Flowers For Socrates

By ann summers

WaPo’s editorial board now uses the explicit term, “Putin’s Puppet”, to identify Donald Trump, and there is some MSM spin that claims a false equivalence between WikiLeaks and a FOIA, considering some clear technical errors in some of their documents such as missing headers and perhaps some editing by non-sources/hackers.

Wikileaks is no Blockchain, even if it has become a  political-economic commodity with questionable archive practices. So far, the release of information has certain frames and timing questions, such as the releases coordinated with some pro-Trump, anti-Clinton agents.

“Some hackers say”…

… Once again, the GOP nominee played the part of Vladi­mir Putin’s lawyer. “She doesn’t know if it’s the Russians doing the hacking,” he said of Ms. Clinton. “Maybe there is no hacking.”

Mr. Trump is receiving classified intelligence briefings, so he is certainly aware of the evidence that hackers backed by Moscow have stolen email and other records from the DNC and tried to penetrate state electoral systems. So why does he deny it? Mr. Trump’s advocacy on behalf of an aggressive U.S. rival, and the opaqueness of his motivation, is one of the most troubling aspects of his thoroughly toxic campaign.

Experts differ on whether the Putin regime is trying to tip the election to Mr. Trump, as Ms. Clinton suggested, or merely to sow confusion and distrust about the integrity of U.S. democracy. But the leaks traced to Russia through the WikiLeaks website have been aimed at Ms. Clinton — most recently emails from her campaign chairman revealing excerpts from her private speeches on Wall Street. The timing of the WikiLeaks releases, clearly calculated to do maximum damage to the Democrats, confirms (again) that the website is not a crusader for transparency, but a willing political agent of the Kremlin.

Perhaps Mr. Trump knows nothing about all this, as he protested. But he has defended Mr. Putin and his crimes throughout his campaign. He brushed off the fact that journalists and other opponents of the Russian ruler have been murdered and claimed Russia had not invaded Ukraine. He has repeatedly called Mr. Putin a better leader than President Obama.

www.washingtonpost.com/…

Continue reading →