McClatchy DC:
The digital megaphone of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appears to have been silenced, and Britain is also moving against Russia’s foreign media operations.When he was releasing information about the Bush administration, Assange was a hero to the Left. Now, he is their worst nightmare.
WikiLeaks announced via Twitter Monday that it had launched “contingency plans” after unnamed state hackers severed the internet link used by Assange, who is under siege in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, taking pain pills for infirmities and with no access to sunlight or outdoor space. WikiLeaks later blamed Ecuador itself for the cutoff, reported The Associated Press.
It was one of the latest moves in a chess match that Assange has waged for years with U.S. and British authorities and that now has the Australian anti-secrecy advocate on center stage in the U.S. presidential campaign, releasing thousands of pages of leaked emails to thwart Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid. The U.S. government accuses Russian state hackers of obtaining the emails and passing them to WikiLeaks.
In a separate move, RT, the Russian state cable and satellite television operator once known as Russia Today, said it was told that Britain’s National Westminster Bank would no longer provide it with banking services.
RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan told RIA Novosti that the broadcaster would not shut down operations in the United Kingdom but “it is clear to us that this is not the last step the United Kingdom is prepared to take to limit our broadcasting.”
Whether there was a connection between Assange’s loss of internet and RT’s loss of banking services was unknown, but the timing of the two events seemed remarkably coincidental.
WikiLeaks posted a tweet early Monday that said Assange’s “internet link has been intentionally severed by a state party. We have activated the appropriate contingency plans.”
What those contingency plans are was not clear. But WikiLeaks has been the target of efforts to silence it before.
During its release of State Department cables in 2010, Amazon.com, at the request of then-Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, canceled its contract to host the WikiLeaks site, and for years U.S. credit card companies refused to process donations to the organization. WikiLeaks also maintained scores of so-called “mirror” sites to host its content to prevent hackers from blocking access through what’s known as a directed denial of service attack – the practice of freezing a site with millions of automated efforts to contact it.
For example...
Mediaite:
Hillary Clinton was “playing to the paying crowd” in her private Wall Street speeches. Some people are looking at this as a “yawn.” There’s no “smoking gun” here.
These are just a few versions of the “nothing to see here” rallying cry that’s permeated corporate media over the last week in regards to the thousands of emails WikiLeaks obtained from the account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
When TV news took a break from wall-to-wall Trump coverage (CBS, ABC, and NBC’s morning and evening shows spent 4 hours and 13 minutes on Trump’s sexual assault allegations vs. 36 minutes on the WikiLeaks emails between Oct. 7th and 13th), they widely viewed the revelations through a tone-deaf prism.
The verdict: emails showing the behind-the-scenes machinations of the Clinton campaign changing her positions in real-time, coordinating with the Obama administration, crossing ethical lines with the Clinton Foundation, doing favors for donors, and more were irrelevant because there were “no bombshells.”
Take, for example, what Clinton told Goldman Sachs bankers at a behind-closed-door speech on regulation.
“There’s nothing magic about regulations, too much is bad, too little is bad. How do you get to the golden key, how do we figure out what works? And the people that know the industry better than anybody are the people who work in the industry.”
CNN’s Don Lemon was on the case recently, speaking with William Cohen, a contributing editor to Vanity Fair. What ensued was a tug-of-war of ignorance.
“She also insisted that these bankers needed to take control of their own regulation,” Cohen said. “In other words, if they didn’t self regulate, if they didn’t change the way they do business, then big-time Washington regulators will step in and do it for them.”
Like so many journalists who haven’t done their homework and taken the time to dig through these emails—I’ve reported on hundreds at this point for TYT Politics—Lemon let Cohen’s preposterous, borderline-calculated interpretation of what Clinton told Wall Street stand.
But, for anyone living outside the NY-DC media-political bubble, what Clinton actually told Goldman was politicians can’t just go on and regulate you all without getting your input on best practices and conditions for success.
Of course…let’s ask the bank robbers what tools they need to break open the front door!Can you say "in Hillary's pocket"? If this wasn't so offensively biased, and trying to pass as news analysis, it would be funny. But this is news analysis passing as justification for lack of coverage (with coverage being what journalists are supposed to do with "news").
Later in the interview, Lemon quipped sarcastically: “But this is proof—evidence—that she is corrupt and there’s something to hide in her emails!…seriously, I’m joking, but if you watch conservative media, this is a death knell for Hillary Clinton.”
And here is some more from Wikileaks, which is doing the job MSM is supposed to do...
Infowars:
Members of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign discussed the political importance of pleasing billionaire George Soros in emails published by WikiLeaks.While there is nothing illegal here, it does demonstrate the impact of big money donors to important PACs, showing how they gain access to people like Hillary Clinton while the rest of us would be lucky to breathe her air.
The email, among thousands allegedly hacked from Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta, reveals a discussion between several prominent figures – including campaign manager Robby Mook and Clinton aide Huma Abedin – regarding the organization “America Votes.”
“I would only do this for political reasons (ie to make Soros happy),” Mook tells Abedin. “It’s very unclear to me how much AV will matter next cycle. And I haven’t seen then [sic] adding any value this cycle. I also worry a little it will cause donor confusion vis a vis Priorities.”
America Votes, which works “with over 400 state and national partner organizations to advance progressive policies, win elections, and protect every American’s right to vote,” has received millions in funding from Soros.
“She is having dinner with George Soros tonight,” Abedin responds. “Do you know much about America Votes? As Greg Speed explained to me, they are the coordinated campaign for various outside groups. Soros is a big supporter of the group and hes [sic] going to ask her tonight if she will come to a fundraiser for them at his house in December. Thoughts?”
Unfortunately, we don't live on the same planet she does.
