Truthdig, one of those purveyors of fake fake news (meaning real news), has the article The Real Purpose of the U.S. Government’s Report on Alleged Hacking. I hope they won’t mind if I give you the four purposes to get you interested enough to read the article.

1. The primary purpose of the declassified report, which offers no evidence to support its assertions that Russia hacked the U.S. presidential election campaign, is to discredit Donald Trump.
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2. The second task of the report is to bolster the McCarthyist smear campaign against independent media, including Truthdig, as witting or unwitting agents of the Russian government.
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3. The third task of the report is to justify the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization beyond Germany, a violation of the promise Ronald Reagan made to the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
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4. The final task of the report is to give the Democratic Party plausible cover for the catastrophic election defeat it suffered.

When the corporate media and other establishment figures set out to write a new history for us all to believe they rarely fail in the short term. In the long term, they will be writing new fake histories before most people wake up to this one. At the same time people are discovering how fake this story was, they will be swallowing, hook, line, and sinker, whatever new fantasy our fearless leaders are trying to sell us.

Cornell West has written a short and sad opinion piece in The Guardian. It is headlined Pity the sad legacy of Barack Obama.

The age of Barack Obama may have been our last chance to break from our neoliberal soulcraft. We are rooted in market-driven brands that shun integrity and profit-driven policies that trump public goods. Our “post-integrity” and “post-truth” world is suffocated by entertaining brands and money-making activities that have little or nothing to do with truth, integrity or the long-term survival of the planet. We are witnessing the postmodern version of the full-scale gangsterization of the world.

The reign of Obama did not produce the nightmare of Donald Trump – but it did contribute to it. And those Obama cheerleaders who refused to make him accountable bear some responsibility.

I agree with that sentiment and more. Cornell West went on to say

The top 1% got nearly two-thirds of the income growth in eight years even as child poverty, especially black child poverty, remained astronomical.

I was just thinking again today how this oft quoted factoid doesn’t even tell the half of what has happened. If we look at changes in wealth, it would be far worse than the picture painted by looking at income. Lots of people tout the growth of the Dow Jones Industiral Average of stocks during Obama’s reign. Since much of the top 1%’s wealth depends on stock prices, this growth has been a tremendous boon to them. Remember that growth in the value of stocks you own but do not sell, is called unrealized capital gains. Until you sell your stocks and realize the gain from their increased price, your gain in paper wealth is not counted as income. So, the realized gain in wealth that is counted as income is but a small part of your gain in wealth. When you include the drop in residential real estate prices, there is a big component of unrealized losses for the bottom 99%.

I forgot to mention that even realized gains in tax deferred accounts such as 401ks and IRAs do not count as income until you withdraw the money. My own net-worth this year has gone up three times more than my taxable income this year, and that includes the fact that I am retired and have been spending some of my income on yearly expenses.

I have not seen any numbers published, but the shift in paper wealth from the bottom 99% to the top 1% must be truly astounding compared to the income numbers. Of course, the income numbers alone are truly horrible.

YouTube has the video 9/11 Trillions: Follow The Money.

Forget for one moment everything you’ve been told about September 11, 2001. 9/11 was a crime. And as with any crime, there is one overriding imperative that detectives must follow to identify the perpetrators: follow the money. This is an investigation of the 9/11 money trail.

There is no reason to believe this preposterous story unless you have started to question our government over its false story of Russian hacking of the elections.

We have seen how they can sell us a story by claiming they have evidence that they can’t reveal. When they do finally reveal their evidence, you find upon investigation that there is nothing in what they published that remotely looks like evidence of what they are claiming. As soon as you point out the holes in that evidence, they swear that they have other evidence. Who would have expected that when releasing their evidence that they would have thought “Let’s start with the least convincing evidence we have, and slowly build up to a clincher.”?

Then you have President Obama swearing up and down that the TPP will be good for the average citizen, and that all those people pointing to the truly bad stuff just don’t know what they are talking about. Given how hard our government tried to prevent any outsiders from finding out what was in the TPP, you have to wonder what they thought they needed to hide.

So, no this story about 9/11 is just too preposterous to believe despite all the propaganda tricks they used to convince you otherwise.

There is some sarcasm in some of what I have written above. I leave it to your biased minds to figure out which is sarcasm and which is what I really believe.

The Ring Of Fire features this RT Broadcast – Papantonio: Podesta and the DNC Gaggle of Idiots Will Never Learn.

Mike Papantonio, host of America’s Lawyer on RT, joins Thom Hartmann to discuss voting rights and voter suppression in the United States today, and how it contrasts to what the corporate media is trying to push.

I’d like to take this opportunity to explain my observation of why so much of this stuff comes from RT. I used to watch many of these hosts and visitors, Thom Hartman, Mike Papantonio, Lee Camp, and many others on various other outlets. All these other outlets have been squeezed out, probably by the corporate media, so that the only outlet open to these voices is RT.

I don’t watch RT because I blindly want to believe everything that comes from RT. I don’t believe that for an instant. I listen to what I hear and form a judgment as to whether or not it makes sense given what else I know. When I judge a source as making sense (most likely telling a story that is more close to the truth), then I decide to listen. Of course, I sometimes listen to sources that I know darn well are not telling the truth, just to see what false threat is the topic of the day. Comparing the two sides of a story also helps sort out what is believable and what is not. What is actually true is something we may never know.

Truth-Out, that purveyor of fake fake news (meaning actual news), has the wonderful article “Saviors” Believe That They Are Better Than the People They Are “Saving”

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, like many charitable funds set up through corporate profits, consists of money “twice-stolen,” according to author Jordan Flaherty. Pictured here is Bill Gates. (Photo: Gabriella Demczuk / The New York Times)

As commendable as charity from billionaires might be, I often wonder if people they are “helping” might have been better off if the helpers hadn’t sucked their billions out of the economy first before returning some of it to the less fortunate.

With the recent announcement that Elizabeth Warren will run for re-election as Senator from Massachusetts (see my post Warren to Run for Re-election, Will Continue to Sell Out Progressives), it has suddenly become crystal clear what Bernie Sanders needs to do.

Sanders needs to join the national Green Party to help us defeat Elizabeth Warren’s run for re-election. Joshua Ford will run for Senator on the Green-Rainbow ticket in Massachusetts against Elizabeth Warren on the Democratic ticket. Since name recognition is the name of the game, Bernie Sanders could give a huge boost to Joshua Ford by Bernie becoming a member of the Green Party and endorsing Joshua Ford for Senator.

I know that as a man of principle, Bernie had to support Hillary Clinton for President after he lost the Democratic nomination. It was what he had promised to do from early on in his run against her. There is no hope of Bernie Sanders getting the Democratic Party to listen to him. After what he tried to do for the party despite what they did to him, they are already fighting his message again.

The Green Party has struggled for recognition, and he could have made a great impact on that issue had he switched parties after he lost the nomination. The Green Party was begging him to do it, but his principles, as mentioned above, stood in the way. He has now kept the promise he made, and is free now to make the switch and lead the country forward.

The Democratic Party did not believe Bernie Sanders would be a threat, but they were rudely awakened. They played every trick in the book, and they managed to quell him this time. They didn’t believe those of us who said we would never vote for Hillary, but now I think if we make a similar threat with Elizabeth Warren, a few might believe it is not an idlle threat this time. If Bernie switched parties and helped defeat Elizabeth Warren, there would be no denying the message.

That would be a message sent that would either wake up the Democratic Party or finally destroy it, and let a new party rise to take its place. This is Bernie’s last chance, but it is a great one, if he has the courage to take up the challenge.

The Observer has the editorial Warren to Run for Re-election, Will Continue to Sell Out Progressives.

Then the 2016 Democratic primaries happened.

Warren’s name was one of several floated as potential contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination. Emails released by WikiLeaks revealed the Clinton campaign was worried Warren would enter the race, and noted that Clinton met with Warren before the primaries began.

Despite Bernie Sanders’ emergence as a viable contender against Clinton, Warren refrained from endorsing the Vermont Senator. The move would have served an important boost to Sanders, who had the odds stacked against him by the Democratic establishment. Though Sanders won over 46 percent of the vote, he received a small fraction of the Democratic Party’s super delegates and only one major newspaper endorsement, from the Seattle Times.

I am surely going to want to remember this article.

Elizabeth Warren beat Scott Brown because he turned out to be nothing but an empty suit. He frequently waited to make a political decision until after he was sure his vote didn’t matter. If you look at the Presidential primary process and then the no-DAPL movement, Elizabeth Warren has learned how to be any empty suit, too. That’s decidedly not what I voted for.

Now that I know for sure what she is, I won’t be voting for her again. Political betrayal has political consequences. That’s the only way deterrence works. They didn’t believe us when we said we wouldn’t vote for Hillary. Well now they know that was not an idle threat.

This makes me think of the Starkist Tuna commercials of the 1970’s.

Sorry, Elizabeth, we don’t need politicians who talk well, we want politicians who lead well.

Jamie Czupkiewicz Guerin commented on Facebook:

There is a Berner running against her… As a green!!! Joshua Ford

What is the interest among Sturbridge residents for forming a Green-Rainbow Town Committee?

I am trying to gather responses on the Committee’s Facebook page. Of course, the Facebook page is in anticipation of such a committee being formed. It does not exist yet (to my knowledge).

The Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance has a Getting Started page for forming a Town, Ward, or City Committee.

On that page, they explain the section of the Massachusetts general laws that define some of the rules.

What is a Local Party Committee?

M.G.L. Chapter 52 regulates the process by which local political party committees are formed. Ward and town committee members of each party are elected at the presidential primary by those who have voted in that particular party. The members of the various ward committees of a political party in a city constitute the city committee.

Ward and town committee members hold office for a term of four years, ending on the thirtieth day following the date of the next presidential primary. City and town committees determine the number of members of ward and town committees, which must be no less than three and not more than thirty five per committee. Ward and town committees may also have associate members. A change in residence or in party affiliation may cause an individual to cease being a member of a political party committee.

In addition to the information provided here, those interested in forming a local party committee should also consult with the appropriate state political party committee and with the Elections Division of the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Office for more information.

The OCPF Video: Instructional video for Ward, Town and City Party Committees does not seem to exist as of this date – January 6, 2017.

The Office of Campaign and Political Finance Commonwealth of Massachusetts has a CAMPAIGN FINANCE GUIDE – Committee Treasurer. The introduction to this 22 page guide says the following:

This brochure is designed to introduce treasurers of political committees to the provisions of the campaign finance law.

Uplift has the article Why the United States is at War With Itself. The article begins with what I believe to be a perceptive description of the problem.

The heads of the CIA and FBI have both come on the record to say that America’s traditional enemy, Russia, covertly interfered in the elections by hacking the Democrat Party. Whether you believe this story or not is irrelevant to a far more important point: that the American establishment is now at war with itself. By leaking information on what it says is evidence of a Russian information influence operation, the US intelligence community is conducting its own influence operation against an incoming president.

Although it is exceptional to be perceptive, that is still the easy part. Analyzing causes and cures is where almost all such articles fail to satisfy (probably including my post here). The article goes on to identify one of the probable causes of our troubles.

Information is in overproduction, and the more we are saturated with it, with social media and news reports and multimedia stories and soundbites and expert commentary, the less we collectively understand the world around us.

This is a flawed analysis which might lead to bad “solutions”. This may not at all be an indication that “the less we collectively understand the world around us.” It is quite likely that before this, we falsely believed that we collectively understood the world around us. Now that more information is available and we don’t know what to believe, we may actually be more accurately assessing what we know and what we don’t know. This may be huge progress when not looked at through brown colored glasses.

What I fear is that the feeling that there is an information overproduction might lead to efforts to rein in this production. As stated above, I believe we may be far better off with this “overproduction” than we were before.

WordFence has the article Election Hack Report FAQ: What You Need to Know to accompany the more technical article mentioned in my previous post US Govt Data Shows “Russia” Used Outdated Ukrainian PHP Malware.

In the FAQ, you do not have to infer answers to your questions. They spell it out for you. Here is an example.

Does the report prove that Russia Hacked the 2016 US Election?

No it does not. What Wordfence revealed on Friday is that the PHP malware sample that the US government provided is:

• An old version of malware. The sample was version 3.1.0 and the current version is 3.1.7 with 4.1.1 beta also available.
• Freely available to anyone who wants it.
• The authors claim they are Ukrainian, not Russian.
• The malware is an administrative tool used by hackers to upload files, view files on a hacked website, download database contents and so on. It is used as one step in a series of steps that would occur during an attack.

Wordfence also analyzed the IP addresses available and demonstrated that they are in 61 countries, belong to over 380 organizations and many of those organizations are well known website hosting providers from where many attacks originate. There is nothing in the IP data that points to Russia specifically.