Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I was promised a recession.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

A Senator Walker would be an insult to the state and the nation.

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / The Maskirovka Slips XVI: Russian Intelligence Scouted In The US For Potential Wetwork Targets

The Maskirovka Slips XVI: Russian Intelligence Scouted In The US For Potential Wetwork Targets

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From CNN:

Among the dozens of Russian diplomats the US expelled last month were suspected spies who US law enforcement and intelligence officials believe were tracking Russian defectors and their families who had resettled in the US, officials briefed on the matter tell CNN.

In at least one instance, suspected Russian spies were believed to be casing someone who was part of a CIA program that provided new identities to protect resettled Russians, the officials said.
That episode and other US intelligence raised concerns that the Russians were preparing to target Russian émigrés in the US labeled by the Kremlin as traitors or enemies, law enforcement and intelligence officials said.
The CIA declined to comment. The White House declined to comment.
The Russian embassy did not respond to a request for comment.

The Russian Intelligence Services are playing a very dangerous game here. And they are doing so with the full support of the Russian government:

Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee produced a report earlier this year raised the issue of the suspicious deaths of more than two dozen critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin during his time in power. The Russian security services are suspected in many of the deaths, the report said, noting a Russian law passed “in July 2006 that permits the assassination of ‘enemies of the Russian regime’ who live abroad.”

Unfortunately the US government’s ability to respond is hindered by the partisan politicization of the Russian active measures and cyberwarfare campaign. As Admiral Rogers, the outgoing Director of the NSA and the Commander of US Cyber Command, stated in February:

Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the departing head of the National Security Agency and the military’s Cyber Command, said that he was using the authorities he had to combat the Russian attacks. But under questioning during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, he acknowledged that the White House had not asked his agencies — the main American spy and defense arms charged with conducting cyberoperations — to find ways to counter Moscow, or granted them new authorities to do so.

“President Putin has clearly come to the conclusion that there’s little price to pay and that therefore ‘I can continue this activity,’” said Admiral Rogers, who is set to retire in April. “Clearly what we have done hasn’t been enough.”

Admiral Rogers’s testimony was the second time this month that a senior American intelligence official had said that Russia’s efforts to meddle in American elections did not end in 2016, and that the Trump administration had taken no extraordinary steps to stop them. He and other intelligence leaders warned two weeks ago on Capitol Hill that Russia was using a digital strategy to worsen political and social divisions in the United States, and all the intelligence chiefs said they had not been expressly asked by the White House to find a way to punish Russia for its efforts.

The comments by Admiral Rogers on Tuesday reflected what appears to be a widening gap between President Trump and the intelligence agencies he runs. While the president has mocked the notion of Russian meddling in the election he won, American intelligence officials are convinced of it, and they believe Russia is now looking to interfere in the midterm elections in November.

If we don’t get our acts together soon, Putin’s wetwork will definitively come to America and we’ll unfortunately get to find out just how the US and Americans react to this new and different form of state sponsored terrorism. Based on our response to the attacks on 9-11, I doubt the reaction will be much better this time.

Stay awake!

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

242Comments

  1. 1.

    TenguPhule

    If we don’t get our acts together soon, Putin’s wetwork will definitively come to America and we’ll unfortunately get to find out just how the US and Americans react to this new and different form of state sponsored terrorism.

    Trump: “In this grave time of rising crime I welcome our new Russian security forces….”

  3. 3.

    Baud

    Based on our response to the attacks on 9-11, I doubt the reaction will be much better this time.

    Huh? Trump won’t do a damn thing.

  4. 4.

    Adam L Silverman

    Related:

  7. 7.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TenguPhule: Wait till you start to see it applied to domestic political opponents. Or protest leaders. Or journalists. Or anyone else inconvenient.

  12. 12.

    Mary G

    I haven’t really been frightened by Twitler so much, but I’m getting there. The way a two-bit thug from a failed state is leading still him around by the nose, and the fact that every elected official on the Republican side is doing the “nothing to see here” is scary, and 40 percent or so of the voting populace is fine with it.

    And the nonvoting populace is even more checked out.

    Bin Laden said America would destroy itself from within, and I’m not as sure as I used to be that he was wrong.

  15. 15.

    MomSense

    O/T ? There seems to be a concerted effort to silence and discredit Joy Reid. She was one of the first major media figures to discuss the Russian active measures in the 2016 election and she is still one of the strongest voices for defending our democracy.

    Adam, any thoughts on this?

  18. 18.

    Gravenstone

    Said it before. This shit won’t end until someone shoves a Hellfire in Vlad’s left ear. This is becoming less hyperbole and more sad reality. Fucker needs the fear of whatever passes for his God put into him in a very intimate manner.

  20. 20.

    TenguPhule

    @Gravenstone:

    This shit won’t end until someone shoves a Hellfire in Vlad’s left ear.

    Not his ear that needs it shoveled into the most.

    Face it, a third of the country wants the other two thirds dead or in chains. And will not stop until they win or die.

  21. 21.

    Adam L Silverman

    @MomSense: My understanding of how the Internet archive/wayback machine works makes it plausible that what she and NBC/MSNBC are stating happened is what happened. That this is a set up with someone inserting modified and/or wholly fabricated blog entries after hacking her archived site.

    The initial posts that were brought up last December, with some snarky jokes about now Congressman Crist from when he was Florida governor, she’s taken responsibility for, apologized for, and he’s accepted her apology. I don’t mean to make light of snark speculating on who is and isn’t in the closet, but the ones about Crist have been a standard in Florida and in Florida politics, even by Crist’s allies, for as long as I can remember.

    That said, I honestly don’t know what is going on. Given what we’ve seen with the fabrication of disinformation by groups like Operation Veritas, the folks that tried to bring down Planned Parenthood, but got themselves prosecuted, etc, a concerted effort by alt-righters going after her or pissed off Sanders dead enders would not surprise me. That GG has decided to insert himself into this as the arbiter provides me with further suspicions that she’s being set up.

    The issue is going to be whether NBC/MSNBC stands up for her as she tries to clear this up or whether they throw her under the bus because it is convenient to do so. If they stand up for her, she should be okay. If they don’t, she’s toast no matter what the truth is.

    My personal and professional experience tells me she’s being set up, but that’s just my opinion.

  25. 25.

    Adam L Silverman

    @TenguPhule: No, that’s not what I’m suggesting. I think that it is likely that that scientist was a loose end that Putin tried to tie off by having him taken out.

  26. 26.

    trollhattan

    I read that tails of SF Russian Consulate staffers found them identifying key parts of our fibre optic network around the US West, among other odd targets. Cold War habits die hard.

  29. 29.

    Adam L Silverman

    @rikyrah: Exactly. That’s why I think the explanation they’re providing is plausible. I would expect that those types of posts would have had a lot of comments, not no comments.

  31. 31.

    ruemara

    I wonder why Vlad feels there’s no consequences. This won’t end well for him. These things never do. It will either be us, the EU or cronies tired of his inability to not fuck with people and make terrible short term decisions. Destabilizing multiple markets kinda fuck up capital izm.

    RE: Reid. Look, in these times of misinfo, people are gonna pull shit. I also have to wonder why this is suddenly coming up as some serious sign of her homophobia. Because I could bring up Glenn’s anti-immigrant writings, Kate “Kinda loving Nazis now” Halperin, Chelsea “Look at me, cavorting with the alt-reich as a super sekrit spy *heart emojis #wegotthis*” Manning. If she did say or do whatever this nonsense is, SO FUCKING WHAT?! She’s apologized and at no point used her platform to be a homophobe.
    Meanwhile, a certain sector thinks identity politics is not as fun as wooing the WWC.

  33. 33.

    Bobby Thomson

    As long as Trump is in charge, our response to any Russian assassinations will be jack and shit.

  34. 34.

    TenguPhule

    @ruemara:

    I wonder why Vlad feels there’s no consequences.

    He’s head of a nuclear power and secure in the old Cold War gentleman’s agreement of not directly targeting opponents above a certain power level. A Russia without Putin in control is arguably worse then one where he’s still there to keep the crime organized.

    Of course, then he goes and starts breaking all the rules he expects others to adhere to.

  35. 35.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: This has a pretty good rundown:
    https://burningbird.net/the-joy-reid-saga-the-wayback-machine-cannot-guarantee-authenticity/#.WuCS9WkjH4U.twitter

    As does this thread:

    That ABL has decided to weigh in, and what she says, carries a lot of weight with me.

  39. 39.

    Mary G

    @rikyrah: Joy is the most articulate representative and a major focus of the resistance, therefore she must be silenced. As with many things these days, it’s the Russians and the Republicans, both separately and together. She also has the gall to be a woman. I hope MSNBC doesn’t fold. They better not, anyway.

  40. 40.

    TenguPhule

    @rikyrah:

    Nothing about the house that they are dropping on Jackson?

    Being lost among all the fresh new scandals today.

  42. 42.

    RSA

    If we don’t get our acts together soon, Putin’s wetwork will definitively come to America and we’ll unfortunately get to find out just how the US and Americans react to this new and different form of state sponsored terrorism.

    I don’t know much about foreign relations, but I’ve come across suggestions that this kind of thing would violate Article 23 of the Hague Convention (to which the Russian Federation is a signatory), a prohibition

    To kill or wound treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army;

    But I don’t know if this is true, or what the implications are.

  43. 43.

    Adam L Silverman

    @rikyrah: I have a post I started on, but until someone produces the write up on the car crash, I’m holding my fire.

  45. 45.

    ruemara

    @TenguPhule: Nah. He violates those agreements. He’s sloppy. His plans aren’t without loose ends, & bad outcomes that can blow back – hugely. Uneasy blahblahblah. And that’s in good times. We’ll see how this turns out, but my gut says v. bad for him. Not great for us either, but he might be visiting Hoffa.

    @Baud: If you understand she’s not a Bernie booster & has been providing credible information, you can see why the lessons of 2016 don’t mean squat to people who just want to repeat it.

  46. 46.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Adam L Silverman:

    That ABL has decided to weigh in, and what she says, carries a lot of weight with me.

    I respect the holy living Hell out of Imani Gandy, and anything she says. Her argument also makes plenty of sense to me, independent of who it came from. The lack of responses argument seems particularly telling.

  49. 49.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    @Adam L Silverman: Everything is hackable and fakeable when it is connected to the Internet and runs on *nix variant operating system on Toys’r’Us hardware. Give a decent programmer the format of a file and they can write a program to create anything you want.

  50. 50.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: Americans are not, by and large, either smart, well educated, and/or well informed. We are also culturally exceedingly naive, distrustful of authority and experts, and therefore easily misled. Including those who would prefer to be ruled by an authoritarian than self governed.

  51. 51.

    Kathleen

    @Mary G: It’s also the “The Left” (aka Slanders dead enders)
    ETA: I think “The Left” has been constantly harassing Harris, Reid, and other prominent AA women.

  52. 52.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Frankensteinbeck: I don’t know her, she predated my time here so no interaction the way I have with the other current front pagers, though I did read her posts here. But if she ever needed anything, all she has to do is ask. So that should tell you my attitude towards her.

  53. 53.

    TenguPhule

    @ruemara:

    . Not great for us either, but he might be visiting Hoffa.

    Unfortunately he has the Russian equivalent of Vetanari job security.

    None of the Russian mob bosses likes him in charge, but they like the thought any of their other rivals gaining control even less.

    Putin has no plans for an orderly succession to him and this works to his advantage.

  56. 56.

    SiubhanDuinne

    There are so many really smart people who comment on this blog.

    I love hanging out with people much smarter than I.

    BJ makes it easy. I’m in awe of the brainpower around these parts.

  57. 57.

    TenguPhule

    @Baud:

    I can’t believe people are rushing to judgement after what we just went through in 2016.

    Al Franken.

    /nobody could have predicted…oh wait, we did.

  60. 60.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    With the 5th pick in the NFL draft, the Denver Broncos select the right to remain silent.

  62. 62.

    PeakVT

    Has a single Republican, prominent or obscure, changed his/her mind on Russia since the election to reflect the reality of all this – the assassinations, the propaganda via social media, the breadth and depth of the Mueller investigation, Trumpolini’s pathetic denials, etc? A single one?

  67. 67.

    chris

    Joan Walsh has known and worked with Joy Reid for a long time. (Thread)

    1) So: Many people know I am close friends with @JoyAnnReid. Few of you know I was the first person to publish her, roughly 18 years ago. We didn't meet for at least a dozen years.— Joan Walsh (@joanwalsh) 25 April 2018

  71. 71.

    TenguPhule

    @PeakVT:

    Has a single Republican, prominent or obscure, changed his/her mind on Russia since the election to reflect the reality of all this – the assassinations, the propaganda via social media, the breadth and depth of the Mueller investigation, Trumpolini’s pathetic denials, etc? A single one?

    NO.

    SATSQ.

  74. 74.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Adam L Silverman:
    She taught me enormously, mainly that none of the things I grew up with had gone away, and that they were widespread, and most importantly how they were facts of life black people and women had to deal with. The way she was treated in response, and the things I saw happening in response to Obama’s presidency confirmed it all. Imani Gandy was eye opening for me, and the things I learned have only become more clearly true over time. That woman is wise and brave as Hell.

  76. 76.

    Adam L Silverman

    @rave: These are from my comment 35:
    This has a pretty good rundown:
    https://burningbird.net/the-joy-reid-saga-the-wayback-machine-cannot-guarantee-authenticity/#.WuCS9WkjH4U.twitter

    As does this thread:

    That ABL has decided to weigh in, and what she says, carries a lot of weight with me.

  77. 77.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: I saw that! Netflix even sent me an email message saying they thought I would like the show. They are right! I’m kind of surprised that it made it to Netflix so fast, though. That’s a great sign for Black Lightning.

  80. 80.

    kindness

    OK, say the Russians do some kind of attack in the US to mess with our body politic & citizens before the November elections. Instead of making the attack look like it was Islam inspired (the easy path) what if Russia made it look like radical liberal Democrats did it. If such a thing went down I think we can all agree there would be a call from ‘some’ citizenry to cancel the elections because treasonous Democrats.

    Just a couple years ago such a scenerio would have been called insane to consider. Now….not so much.

  82. 82.

    japa21

    I would like to think that if MSNBC decided to get rid of Joy there would be a major backlash against them. But other than letters, tweets etc, there probably wouldn’t be. I doubt if the viewership would drop significantly enough for MSNBC to care.

  83. 83.

    RSA

    @Adam L Silverman:

    He has gone after Russian expats, often defectors or oligarchs, that have fled to Britain.

    Right, I’ve read the news. What I don’t know is what the international standards or rules are (if there are such) for a response. Are Putin’s actions state-sponsored terrorism? Espionage? A declaration of war?

  84. 84.

    Adam L Silverman

    @RSA: They are state terror. Technically, though it is rarely used any more, the distinction was: state sponsored/directed/undertaken is terror, non state actors is terrorism. That this was done on foreign soil is an added complications. If they actually, eventually kill a Brit who is just in the wrong place in the wrong time then it is a whole different ballgame.

  85. 85.

    TenguPhule

    @RSA:

    What I don’t know is what the international standards or rules are (if there are such) for a response.

    Traditionally it was tit for tat. They kill ours, we kill theirs in retaliation. Like MAD, only smaller scale.

  86. 86.

    Kathleen

    @japa21: I’m old enough to remember when MSNBC fired Phil Donahue, host of its top rated show, because he opposed invasion of Iraq.

  87. 87.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I think that it is likely that that scientist was a loose end that Putin tried to tie off by having him taken out.

    It is not the way you’d like to see real countries act, but Russia is not so closed a society that they are immune from outside wetwork.

  89. 89.

    efgoldman

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Isn’t taking the 5th in a civil case just going to put him different kinds of trouble?

    The federal investigation and document seizure is a potential criminal case. He allegedly committed a crime in settling a civil matter (Stormy).

  91. 91.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Adam L Silverman: Glenn Greenwald is attacking Joy Reid for supposed homophobic comments while shilling for the Trump regime which has been openly hostile towards the LGBT community (transgender ban, for example). I’m glad that Joy has allies to push back against him.

  94. 94.

    efgoldman

    @RSA:

    I don’t know if this is true, or what the implications are.

    “How many divisions does the Pope have” Allegedly attributed to a previous Soviet/Russian dictator

  95. 95.

    Adam L Silverman

    @RSA: The UK has largely denied it even has a problem. For instance, one of these guys was found in a duffel bag. It was not ruled a homicide.

  103. 103.

    debbie

    Penzeys has a really nice message up on FB:

    Saturday before last we called out the president’s sudden shift from no crimes have been committed to it’s a crime to investigate my crimes—that day turned out to be far and away the biggest day for sales in the history of Penzeys. If you know of someone in charge of running a business, please let them know that if they are thinking of standing on the right side of history, now is the time.

    It’s past time for Americans to stop pretending what is happening in our country is in any way normal. Through March the story has been that the President is not a criminal. This April the story has been changed to it’s illegal for the FBI to catch him in his crimes. Innocent people don’t do what this administration is doing. So many comments from all sides about the FBI’s raid on the offices of the president’s attorney, but in all those comments, no one is saying this is no big deal because the president has not committed impeachment-level crimes. No one.

    Long ago we figured out cooking is kindness, that when we take the time to care for those around us, the world becomes a better place. A half-dozen years ago, when our home state of Wisconsin became the testing ground for how racism, intolerance, and hate can be used in politics to deliver a much greater share of the pie to the already wealthy, we realized kindness can’t sit down simply because anger has stood up.

    A while back we made the promise: “When we find the opportunity to have our offers possibly make a difference, we will try to have our offers make that difference.” At Penzeys, in our time speaking out, we’ve learned through experience that good messages are shared. When a good message is combined with something of value for free, it has even greater reach. And if you have a message that you wish would reach many-many people, combine it with something free of great value.

    With the president declaring himself above the law, it seemed to be a time to try and reach as many as we could. And that we did. And even though we had a lot more of the Soul boxes ready than we had for any offer like this we’ve done before, somehow the combination of the message and the offer produced a wave unlike anything we ever experienced before. Out of caution, Saturday we started this as a two-day offer, but I really thought we would be able to extend it to a third. I was really wrong.

    Bakers plan ahead, but Cooks tend to wait for deadlines. First days on our offers usually bring in only about a third of what final days bring. But even with just hours into making this offer, us trying to lower expectations by warning of rain checks in the stores and sizable waits for online orders, Saturday eclipsed every previous day in our history, more than doubling the previous sales record.

    We are supposed to be a December business. April is our slowest month of the year. After doing this for 32 years I find this hard to fathom, but it sure looks like if we had been able to promote this as originally planned in the same way we’ve done for all our previous 3-day offers, the number of online orders we would have received in those three days would have equaled the number we received in the first five and a half months of last year.

    You think you know your business, you think you know what’s possible, then the ceiling disappears. If you are in business, and if you are still not convinced the future of business in a social media world is in doing what is right, just keep repeating to yourself: five and a half months in 3 days; five and a half months in 3 days. The future of business rests in the hands of those who honestly care about humanity, and that’s a really good thing.

    And for those of you who at times may think you are alone in your sense of loss at what America has become, please don’t. Our numbers show you are far from alone. But even more importantly they show that the America you love, the one that ever strives for ever-greater equality and ever-greater opportunity for all may have been knocked by a cheap shot, but it’s standing back up again, rolling up its great sleeves, and that America is determined to set things right. None of us can take our eyes off of the November 6 elections, but America is already being reborn, rededicated to the spirit of equality that made us the leader among nations.

    So the good news is, both standing up for what is right is popular and our Soul boxes are popular, and combined they are really-really popular. So we have some catching up to do. Most of the promised Soul boxes have already been delivered, are in the mail right now, or will be in the next couple days. And next week some of the rain check boxes will start trickling into the stores, but our big issue is that your overwhelming response to this offer used up our supply of 1/4-cup jars. The next shipment of jars should be in at the end of next week, and once we get those filled and boxed we will have them quickly out the door to you.

    While we are catching up, we are putting our previously planned promotions on a short delay. So today, instead of us offering you something we think you might like to try, we are giving you what you already want with the chance to get a free 1/2-cup jar of your choice, up to a $9.95 value, with any $5 purchase through Sunday . We also have an ending Sunday offer of a $6.95 value 1/2-cup of our popular Northwoods Seasoning with $5 purchase. Both offers can be combined with $10 spending (a $16.90 value).

    To receive your in-store coupons for these two offers please click this link: http://spices.penzeys.com/Coupon-Sign-Up.html

    Or visit us online at penzeys.com, and after spending $5, enter in the five digit number for the half-cup jar of your choice up to $9.95 followed by the letter “C” in the apply code box while checking out, i.e. 44455C for our really nice Granulated Garlic, or 43553C for Penzeys Cinnamon. It’s easy. Once you reach $10 in spending you can also use the code 22150C to get your free Northwoods, too. No need to place the Northwoods in your basket, the coupon does that for you.

    And thank you for your tremendous support. Sorry about the delay on the Soul boxes. We had “while supplies last” printed in the small text of the offer, but wherever it is possible, I would rather Penzeys use rain checks and back orders to honor offers instead of being a “minimum of 10 available in each store” type of business.

    And we understand if you are kind of mad at us for not already having your free box to you; we deserve that. We get that cooking actually matters and lives in a place inside us where emotions are strong. You want these Seasonings to make tasty food for those you care about now not later. We are working to get them to you as soon as possible.

    If you’ve received your Soul box and have already found some ways to use your new blends that those you cook for have enjoyed, please share your discoveries in the comments below. Cooking really does matter, it creates better futures by giving us the strength to stand up in times like these. The more we can all be a support group to all those starting out in trying to bring all the goodness of cooking into their lives, the better the future will be. Heal the World. Cook dinner tonight.

    And please do what you can to support the message that in America no one is above the law. Maybe in the tapes of the president’s lawyer we will hear that the Russians, the Republican Party and Fox News did not all end up on the same page by coincidence. Maybe we won’t. But clearly those who do not have America’s best interests at heart got the best of us in the 2016 election. We can’t let that happen again this year.

    Thanks for your support,

    Bill Penzey

    [email protected]

    And if you know of someone involved in steering a business, or just in need of some good new, please share this post with them. In this social media world, the future of business belongs to those who honestly care about humanity. Now is the time to stand up for what is right.

  105. 105.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Ruviana:
    https://www.buzzfeed.com/tomwarren/secrets-of-the-spy-in-the-bag?utm_term=.xygrxQM35#.fdoONpW6q

    A British spy whose naked body was found decomposing in a padlocked sports bag in his bathtub is among at least 14 people suspected of having been killed by Russian assassins on British soil, BuzzFeed News can reveal.

    Police declared the death of Gareth Williams “probably an accident” – but British intelligence agencies have been secretly communicating with their American counterparts about suspicions that the spy was executed by Russian assassins, four US intelligence officials told BuzzFeed News.

    Much, much more at the link.

  111. 111.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Washburn: I’ve seen their response. I’ve also seen this:
    https://burningbird.net/the-joy-reid-saga-the-wayback-machine-cannot-guarantee-authenticity/#.WuCS9WkjH4U.twitter

    Recently, Mediaite posted screen shots captured by a Twitter user who goes by the name of Not a Bot that seemingly showed several homophobic comments made on a now defunct weblog by MSNBC’s Joy Ann Reid. Reid replied that her weblog had been hacked and several articles modified by unknown parties. The media has responded by digging up an apology Reid made late last year about homophobic comments she had made in the past, which seemingly contradicts her claim of being hacked.

    These are all statements made by individuals and organizations and easily verified to be true. We can even say the statements made are authentic, because none of the individuals involved have repudiated anything that’s been said.

    The same cannot be said for the actual Wayback Machine archives.

    The Wayback Machine is an invaluable historical record of the web. Through it, I’ve been able to recover past writings lost because of all the many changes I’ve made to my web site. It’s a wonderful way of exploring the web’s history.

    However, the Wayback Machine is not, and never has been, a definitive source of the authenticity of what it captures on the web. It has access to a web page at a specific location at a specific time…but no special privilege that allows it to determine the authenticity of the author of the content in the page.

    As noted by Chris Butler at the Internet Archives, home organization for the Wayback Machine:

    When we reviewed the archives, we found nothing to indicate tampering or hacking of the Wayback Machine versions. At least some of the examples of allegedly fraudulent posts provided to us had been archived at different dates and by different entities.

    Pages archived at different dates and by different entities… This statement is key to understanding the difference between Wayback Machine’s archival functionality as separate from the media’s assumption of Wayback Machine as Super Authenticator, able to leap tall metadata with a single bound!

    (Do play a musical flourish in your mind when you read that last sentence.)

    To demonstrate this key difference between archival tool and authenticator, take a look at one of my web pages found at the Archive. The page is dated September 1, 2015, but was first archived by the Wayback Machine on October 12, 2015. Click the right arrow located in the Wayback Machine’s header at the top page. You’ll see that the article text remains the same through several snapshots. However, if you click the arrow long enough, you’ll get to the March 20, 2016 snapshot, where you can see that the page’s text is now different.

    I made the change to the text, and also added the date when I made the change. Honest, cross my heart and hope to die: I made the change.

    However, it would have been a simple thing for someone to hack into my weblog account and modify this page at a later time, which would then be captured at some future time on the Wayback Machine…and I would have no idea that the page had been modified, and you would have had no idea whether I was the author of the changed content, or someone else. All we know for a fact is that the Wayback Machine made a snapshot of the page that looked one way at one time, and different at another time.

    The assumption of authenticity is the error made by the original Twitter ‘sleuth’. This is the error made by Mediaite. This is the same error made by most of media reporting on this story: that appearance of the content in a snapshot at the Wayback Machine is what was actually originally posted by a specific person. That the Wayback Machine’s content is authentic.

    That Reid apologized for some homophobic comments is an authentic statement because she hasn’t denied making this statement. And if you look at one of the screenshots one can see the type of statement that Reid possibly could have made leading to this apologize. For instance, one of the pages shows Reid defending President Obama when he was attacked by the gay community before he embraced gay marriage. I wouldn’t be surprised by this, and could easily see Reid writing what she did at the time.

    However, an odd addendum at the end of the page contains a link to a HuffPo piece that goes farther in defense of those against gay marriage. This link and the text that followed could have been written by Reid, or could have easily been inserted at a later time and we would have no way of knowing if Reid added the text or someone else. We have no way of knowing whether she wrote any of the weblog post other than we might not be surprised that Reid would defend our nation’s first black President against gays unhappy with his views at the time.

    So yes, Reid could be apologizing for past content, while at the same time denouncing as fake some or all of the content discovered by Twitter sleuth. There is no contradiction other than that in the minds of pundits seeking to find such, or journalists told to quickly put out a 1000 words on the topic.

    Politically, we all evolve over time. Heck, I once voted for Ronald Reagan. Our views of gay marriage have evolved as we’ve come to truly embrace the need to protect everyone’s rights to equality regardless of our religion, our culture, and our upbringing. What should matter is what people do now to support LGBTQ rights.

    On April 11th, 2018 the LBGTQ rights organization PFLAG announced it was honoring Joy Reid at their 45th anniversary celebration. In the announcement, they wrote:

    “Ms. Reid has been a leader speaking out for marginalized communities, long before this challenging—and sometimes devastating—sociopolitical moment,” said PFLAG National board president Jean Hodges. “She has been a loud voice for women, people of color, and immigrants, and when the New York Times recently referred to her as a ‘heroine of the resistance,’ we couldn’t have agreed more!”

    We have to assume that PFLAG chose Reid because of her activities and reporting over the last several years. We also have to assume that they found such activities supportive enough, and her voice on these issues important enough, to honor her on their 45th anniversary.

    After the recent fooflah, PFLAG rescinded the invitation to Reid and deleted the web page making the announcement. However, I was able to recover the announcement page…in the Wayback Machine.

    Of course, the organization has the right to challenge the authenticity of the page I posted a link to. After all, it is the Wayback Machine. All we can know is that this is a capture of a web page that existed at a specific point in time. We can’t really determine if the folks at PFLAG actually wrote the contents of the page. Or if the contents were altered by other parties at a later time.

    But then, we can also challenge the authenticity of PFLAG’s decision to so quickly rip away the honor given to Reid for her activity in recent years just because of a controversy over Twitter sleuthing of archive pages from an old, defunct weblog.

  114. 114.

    mad citizen

    @debbie: Thanks for posting this Debbie. Although I have a fake name FB account, I rarely open it and really don’t know how it works. And my wife is the Penzey’s registered user–she gets the catalogs. Thanks to whoever (you) who posted the Soul Box offer that Saturday as I got one in store.

  117. 117.

    Washburn

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The thing I have not been able to find is the date that the posts were archived.

    Reid has admitted to making multiple homophobic slurs on her web pages during 2007, 2008 and 2009. She “apologized” and I guess for some people that is enough.

    If the posts were archived years ago – as opposed to the last year or two – that would weigh in favor of authenticity.

    Have you seen any actual links to the archived materials on the machine showing indexing dates?

  118. 118.

    Patricia Kayden

    @germy: Parody but very accurate. Glenn has been on Tucker’s show smiling and grinning like a fool. As Bob Cesca correctly stated, Glenn has evolved into a scold of Democrats. He doesn’t attack Republicans for their bigotry. It’s as if he cannot see Republican homophobia.

  123. 123.

    piratedan

    @Washburn: i’ll simplify this for you…

    you going to believe Joy Reid, who has been on the right side of things for about the last decade or are you going to believe Glenn Greenwald who only shows up when the spirit of Grima Wormtongue is summoned to this plane of existence?

    and where has GG been as a champion for the LGBT rights in this country for the last decade? Oh yeah, Brazil. Did he throw anyone on the left a bone for their advancements of LGBT rights… I sure as fuck don’t remember it…

    know your enemies by the company that they keep

  124. 124.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Washburn: No I haven’t. There’s a bunch of stuff that the Not a Bot twitter handle has posted that are supposed to be the incriminating screen shots. Other than that, I’ve seen nothing. Of course, some of the Mensch crowd has jumped in because they have a beef with John Nichols and claim he’s a fraud and, of course, a Russian asset. And whomever runs the Not a Bot twitter account is anonymous. There is no way to know who he or she is. Right now the account is “@Jamie_Maz”, but there is no way to know if that is a real name, a nym, etc and the screen name is Not a Bot. Basically you have an anonymous person claiming to have incriminating material with no way to know who the accuser is and whether he or she should be taken credibly. In addition to a he said/she said over the veracity of the materials in question.

    Here’s the link to the twitter account:
    https://twitter.com/Jamie_Maz

  125. 125.

    germy

    @WaterGirl: He said he prepared for the role by watching old newsreel footage of people like Hitler.

    He’s completely unlike the character he portrays. He said he got a call from an agen about a second audition for Tobias. The agent asked him “They want you to wear a suit… do you own a suit?”

    He laughed. “Yes, I go to church. I own several suits.”

  126. 126.

    Chyron HR

    @Washburn:

    Boo hoo, I care so much about those poor persecuted homos, I really do!

    Woah there, bucko. Bernie Sanders, who we both know is literally messiah, ordered Democrats to abandon “identity politics” because the concerns of “ordinary Americans” are the only things that matter. Why are you disobeying His divine will?

  128. 128.

    Yarrow

    @Mary G: Two US deaths I’ve had questions about re: Russia include the federal prosecutor in Florida whose body washed up on the beach. The news went completely silent after the first reports, which still seems odd.

    The second one was a reporter who had just finished a story on the ties between Trump and Mercer when the banister gave way on the back stairs on his home and he died from head trauma. I know a banister could give way, but after he’s investigating Trump/Mercer? Okay…

    They both could be nothing but they have stayed with me because they both seem odd and both have possible Trump/Russia ties.

  130. 130.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Washburn: You’ve also got this computer scientist from Old Dominion U:

  132. 132.

    Roger Moore

    @Patricia Kayden:

    As Bob Cesca correctly stated, Glenn has evolved into a scold of Democrats. He doesn’t attack Republicans for their bigotry. It’s as if he cannot see Republican homophobia.

    He’s a great example of the anti-anti-Trumper. He’s decided* his job is to poke holes in all the anti-Trump arguments while still pretending spending an enormous amount of time doing this doesn’t make him in any way pro-Trump. I guess if you completely bought his shtick you might be willing to keep going along, but anyone who’s started the least bit skeptical of his good faith should have recognized what he is by now.

    *Or, for the more conspiracy minded, whoever is giving him his assignments has decided.

  133. 133.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mary G: I linked to that in the post. Right now we have one likely one off. The question becomes whether it becomes wide spread like in Britain and in other places.

  139. 139.

    TenguPhule

    @Roger Moore:

    Or, for the more conspiracy minded, whoever is giving him his assignments has decided.

    its not a conspiracy theory when its true.

  140. 140.

    Baud

    @Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: Right. I think one of the tricks they use — which they did successfully with EMAILS! — is to treat repetition of non-evidence as an avalanche of evidence. Always be discerning.

  141. 141.

    JR

    @Roger Moore: He’s just a fucking troll. That is all he has ever been and will ever be.

    If people just ignored him and his fellow sycophants, he would wither and die.

  143. 143.

    TenguPhule

    @JR:

    If people just ignored him and his fellow sycophants, he would wither and die.

    Staking him out on a bullet ant tree would achieve the same thing but would be faster and more entertaining.

  147. 147.

    germy

    I'll take @ggreenwald's outrage over @JoyAnnReid's comments from 10 years ago seriously when he explains his support for neo-Nazi Weev. Until then, I don't give a fuck.https://t.co/j4fjLslyvI— Daily News Bite (@DailyNewsBite) April 25, 2018

    I'll also take @ggreenwald seriously when he drips this much venom for the vicious racism in Ron Paul's old newsletters. Weird how forgiving his is when it's someone he agrees with….— Daily News Bite (@DailyNewsBite) April 25, 2018

  149. 149.

    Tilda Swintons Bald Cap

    @Baud: I mean seriously, what was that guy tweeting that could convince anyone, given all the hacking of stuff WAY more secure that the fucking Internet Wayback Machine (so fucking stupid) that there was no hacking.

  150. 150.

    WaterGirl

    @germy: Well, he certainly has the creepy thing down pat. It would be interesting to see him and hear him speak just as himself.

  153. 153.

    Elizabelle

    I am the furthest thing from a computer forensics person, but I would guess any attack on Joy Reid has already accomplished one objective:

    we all ask ourselves: “Can I believe what Joy Reid is telling me?” about this.

  155. 155.

    efgoldman

    @Roger Moore:

    anyone who’s started the least bit skeptical of his good faith should have recognized what he is by now.

    Why the fuck does any sentient being give a flying fuck what Glennie says? WHY?
    He’s a fucking waste of pixels. He moves no votes. If he has any influence, it’s with the leftier than thous who don’t do politics anyway.
    He should be shunned, mocked, and ignored.

    Fuckem

  156. 156.

    JPL

    @Baud: Rachel or Chris needs to have her on their show to address this, because I’m conflicted about it. If this were about a Fox News person, I’d be appalled and rightly so. The right is obviously trying to bring her down, but it’s up to her to address it. imo

  157. 157.

    TenguPhule

    @efgoldman:

    Why the fuck does any sentient being give a flying fuck what Glennie says? WHY?

    Because he gets to go on TV and say a lot of stupid shit that very serious people nod and take very seriously and go on to repeat the message he’s selling.

    Or was that meant to be rhetorical?

  158. 158.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud: That’s good. Myself, I wonder how the alleged behavior did not come to notice years ago. Since it did not, maybe it did not happen as the trail suggests …

    I think these “experts” might not be good at noticing something new is in the equation. Possible their old tools and assumptions are outdated. BUT the outcome is “you can’t believe what you see and read.” More living on a foundation of sand.

  160. 160.

    Elizabelle

    @JPL: Yes. I am curious how the night crew will handle it. Do they get out in front of story, or put fingers to the wind?

    Because, if it is a fraud, they’re up next. Barrel — straight ahead.

    (And I am still furious that Al Franken was deserted.)

  162. 162.

    Baud

    @JPL: MSNBC probably won’t let them. Joy has denied making those statements, so if it comes out that she made them, that to me is far worse than if she admitted it and apologized. I would trust a Fox News person less, especially if it were someone like Hannity.

  163. 163.

    germy

    Joy Reid’s lawyer claimed Wednesday evening that the FBI has opened a probe into her claim that her old blog was hacked to make her appear homophobic. “We have received confirmation the FBI has opened an investigation into potential criminal activities surrounding several online accounts, including personal email and blog accounts, belonging to Joy-Ann Reid,” her lawyer, John H. Reichman, said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “Our own investigation and monitoring of the situation will continue in parallel, and we are cooperating with law enforcement as their investigation proceeds.” The statement was passed along by MSNBC, who on Wednesday told Politico that Reid will remain on-air as her claims are investigated.

  167. 167.

    efgoldman

    @TenguPhule:

    Because he gets to go on TV

    On Fox, who’s viewers’ opinions are long since fixed, and MSNBC, which no-one but Corner Stone and six droolers in the home watches.

  169. 169.

    Elizabelle

    I am glad to see that GHW Bush is out of intensive care. I hope his health improves, although I can understand if he is ready to leave.

  172. 172.

    tobie

    Two federal judges voted to make Trump’s interim appointee for Attorney General of the Southern District of New York indefinite. Essentially Berman’s been given a permanent appointment without Senate approval.

    Federal judges in New York have taken the unusual step of voting to keep U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman in his job as the chief prosecutor in Manhattan in the absence of a nomination by President Donald Trump.

    Colleen McMahon, a Clinton appointee, was one of the judges who voted for this indefinite extension. Go figure–so much for the democratic (small d) process. I don’t know what Judge Kimba Wood will decide tomorrow about Trump’s lawyer’s request to review the material seized from Cohen before it goes to a Special Master, but my fear is that she will twist herself into a pretzel so as not be accused of being partisan.

  175. 175.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Elizabelle: There’s been no mention of it and no sign of her during the prime time block on MSNBC all week. She also hasn’t tweeted in a couple of days either.

  178. 178.

    Elizabelle

    @efgoldman: Yeah. I suspect they were hanging on for each other, and their family knows that.

    But it could be good to stick around long enough to see Trump removed from office. By however it happens. Hey, we could probably use his vote.

    ===

    Raven’s been hacked! Bohdi gave up the passwords. On advice from the Bush Beans dog.

  180. 180.

    Gin & Tonic

    Coming in late, but if anyone wants to understand wetwork in historical context, read Plokhii’s The Man With the Poison Gun. Purely factual, but reads like a thriller.

  181. 181.

    opiejeanne

    @TenguPhule: Then you need to step away from reading political shit for a bit. You need a new hobby, like bird-watching, gardening, hiking, something, anything but politics.

    You don’t understand satire if you think that’s an example.

  182. 182.

    Elizabelle

    @Adam L Silverman: Interesting.

    In the event some part of the posts were genuine, how bad could it have been to say “well, I wrote that then, but I no longer feel that way …” Wasn’t it conventional wisdom that the African American community was a little slower to embrace gay marriage than others — perhaps influence by pastors, etc?

    I hate the “gotcha” style of interviewing (Saint Tim Russert) — people can grow and change, on basis of new information and experiences. It’s a great difference between the intelligent and the off the crazy meter types. Situations change. People change.

    Why did Joy Reid not take that path? Leaves you wondering if she did get hacked, and holding your breath that she is not truthful.

  188. 188.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Elizabelle: I have no idea. I’m a big believer in saying: “I screwed up, I’m very sorry”. Which I’ve found often gets me in trouble because most people can’t do that and it pisses them off.

  190. 190.

    Mary G

    @Elizabelle: We’re in the age of Jordan Peele’s video of Barack Obama appearing to tell us to “stay woke, bitches,” and it’s only the first step in artificial intelligence being able to fake video that can’t be detected as fake. In light if this, I’ve decided to trust my gut. I could go back and forth on maybe she did post these, maybe she didn’t, but my gut is positive that this is version 2.0 of Hillary’s emails, so I refuse to waste any mental energy fretting about, but just believe Joy.

  191. 191.

    J R in WV

    @Adam L Silverman:

    For instance, one of these guys was found in a duffel bag.

    I have always believed that if I found it necessary to commit suicide I would first learn how to insert myself into a duffel bag. Right? Who wouldn’t? Right???

  194. 194.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Elizabelle:

    Why did Joy Reid not take that path? Leaves you wondering if she did get hacked, and holding your breath that she is not truthful.

    Until someone proves that she was homophobic and that she continues to be so, I have her back (for what little it is worth). Everything I have seen of her shows that she is on the side of the angels and that she is good at her job. That is good enough for me. if it turns out that my trust was misplaced, I’ll deal with it then.

  195. 195.

    Elizabelle

    @raven: I think a friend and I are getting tickets to see Brian Wilson. Allegedly his last tour. Why not?

    (And I know he’s not the author of that lyric …)

  197. 197.

    Elizabelle

    @Mary G: Yeah, the fake video possibility is terrifying. People believe video more than they believe words on a page. The mistaken eyewitness problem. Insidious.

  202. 202.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Karen Potter: You, of course, donate your time to purely worthy causes, right? Quality lawyer bashing can be funny; mediocre lawyer bashing is just tiresome.*

    *Yeah, I left people material to work with.

  203. 203.

    mozzerb

    @Baud: A robots.txt file is simply a text file you stick on your website to tell sites that index content on the web — search engines, Wayback Machine etc — which parts of your site they can or shouldn’t index. That doesn’t necessarily mean those parts are secret — it might just mess up the search results or put too high a load on your webserver if Google or whoever tried to index a gazillion individual product pages, say.

    I say “shouldn’t” because there’s nothing actually stopping them from ignoring that request unless you take active steps to prevent them by adding password protection or the like. Mainstream indexers respect what’s in the robots.txt file though. I’m not sure why the Wayback Machine should have a policy of blocking content they archived in 2006 if you add a new robots,txt file to your site in 2018, but presumably they’re playing safe.

    The archived pages from the Library of Congress archive mentioned above cover a wide range of topics relating to political events of the time, very few of which seem (admittedly from a skim read) to have attracted any comments. The posts mentioning Brokeback Mountain or whatever don’t really stand out to me as being written in a different style from the rest. (They’re fairly milquetoast, especially for the era — basically they’re saying “dudes, stop going on about gay marriage, it’s a vote loser” and “yeah, I find men kissing icky too, so what”.) However, it’s not clear to me how someone hacking Joy Reid’s old site within the last year is supposed to have affected content archived by somebody else a decade ago.

    So what it boils down to is: it’s obviously a motivated hit job — because no-one trawls through this stuff and makes several dozen tweets about it just out of mild curiosity — but unfortunately that doesn’t mean they’re faked. It’s entirely possible Joy Reid made those posts, doesn’t remember them among the tons of other posts she made at the time, and has now rethought the subject anyway and would not post the same things now. She should definitely hang in and fight rather than doing a Franken, but the hacking defence may not be a good idea.

  204. 204.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: It happens. I was hoping for six to eight overtimes just to really exhaust whichever team has to face the Bolts.

  205. 205.

    Karen Potter

    @Adam L Silverman: So you are also good at taking, passing tests and getting more letters? One of my best friends had an alphabet behind name and told me that it just proved that he was good at taking tests and passing them, not that it meant that he was any wiser than a person without all those letters behind name. Funny, the things that stick in mind; where last put keys never seems to be one of them.

  206. 206.

    efgoldman

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I was hoping for six to eight overtimes just to really exhaust whichever team has to face the Bolts.

    Bruins won’t/wouldn’t beat Tampa anyway. They lack playoff quality goalie play

  207. 207.

    Washburn

    @piratedan:

    I don’t know that it is necessarily decided according to decide who to believe. The only real question is the integrity of the IA.

    From my understanding, they periodically index pages, make a copy, then you can scroll back through time looking at changes that were made to the URL. If someone hacks a webpage, yes it will be archived, but so will all of the pre-hack versions.

    If my understanding is true, then that means Reid’s position boils down to somebody actually hacking the Internet Archive itself. That is possible, of course. But it would be an amazing feat given the sophistication of their operation.

    The claim that “her” page was hacked doesn’t make any sense given the periodic nature of the IA’s crawls.

    Finally, Reid has made changes to and taken the pages offline in the past couple of months. So even if hacking “her” page would somehow explain this, that would mean that somebody hacked the pages and then DID NOT CHANGE THE PASSWORDS so Reid could just take the pages down. That hardly makes sense.

  208. 208.

    Karen Potter

    @Omnes Omnibus: I spent my childhood as collateral damage, the 60’s was not fun. It isn’t all lawyers, I had a great one who helped me back in 2013; she also has a doctorate in psychology and a masters in something else along with her law degree.

  210. 210.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Karen Potter:

    I had a great one who helped me back in 2013; she also has a doctorate in psychology and a masters in something else along with her law degree.

    So you are she was also good at taking, passing tests, and getting more letters?*

    *Yeah, I added the Oxford-ish comma.

  213. 213.

    J R in WV

    @Washburn:

    As an IT professional with a degree, post grad work, and years of experience, your comment is incoherent and ignorant. You obviously don’t understand how an archive works, nor how… well, you don’t understand anything you speak of.

    You understand nothing.

    Welcome to the pie filter, ass.

  215. 215.

    B.B.A.

    I see no reason why Joy Reid may or may not have written on her blog ten years ago is relevant. Views evolve, and we’ve all said things we regret. Whether the current hubbub is Russian psy-ops or good old fashioned American ratfucking, it’s clearly just meant to divide and distract the Democratic coalition from winning back Congress in the fall. Focus, people.

  216. 216.

    afanasia

    @Adam L Silverman: Really? I’ve found that “I’m so sorry, it was all my fault” ends all the fuss. And I’ve had quite a bit of practice using that, in all sincerity. Sometimes I just say it to get people to stop talking, though. My supervisor has begun road testing it, too, now that she’s seen the results.

  217. 217.

    Marc

    Also a late comment on the Joy Reid situation. Once upon a time, WikiLeaks was thought by many to be a respectable left of center organization that simply archived and published government and corporate secrets leaked by whistleblowers. I’ll just say that the Wayback Machine is run by the Internet Archive, a private non-profit foundation. I have nothing against them, but I have no particular reason to believe they aren’t trustworthy, but I have no particular reason to trust them, either.

    One should consider that with the current sorts of digital archives (whether run by Facebook, Google, WikiLeaks, Internet Archive, etc.), maintaining the integrity of the files therein rests in the hands of the individuals who manage and run the systems. There is no easy way for an outside party to prove that a particular page or message is exactly the same as it was at some point in the past, unless they also happen to have (or can link to) a copy of the file which they can indisputably prove is the original text. If an archive is hacked by outsiders, the owners of the archive may have internal means of detecting such changes (message digests), then again, they may not. Of course, those who run the archive (or a even single employee with the right access and knowledge) can change whatever they like, and if you have no way of proving it, you are just out of luck. Until such organizations provide a secure, open, and transparent means of proving the integrity of any file they have archived, all you are doing is taking their word for the authenticity of any file which you can’t otherwise verify.

  220. 220.

    Peale

    @Omnes Omnibus: yep. Reading what she wrote…not the greatest threat to gays and lesbians everywhere. Hardly calling on vigilantes to send the sodomites to early graves. Didn’t want gay marriage. Some dumb point about gays thinking straight sex was gross, which being gay and all, I don’t know who on my team ever made that claim. If we’re going to dredge up stuff from a decade ago and do the lefty “if you weren’t with me then, you must be punished now, and must be purged” ritual I wouldn’t select Joy Reid for that honor based on those statements. Ariana Huffington is still a member of the left in good standing, and she was waaaayyy more caustic in the before time long ago that never is to be mentioned about her.

  224. 224.

    Yarrow

    @debbie: Penzey’s makes some great spice and herb blends. You can just take a chicken breast and sprinkle one of the blends on it and pan fry it or toss it in the oven or on the bbq. Easy and it makes dinner taste like you worked at it. Of course you can do more with the blends, but that’s an easy way to cook dinner.

  225. 225.

    debbie

    @Yarrow:

    Not as easy as a bag of prewashed lettuce, but I get your point. ;)

    There’s a store here; I may venture over to take a look.

  226. 226.

    david

    “Disgraced CBS anchor Charlie Rose is being slated to star in a show where he’ll interview other high-profile men who have also been toppled by #MeToo scandals.”

    “Washington Post: Opinion | Kevin Williamson: The punishment I favor for abortion.”

    Hey, remember how Hillary Clinton was supposed to take up knitting?

  227. 227.

    Chet Murthy

    @Peale:

    waaaayyy more caustic in the before time long ago that never is to be mentioned

    Lots of us were. Lots of us.

  228. 228.

    Yarrow

    @debbie: I hear you. But a bag of prewashed lettuce and a grilled chicken breast with some Northwoods or Fox Point seasoning on it, and dinner is served.

  229. 229.

    Anne Laurie

    @Elizabelle:

    we all ask ourselves: “Can I believe what Joy Reid is telling me?” about this.

    You’d be surprised by how many people are saying “If the BernieBros are swarming to attack Joy Reid, what has she got on them that they don’t want exposed?”

  230. 230.

    Fair Economist

    @Adam L Silverman:

    A British spy whose naked body was found decomposing in a padlocked sports bag in his bathtub is among at least 14 people suspected of having been killed by Russian assassins on British soil, BuzzFeed News can reveal.

    Police declared the death of Gareth Williams “probably an accident”

    How did I miss the announcement that the world is now running a Live Action RolePlay based in Terry Gilliam’s movie Brazil?

  231. 231.

    FlipYrWhig

    Ya know, I’m starting to think the online leftier-than-left might be a malignant sack of assholes.

  232. 232.

    Washburn

    @J R in WV:
    Instead of sprewing your insults you could have just used all of that book-larnin of yours to concisely explain why I was wrong.

    Funny that you didn’t do that.

    Do you deny that the IA periodically scans cites and saves content?

    Simple question.

  238. 238.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @Chyron HR:
    God, I saw some idiots on r/gamerghazi spout that shit recently (they were a minority). Just couldn’t see any real evidence of Russian meddling and doesn’t believe Facebook posts influenced anyone. Oh and it downplays the real pain and frustrations people have had towards our institutions.

    Yeah.

  240. 240.

    prostratedragon

    @Fair Economist: I’ve read that Terry Gilliam researched the practices of actual authoritarianisms and dirty wars of the time in making that movie. Most of what’s depicted was done, somewhere.

  241. 241.

    Manyakitty

    @debbie: Everything about them makes me glad to buy their stuff.It’s essential to support the good people. Also, too, my order from the big sale day should arrive tomorrow!

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