was trivially easy to guess; it's not like we're dealing with the NSA here (though note, Snowden was still able to exfiltrate the toppest-secret of the top-secret documents from there).
I'm not really sure what you're looking for, but I guess I can backtrack if it'll make you feel better: it's entirely possible that Seth Rich wasn't the source of the emails and it's probably not prudent to say "Seth Rich provided the emails". I take back the definitive tone and will refrain from such certitude it in the future. The emails definitely could've come from somewhere else, possibly even actual Russian intelligence; ultimately, the source doesn't matter because nobody questions the authenticity of the documents.
That said, it's entirely possible that Rich was a source and that Assange wasn't just heartlessly exploiting a convenient homicide. Personally, I put a lot more trust in Wikileaks and Assange particularly, whose hacker ethos is well-known and lifelong, has a long track record of verified and reliable journalism, and publicly suffered for the courage of his convictions by living in exile than I put in career politicians and media barons who are trying to distract from their ultra-embarrassing performances throughout the 2016 election cycle.
The establishment was so certain that Trump would be crushed that they issued "Madam President" commemorative editions days ahead of the election. We can't pretend like they're not going to try to excuse that with something, no matter how ridiculous they have to get.
No coverup or wide-ranging conspiracy is necessary -- just a handful of powerful people implicitly colluding to conjure a scapegoat out of widespread xenophobia and ignorance, which, I think we'd all agree, is nothing new when it comes to the worlds of politics and mass media.
> Personally, I put a lot more trust in Wikileaks and Assange
Yes, that's exactly what I said. You are openly admitting to believing things either with no evidence, or significant evidence suggesting it's not true.
You let your emotions guide your critical thinking. You believe these things because you want to, not because they make the more objective, logical sense. You "trust" people more, or something "sounds" right to you.
And people here are claiming you aren't stupid for doing so, I disagree. I know guys making 500k that will talk your ear off about 9/11 and Seth Rich if you let them. They are idiots for doing so.
You either make decisions on fact-based reality, or you don't.
No -- there is no known hard, undeniable fact-based reality on this, at least not as far as I know; if there is, I'd be happy to have someone show me.
At the moment, there is no hard, undeniable proof either way -- there is the statement of some that they believe it's probably all driven by Russia and that Assange and Trump are Russian agents, and there's the statements from others that are more skeptical that it's necessarily all centered around Russia. There is going to be interpretation here. I'm willing to discuss the points where my interpretations come into play, and you're clearly not.
The "proof" that you're insisting must be taken as inscrutable truth that Assange is a Russian agent and that the election's integrity was compromised is a) the cable TV network Russia Today broadcast a show that featured Assange; and b) an op-ed from Seth Rich's parents that states they'd really like it if you didn't imply that Rich was Assange's source, because they really don't think he would've been Assange's source.
There's a reason I replied to not-you -- you're making yourself look silly here.
Ah, so you are repeating the talking point that unless intel agencies role out all their evidence of what they say, completely burning sources and methods for future use, their claims (no matter how logical and rational) aren't valid. Or (even worse) they are no better than the claims of Wikileaks or RT holding up conspiracies theories that don't even make sense.
Evidence was presented behind closed doors, of which even the hardcore Trump loyalists didn't argue against. This is your proof, but again you aren't asking in good faith. No amount of "hard, undeniable fact-based reality" would ever convince people that already made up their mind.
In summary, you are asking for something you know not to be possible (complete disclosure), to confirm something you already decided wasn't true.
Snowden did that too. "If you have the evidence show it" know ing damn well they can't do that. And idiots lap it up.
Your "We can't know either way" both sides arguments are actually worse than lying. It promotes the idea that no representative government is possible because no truth is possible. The Kremlin loves this idea, because that rational is how they stay in power. And you are promoting this uncertainty, it's unclear if you realize your useful idiot status or not. I promise you the enemies of democracy don't care.
That's why all the squawking about "The Russians! The Russians!" is so hilarious.
The kind of work Cambridge Analytica and these boiler rooms in Russian are doing isn't very sophisticated, and certainly doesn't require the backing of a foreign State. A couple of savvy tech people can (and do) inflict the same pain for reasonable sums of money.