max blumenthal has a good report at 'information clearing house:'
New leaked documents show Reuters’ and the BBC’s involvement in covert UK FCO programs to effect “attitudinal change” and “weaken the Russian state’s influence,” alongside intel contractors and Bellingcat.
The U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) have sponsored Reuters and the BBC to conduct a series of covert programs aimed at promoting regime change inside Russia and undermining its government across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, according to a series of leaked documents.
The leaked materials show the Thomson Reuters Foundation and BBC Media Action participating in a covert information warfare campaign aimed at countering Russia. Working through a shadowy department within the FCO known as the Counter Disinformation & Media Development (CDMD), the media organizations operated alongside a collection of intelligence contractors in a secret entity known simply as “the Consortium.”
Through training programs of Russian journalists overseen by Reuters, the British Foreign Office sought to produce an “attitudinal change in the participants,” promoting a “positive impact” on their “perception of the U.K.”
“These revelations show that when MPs were railing about Russia, British agents were using the BBC and Reuters to deploy precisely the same tactics that politicians and media commentators were accusing Russia of using,” Chris Williamson, a former U.K. Labour MP who attempted to apply public scrutiny to the CDMD’s covert activities and was stonewalled on national security grounds, told The Grayzone.
“The BBC and Reuters portray themselves as an unimpeachable, impartial, and authoritative source of world news,” Williamson continued, “but both are now hugely compromised by these disclosures. Double standards like this just bring establishment politicians and corporate media hacks into further disrepute.”
well i guess we're supposed to pretend that didn't happen and that we live in a world with a functioning press, right?
i can't pretend. how about you?
let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Wednesday, February 24, 2021. The pope prepares for his Iraq visit and more.
Starting in the US. Angela Walker, the Green Party's vice presidential nominee last year, speaks about Tara Reade.
Tara made credible accusations against Joe Biden last year. She stated he assaulted her -- I believe Tara. Tara was bullied and intimidated and lied about. The corporate press -- and much of the 'independent' media -- allowed Joe Biden's hideous campaign to set the parameters of the discussion. Tara had more proof than anyone else in a he said/she said. And yet she was attacked.
I believe Tara. You don't have to believe her. That's your choice. If you examine the issue and find you don't believe her, that's your business. But if you were a woman self-presenting as a feminist who, for example, wrote an NYT column insisting you believed Tara but you were voting for Joe Biden, the question is what are you doing now? You got Joe elected. What are you doing now?
As a self-proclaimed feminist who stated you believed Tara, what are you doing now?
The sad reality is: Not a damn thing.
Again, you don't have to believe her or anyone else. We have brains for a reason. We should use them. And if someone's telling doesn't ring true, fine.
I don't believe that Woody Allen molested Dylan Farrow. I say that not as a Woody fan. I do know Woody, through Mia, we are not friends. We were never friends. I didn't like Woody and he didn't like me. And none of that was the end of the world.
Then, in 1992, as the scandal brewed -- we'll come back to that -- being Mia's friend, I supported my friend. And continued to do so for years. It wasn't until the Golden Globes gave that honorary award to Woody that I changed my viewpoint. Mia, remember, was all upset on Twitter: How dare they!!!!
That honorary award was preceded by clips from Woody's films. Every actor who had appeared in a clip had to sign off on it, a permission slip, if you will. Mia signed off on it. That's when I thought about all the times Mia has lied and manipulated. By the time Dylan was attacking Diane Keaton, I was speaking out against this nonsense.
This has been an organized campaign and it's built on one lie after another. The scandal, I said we'd get back to it, is on display in HBO's hideous ALLEN V. FARROW which needs to be pulled immediately. It features calls with Woody that Mia taped. The calls don't prove anything except that Mia is a criminal. She taped those calls without Woody's consent or knowledge and did so from her Connecticut home -- it was a violation of Connecticut law. Woody should sue HBO, the filmmakers and Mia Farrow. As Ava and I noted in "TV: Back into the cesspool," Mia knew she was breaking the law -- she had been told that before she started taping and that's why her friend was suggesting getting people to wear wires instead.
A lot of idiots, this includes JEZEBEL writers, are insisting that the documentary makes the case. Not only does it not make the case, it weakens the case.
What was episode one about? Woody Allen's consensual affair with an adult: Soon-Yi.
Mia's babbling away and rewriting history but just stop there.
Woody and Soon-Yi remain a couple to this day, they have two daughters.
Their affair has nothing to do with Dylan Farrow.
But it's still being used to work up rage against Woody. As Mia's friend (then, not now), I was appalled that Woody had an affair with Mia's daughter. I was appalled because of the hurt that caused Mia. I was not appalled on any other level because, like all of Mia's friends, I knew the relationship was pretty much over and hadn't been 'exclusive' since around 1985 when Woody was having his semi-public affair with Dianne Wiest. That's why Mia wanted a child with Woody, to try to bring them back together. It didn't. Woody would go house hunting with her but he would not a buy a house for them to live in together. They hadn't been having sex for years, per Mia.
It's been decades since Woody first slept with the adult Soon-Yi.
Get over it, Mia. Get over it.
But she can't and so a bunch of trash does a 'documentary' about Dylan that uses Soon-Yi because they have no case to make for Dylan.
Soon-Yi and Woody having an affair and building a life together has nothing to do with the allegations made by Dylan and Mia. But the affair is used by the 'documentary' to stoke outrage. I'm not outraged. I felt sorry for Mia in 1992. Then I saw Mia trying to break up Mike Nichols' marriage to Diane Sawyer (she failed, he had no interest in her and quickly withdrew a job offer because of her crazy attraction to him -- a one-sided attraction). I long ago lost sympathy for her and I long ago realized the media was playing Soon-Yi as the dragon lady and how racist that was.
Soon-Yi was beaten by Mia and so was Moses. HBO and their program? They avoid that reality. And it's getting tired and it's getting old. In 1992 and 1993, Dylan's charges were heard and found to be wanting, repeatedly.
But because she is White, she gets a platform in the media over and over again. She gets to keep telling 'her' story. It's not her story. Opening with Woody and Soon-Yi's affair is not Dylan's story. But that's used to try to make you hate Woody Allen.
I don't love Woody, I don't hate him. (And, again, Woody and I do not like each other -- we didn't like each other when he was with Mia. Carly Simon loved Woody. She might want to explain that.) But I do value the truth and when I look at what's going on, I don't see the truth. I see a jealous and disgraced woman (Mia) still upset that Woody is with a younger woman, that he actually married her (he refused over and over to marry Mia). And that's why Soon-Yi is so featured in a documentary that supposedly is about Dylan's claims of molestation.
I don't find the tale truthful or logical and I don't believe that the molestation happened as a result. And it's not the end of the world. I could be right, I could be wrong. Not being present when the event supposedly took place, I have to use my abilities to evaluate and analyze. That's what I've done. So if you don't believe Tara, that's your take on it. Fine. But if you say you do, or said you did, why are you silent now?
Jonathan Turley. We're going back to an issue that was raised weeks ago. I thought I'd have time before and didn't. Joe Scarborough wanted to sue Donald Trump, or said he did, for Donald implying/stating that Joe had involvement in the death of his intern when Joe was in Congress. Joe declared on MSNBC that his attorney said the time ran out on it or something. Jonathan did a post where he stated the time hadn't run out and though Joe had a strong case.
No, Joe didn't.
Jonathan knows the law. I think he's our brightest legal scholar. Doesn't mean I always agree with his take on the law (I generally do). In this regard, I didn't disagree with his take so much as I knew more on the topic than he did.
Joe Scarborough?
Never knew him or of him when he was in Congress. He may have been on MSNBC when I learned of him or he might have gotten that right after.
But I learned of him in 2004. And I learned of him because of the death of his intern.
Did I learn that from Donald Trump? No, I did not. I learned that over the airwaves. AIR AMERICA RADIO. Sam Seder repeatedly noted that and noted that he thought Joe was guilty. He did that on THE MAJORITY REPORT. In addition, Rachel Maddow and Lizz Winstead spoke of that on UNFILTERED. Al Franken spoke of it on his program as well.
My point? If Joe wanted to sue, he could sue. Anyone can. But I think a court would look down upon a case that sued Donald Trump for this years after the rumors were broadcast -- as reality -- on a radio network over and over and over again.
Did Joe have anything to do with the intern's death. I don't believe so. I could be wrong. But if he wants to be outraged by it, all Donald Trump would have to say is, "The news media covered this" -- meaning AIR AMERICA RADIO. And they did, over and over and over. I'd never heard of Joe before that. (Joe and Mike Pap of RING OF FIRE were law partners, I don't know if most people realize that. Or if they grasp that Sam Seder now works for RING OF FIRE.)
I don't think there was a strong case on Joe's behalf. It would look selective and vengeful and it would tie up the courts which the court would not look fondly on.
On that, I'm not going to name the idiot that has been on Twitter telling everyone to sue Donald for frivolous reasons with the plan that Donald would lose some of them because he would be too busy and too cash strapped to respond to all the suits.
I'm not going to name the idiot. But if that plan goes into action, that idiot can be held responsible. The courts are not there to adjudicate your rage and anger. They are there for genuine legal issues. If you start trying to tie someone up with frivolous lawsuits, you are tying up our legal system.
I saw the idiot Tweet that twice this week already. It needs to stop. If the plan were to go into action, these Tweets could be used by a judge to move court costs over to the person Tweeting this nonsense -- and anyone reTweeting them.
Moving to Iraq. March 5th through 8th, Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Iraq. If the visit takes place, it will be the first visit by a sitting pope to Iraq ever. The visit is scheduled to take place while Iraq, like every other country, struggles with the COVID pandemic. Jonathan Stevenson Tweets:
The visit is hoped to inspire many.
The following sites updated:
