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Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks

emma.best

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Re: Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks

#151

Post by elif »

fixermark wrote: post #142
elif wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DNC does not function as a popular vote, but with a complex system of campaigning, finance, and ultimately delegate voting. The DNC seat was stolen through illegal redirection of funds, manipulation of public debates, and a deliberate media smear campaign which led to the DNC chairwoman's forced resignation.

> The DNC does not function as a popular vote You could have stopped there. The major disconnect between public perception of the political parties and actual party function is the party ultimately nominates who it chooses. Votes are cast because it's assumed Americans wouldn't support a party that simply nominated a candidate via authoritarianism or autocracy, not because either party believes in the wisdom of the m…

It is my view of the law that if you collect money under a stated intention of nonbiased party-backing and subsequently redirect those funds to Hillary Victory Fund, fraud has been constituted. Washing transactions between 50 different organizations to subvert campaign finance laws, as you referenced, also seems like an illegal redirection of funds. (federal lawsuit) Using DNC party funds for activities such as paying ex-intelligence operatives to manufacture deliberately infactual reports seems like a multi-part illegal redirection of funds. (steele dossier)

Re: Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks

#152

Post by dragonwriter »

fixermark wrote: post #142
elif wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DNC does not function as a popular vote, but with a complex system of campaigning, finance, and ultimately delegate voting. The DNC seat was stolen through illegal redirection of funds, manipulation of public debates, and a deliberate media smear campaign which led to the DNC chairwoman's forced resignation.

> The DNC does not function as a popular vote You could have stopped there. The major disconnect between public perception of the political parties and actual party function is the party ultimately nominates who it chooses. Votes are cast because it's assumed Americans wouldn't support a party that simply nominated a candidate via authoritarianism or autocracy, not because either party believes in the wisdom of the m…

> Votes are cast because it's assumed Americans wouldn't support a party that simply nominated a candidate via authoritarianism or autocracy

No, the modern candidate selection process in each of the major parties isn't an abstract response to theoretical concerns about what Americans would respond to, but a concrete response to real issues identified through previous nomination processes.

> If anything, "wisdom of the mob" voting is more reflective of the Republican party's process

No, it's not; the Republican Party process is designed to artificially create an insurmountable perception of momentum for the early leader because of experience about how early lead usually favors the institutional candidate, and the set of early primaries and caucuses favor, more than the country generally, the establishment faction of the party, so that this provides both the right candidate and a short competitive part of the primary with an early shift to general election campaigning. The Democratic system through 2016 (changes are planned for 2020 in response to 2016) in general design (pushing committed superdelegate counts into horserace delegate coverage hasn't historically been the norm) favors a longer competitive period and broader geographic competition but provides a safeguard against a hung convention. Each of these has failure modes—if superdelegates commit early and the media included them in horserace coverage, the Democratic system gets the same kind of artificial inevitability as the Republican system. If a celebrity candidate sucks up early attention with a large but weak field where establishment support is divided, the Republican method work against the establishment and lock in the same kind of advantage for the celebrity it is designed to for an establishment candidate. And if a well-funded establishment decides to take that fight down to the wire with whoever it has standing after the early winnowing, it can drag out into a long primary fight if the type the system is designed to avoid.

Re: Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks

#153

Post by bootlooped »

"It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever “breached his bail”, “jumped bail”, absconded, fled an arrest warrant, or that he has ever been charged with such at any time."

I would love to hear their explanation for why they think this isn't true.

Re: Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks

#154

Post by elif »

phaus wrote: post #148
elif wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm saying that they were trying to manipulate people with selective, perfectly timed releases designed to achieve a specific political goal while at the same time receiving information from and potentially coordinating with foreign intelligence agents and lying about it. There is no evidence of this. it is pure narrative based upon what you perceive as motives. > some hillary vs trump stuff, who you voted for not r…

> There is no evidence of this. it is pure narrative based upon what you perceive as motives. There is plenty of evidence to suggest it. What you're looking for is a smoking gun that definitively proves it beyond a reasonable doubt, such as a leaked, signed email from Assange outlining his entire strategy or a video of him at a coffee shop with Russian Agents wearing nametags that say "Guccifer 2.0". When it comes to…

Please provide your cold gun evidence.

"taking sides" is a convenient diversion of narrative-based discussion

Re: Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks

#155

Post by Varcht »

fixermark wrote: post #137
darkpuma wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much money did Russian intelligence spend on such ads on social media? I googled "how much money did russia spend on facebook ads" but the numbers I see in that result are surprisingly small, so I'm wondering if you have a better source.

It's not the quantity they spent; it's the efficacy of the micro-targeting. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/us/politics/russia-2016-e...

But it doesn't work, right? Just look at "Project Birmingham"...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/secret-ca...

Re: Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks

#156

Post by mywittyname »

jessaustin wrote: post #119
mywittyname wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose you'll just have to wait for Mueller to wrap up his probe into the matter. Several GRU officers have been brought up on charges related to the hacking of the DCCC and DNC, the subsequent dissemination of their findings to Wikileaks, and related payoffs. This suggests that there is concrete evidence that the GRU was collaborating with Wikileaks, it's just not yet publicly available.

Wait, sure, but don't hold your breath. This investigation has taken much longer than we were led to expect.

Mueller's been pretty good about getting evidence put into public record via the court system.

Re: Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks

#157

Post by pacerwpg »

jessaustin wrote: post #119
mywittyname wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose you'll just have to wait for Mueller to wrap up his probe into the matter. Several GRU officers have been brought up on charges related to the hacking of the DCCC and DNC, the subsequent dissemination of their findings to Wikileaks, and related payoffs. This suggests that there is concrete evidence that the GRU was collaborating with Wikileaks, it's just not yet publicly available.

Wait, sure, but don't hold your breath. This investigation has taken much longer than we were led to expect.

Led to believe by whom? People who have a vested interest in people believing it would be a short investigation.

Re: Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks

#158

Post by 8note »

Varcht wrote: post #77
hannasanarion wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can tell that wikileaks is now a front precisely because they have stopped operating in the way you describe. They no longer publish everything they have been given (Assange once claimed to have documents embarassing to Russia but they are as yet unpublished). They no longer publish documents indiscriminately (Podesta emails trickled out over the course of October 2016 for maximum political effect on the election)…

"It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have not published critical information on Russia, Syria or Donald Trump [in fact, WikiLeaks has published hundreds of thousands of documents on Russia, millions on Syria, and thousands on Donald Trump, see https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/russia/ , https://search.wikileaks.org/?query=russia%7Cputin%7Cmoscow#... , https://wikileaks.org/syria-files…

isn't that a different statement?

releasing some doesn't mean he released everything, or stuff Russia wasn't okay with him releasing.

Re: Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks

#160

Post by hutzlibu »

hannasanarion wrote: post #84
mrguyorama wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading this makes me sad. I thought the intercept was quality journalism. I didn't know they had this kind of history

Yeah. And those are only the famous ones. They also blew the cover of John Kiriakou and Joseph Hickman, leading to their arrests and imprisonments, and there may be others. The Intercept isn't safe any more, and it's increasingly becoming sidelined, with the biggest leak since Snowden, the Panama Papers, being given to Süddeutsche Zeitung and ICIJ, by a source that is still anonymous 4 years later.

Well, first I think there is a difference between having the facts wrong and not protecting a source enough. And secondly, what exactly did the Intercept do to harm John Kiriakou and Joseph Hickman?
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