WaPo Admits Russiagate Was Bullshit

RFK Jr: CIA “coup”

The most courageous newscast in 60 years. The CIA’s murder of my uncle was a successful coup d'état from which our democracy has never recovered. @TuckerCarlson https://t.co/qJ1sUdhe4t

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) December 17, 2022

Hillary’s Disinformation Spree

TAIBBI:

Shouldn’t Hillary Clinton Be Banned From Twitter Now?

Everyone Who Doesn’t Work For Us is Alex Jones

Edward Snowden, Conspiracy: Theory and Practice

This, in sum, is our problem: the truest conspiracies meet with the least opposition.

Toward a Taxonomy of Conspiracies

Science Journals L-Y-I-N-G About What is Known of Covid-19 Origin

In other words, Fouchier’s research took a flu virus that did not exhibit airborne transmission, then infected a number of ferrets until it mutated to the point that it was transmissible by air.  (in 2012)

 

I’ve been pursuing this story for several months, but I’d like to be paid for the research. Remember the seemingly innocuous term “animal passage.”

Sam Husseini beat me to the punch at Salon:

Did this virus come from a lab? Maybe not — but it exposes the threat of a biowarfare arms race

 

Despite objections, Fouchier’s article was published by Science in June 2012. Titled “Airborne Transmission of Influenza A/H5N1 Virus Between Ferrets,” it summarized how Fouchier’s research team made the pathogen more virulent:

Highly pathogenic avian influenza A/H5N1 virus can cause morbidity and mortality in humans but thus far has not acquired the ability to be transmitted by aerosol or respiratory droplet (“airborne transmission”) between humans. To address the concern that the virus could acquire this ability under natural conditions, we genetically modified A/H5N1 virus by site-directed mutagenesis and subsequent serial passage in ferrets. The genetically modified A/H5N1 virus acquired mutations during passage in ferrets, ultimately becoming airborne transmissible in ferrets.

Ahd there’s quite a bit more in the Salon piece:

The Guardian ran a piece in 2014, “Scientists condemn ‘crazy, dangerous’ creation of deadly airborne flu virus,” after Kawaoka created a life-threatening virus that “closely resembles the 1918 Spanish flu strain that killed an estimated 50m people”:

CNN’s Jake Tapper Calls Bullshit on New Russia Conspiracy Theory!

Jake Tapper/CNN disputes the new Russia hysteria? There’s no there-there! There’s nothing, just an opinion that the Russians don’t dislike Trump, and so that means a grand conspiracy according to the NY Times without a single shred of evidence.

It’s McCarthyism. Anyone who disagrees with the new Cold War must be a Russian. You’re a Russian. Your mom is a Russian.

Never thought I’d see the day. I guess Tapper’s tired of looking like a moron…

 

A national security official I know and trust pushes back on the way the briefing/ODNI story is being told, and others with firsthand knowledge agree with his assessment.

Thread/

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 21, 2020

2/ "What's been articulated in the news is that the intelligence community has concluded that the Russians are trying to help Trump again. But the intelligence doesn't say that,” the official says…

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 21, 2020

3/ “The problem is Shelby" — Pierson, the elections threats executive in the intelligence community — "said they developed a preference for Trump. A more reasonable interpretation of the intelligence is not that they have a preference, it's a step short of that….

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 21, 2020

4/ “It's more that they understand the president is someone they can work with, he's a dealmaker. But not that they prefer him over Sanders or Buttigieg or anyone else. So it may have been mischaracterized by Shelby" at the House Intel briefing last week…

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 21, 2020

Why would Iran shoot down a civilian plane over Tehran?

Joe Giambrone

This opinion piece will contain speculation or “conspiracy theory,” and so you can move on if you don’t like that sort of thing…

I’m not claiming that Iran fired any missiles at the Ukrainian passenger plane; that’s the New York Times and Bellingcat. But, assuming their video shows unaltered footage of Iranian anti-aircraft SAMs shooting down Ukraine Flight 752, then we must ask the obvious question: WHY?

The very first possible reason screams out, and that is that Iran must have thought it was an attacking warplane over Tehran, and with only moments to decide, they shot quickly. But, why would the Iranian military think that a civilian plane was an attacking warplane? That is the big question in this possible scenario, and it represents a major threat to civil aviation worldwide.

Other civilian airliners around the Middle East have been put at risk recently in the following way. In December, 2018, Russia accused Israel of using civilian airliners as cover for their attacking warplanes:

“The provocative actions of the Israeli air force … directly threatened two airliners,” Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement.

In another incident, Israeli planes attacked Syrian ground targets in a way that the Russians said caused Syria’s air defense missiles to strike a Russian surveillance plane that was in the same area. This air defense response killed fifteen Russian airmen.

“The [Russian] spokesman accused Israeli pilots of “using the Russian airplane as a cover”, putting it “in the line of fire coming from Syrian air defence systems”.

These two precedents establish that military strategists are always looking for ways to game the enemy into using his anti-aircraft missiles against him, so to speak. Getting the enemy to shoot down the wrong plane is a standard military ploy, and perhaps a war crime.

Civilian planes are identified by their radio signatures. They continually broadcast data identifying them as friendly, or, in the case of military aircraft, they can turn off transponder signals and be unknown—giving away as little information to the enemy as possible.

Radio jamming has been around since the second World War. It is not impossible that the Ukraine jet was targeted for some sort of radio jamming in order to confuse the Iranians into thinking it was an attacking enemy warplane and quickly shooting it down. The incident would clearly be blamed on Iran alone, as the “conspiracy theory” is nearly impossible to prove, and the Iranians aren’t going to admit to shooting missiles at all, just as they have denied the use of missiles ever since the incident occurred.

This scenario seems plausible enough. While pundits allude to Iran making a “mistake,” this absolves any conspirators who may have engaged in deliberate radio jamming in order to bait the Iranians into shooting down the wrong plane. The propaganda value of casting the Iranians as monsters, and also angering Ukrainians, Canadians, and other nations which had civilians on board, are clear motives to inspire such a crime.

Lastly, it makes no sense that Iran would warn the US about its missile launches hours in advance in order to avoid casualties, while deliberately shooting down a plane load of innocent civilians on the same day.

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Dore: The Backlash Against Hillary Clinton

 

 

PS

Dore with Jill Stein.

 

Bernie 3 Days Late to the Clinton/Gabbard Party

Does Hillary R. Clinton Have Dementia?

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Hillary Clinton Asked To Leave Costco After Repeatedly Accusing Sample Lady Of Being A Russian Asset

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Dore: Maddow’s Latest Conspiracy Theory #Russiagate Lives