Apparent US Intel Meddling in US Election With ‘Report’ Russia is Aiding Sanders

Without any proof, The New York Times and Washington Post run “Russia helping Sanders” stories, and Sanders responds by bashing Russia, writes Joe Lauria.

By Joe Lauria

February 22, 2020 “Information Clearing House” –   With Democratic frontrunner Bernie Sanders spooking the Democratic establishment, The Washington Post Friday reported damaging information from intelligence sources against Sanders by saying that Russia is trying to help his campaign.

If the story is true and if intelligence agencies are truly committed to protecting U.S. citizens, the Sanders campaign would have been quietly informed and shown evidence to back up the claims.

Instead the story wound up on the front page of the Post, “according to people familiar with the matter.” Zero evidence was produced to back up the intelligence agencies’ assertion.

“It is not clear what form that Russian assistance has taken,” the Post reported. That would tell any traditional news editor that there was no story until it is known.

Instead major U.S. media are again playing the role of laundering totally unverified “information” just because it comes from an intelligence source. Reporting such assertions without proof amounts to an abdication of journalistic responsibility. It shows total trust in U.S. intelligence despite decades of deception and skullduggery from these agencies.

Centrist Democratic Party leaders have expressed extreme unease with Sanders leading the Democratic pack. Politico reported Friday that former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s entry into the race is explicitly to stop Sanders from winning on the first ballot at the party convention.

A day after The New York Times reported, also without evidence, that Russia is again trying to help Donald Trump win in November, the Post reports Moscow is trying to help Sanders too, again without substance. Both candidates whom the establishment loathes were smeared on successive days.

Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda?

Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter

No Advertising – No Government Grants – This Is Independent Media

In a Tough Spot

The Times followed the Post report Friday by making it appear that Sanders himself had chosen to make public the intelligence assessment about “Russian interference” in his campaign.

But Sanders had known for a month about this assessment and only issued a statement after the Post asked him for comment before publishing its uncorroborated story based on anonymous sources.

Sanders was put in a difficult spot. If he said, “Show me the proof that Russia is trying to help me,” he ran the risk of being attacked for disbelieving (even disloyalty to) U.S. intelligence, and, by default, defending the Kremlin.

So politician that he is, and one who is trying to win the White House, Sanders told the Post:

“I don’t care, frankly, who Putin wants to be president. My message to Putin is clear: Stay out of American elections, and as president I will make sure that you do. In 2016, Russia used Internet propaganda to sow division in our country, and my understanding is that they are doing it again in 2020.”

The Times quoted Sanders as calling Russian President Vladimir Putin an “autocratic thug.” The paper reported Sanders saying in a statement: “Let’s be clear, the Russians want to undermine American democracy by dividing us up and, unlike the current president, I stand firmly against their efforts and any other foreign power that wants to interfere in our election.”

Responding to a cacophony of criticism that Sanders’ supporters are especially vicious online, as opposed to the millions of other vicious people online, Sanders attempted to use Russia as a scapegoat, the way the Clinton campaign did in 2016. He said: “Some of the ugly stuff on the Internet attributed to our campaign may well not be coming from real supporters.”

But no matter how strong Sander’s denunciations of Russia, his opponents will now target him as being a tool of the Kremlin.

Mission accomplished.

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Sunday Times of London and numerous other newspapers. He can be reached at and followed on Twitter @unjoe .

This article was published by “Consortium News

Do you agree or disagree? Post your comment here

==See Also==

With WikiLeaks, Julian Assange did what all journalists should aspire to do

Assange has been the target of repeated official attempts to discredit him or, at the very least, to muddy the waters in a case that should be all about freedom of speech

By Patrick Cockburn

February 22, 2020 “Information Clearing House” –  I was in Kabul in 2010 when Julian Assange and WikiLeaks first released a vast archive of classified US government documents, revealing what Washington really knew about what was happening in the world. I was particularly interested in one of these disclosures, which came in the shape of a video that the Pentagon had refused to release despite a Freedom of Information Act request.

When WikiLeaks did release the video, it was obvious why the US generals had wanted to keep it secret. Three years earlier, I had been in Baghdad when a US helicopter machine-gunned and fired rockets at a group of civilians on the ground who its pilots claimed were armed insurgents, killing or wounding many of them.

Journalists in Iraq were disbelieving about the US military’s claims because the dead included two reporters from the Reuters news agency. Nor was it likely that insurgents would have been walking in the open with their weapons when a US Apache helicopter was overhead.

We could not prove anything until WikiLeaks made public the film from the Apache. Viewing it still has the power to shock: the pilots are cock-a-hoop as they hunt their prey, including people in a vehicle who stop to help the wounded, saying, “Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards,” and, “Ha, ha, I hit them.” Anybody interested in why the US failed in Iraq should have a look.

The WikiLeaks revelations in 2010 and in 2016 are the present-day equivalent of the release by Daniel Ellsberg in 1971 of the Pentagon Papers, unmasking the true history of the US engagement in the Vietnam War. They are, in fact, of even greater significance because they are more wide-ranging and provide an entry point into the world as the US government really sees it.

The disclosures were probably the greatest journalistic scoop in history, and newspapers such as The New York Times recognised this by the vast space they gave to the revelations. Corroboration of their importance has been grimly confirmed by the rage of the US security establishment and its overseas allies, and the furious determination with which they have pursued Assange, the co-founder of WikiLeaks.

Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda?

Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter

No Advertising – No Government Grants – This Is Independent Media

Daniel Ellsberg is rightly treated as a hero who revealed the truth about Vietnam, but Assange, whose actions were very similar to Ellsberg’s, is held in Belmarsh high-security prison. He faces a hearing in London this week to decide whether he will be extradited from the UK to the US on spying charges. If extradited, he stands a good chance of being sentenced to 175 years in the US prison system under the Espionage Act of 1917.

Ever since Assange orchestrated the release of documents through WikiLeaks, he has been the target of repeated official attempts to discredit him or, at the very least, to muddy the waters in a case that should be all about freedom of speech.

The initial bid to demonise Assange came immediately after the first release of documents, claiming that it would cost the lives of people who were named. The US government still argues that lives were put at risk by WikiLeaks, although it has never produced evidence for this.

On the contrary, the US counter-intelligence official who was in charge of the Pentagon’s investigation into the impact of the WikiLeaks disclosures admitted in evidence in 2013 that there was not a single instance of an individual being killed by enemy forces as a result of what WikiLeaks had done.

Brigadier General Robert Carr, head of the Pentagon’s Information Review Task Force, told the sentencing hearing for Chelsea Manning that his initial claim that an individual named by WikiLeaks had been killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan was incorrect. “The name of the individual was not in the disclosures,” he admitted.

On the day the WikiLeaks revelations were made public, I had a pre-arranged meeting in Kabul with a US official who asked what the coding on the top of the leaked papers was. When I read this out, he was dismissive about the extent to which the deep secrets of the US state were being revealed.

I learned later the reason for his relaxed attitude. The database Manning had accessed was called SIPRNet (Secret Internet Protocol Router), which is a US military internet system. After 9/11, it was used to make sure that confidential information available to one part of the US government was available to others. The number of people with the right security clearance who could theoretically access SIPRNet was about 3 million, although the number with the correct password, while still substantial, would have been much fewer.

The US government is not so naive as to put real secrets on a system whose purpose was to be open to so many people, including a low-ranking sergeant such as Chelsea Manning. Sensitive materials from defence attaches and the like were sent through alternative, more secure channels. Had the US security services really been using a system as insecure as SIPRNet to send the names of those whose lives would be in danger if their identity were disclosed, they soon would have run short of recruits.

The false accusation that lives had been lost, or could have been lost, because of WikiLeaks damaged Assange. More damaging by far are the allegations that he has faced of the rape and sexual molestation of two women in Sweden in 2010. He denies the allegations, but they have condemned him to permanent status as a pariah in the eyes of many. The Swedish prosecutor discontinued the rape investigation last year because of time elapsed, but this makes no difference for those who feel that anything Assange has said or done is permanently tainted and that the WikiLeaks disclosures are only a tangential issue. Likewise, much of the media views Assange’s character and alleged behaviour as the only story worth covering. Although information about SIPRNet and General Carr’s evidence was published long ago, few journalists seem to be aware of this.

But it is not because of anything that may have happened in Sweden that Assange is threatened with extradition to the US to face prosecution under the Espionage Act. The charges all relate to the release of government secrets, the sort of thing that all journalists should aspire to do, and many have done in Britain and the US without being subject to official sanctions.

Compare the British government’s eagerness to detain Assange with its lack of interest in pursuing whoever leaked the secret cables of the British ambassador to the US, Kim Darroch, to the Mail on Sunday last year. His negative comments about Donald Trump provoked an angry reaction from the president that forced Darroch to resign.

Assange has made disclosures about the activities of the US government that are more significant than the revelations in the Pentagon Papers. That is why he has been pursued to this day, and his punishment is so much more severe than anything inflicted on Daniel Ellsberg.

This article was published by “The Independent

The U.S. is the World Leader of Bio-Weapons Research, Production, and Use Against Mankind

By Gary D. Barnett

February 22, 2020 “Information Clearing House” –  Those that prevent disease and expose virus creation are heroic, but those that create and purposely spread disease and virus are inhuman. Given the history of the United States government and its military industrial complex concerning biological and germ warfare, the use of these agents against large populations, and the desire to create agents that are race specific strains, these powerful entities have become compassionless purveyors of death to the innocent. Manmade viruses meant for warfare, whether for economic destruction, starvation, or mass death, are the workings of the truly evil among us. Predation at this level is relegated to those in power; a president for example, could give the order to wipe out millions due to his inability to control a problem he caused and perpetuated, and then lay blame on the victims.

Who would ever have believed that modern warfare could be more brutal, more torturous, more painful, and more harmful to innocents, especially children, than past atrocities committed in war. Memories of millions sent to their deaths fighting in trenches, cities obliterated by atomic bombs, entire countries destroyed, and millions purposely left to starve in order to appease some tyrant or elected “leader.” I once thought that nuclear war would signal the end of life as we know it, but considering modern warfare and technology, I now think that uncontrolled and deadly viruses may consume the world population, as one after another poisons are released as acts of hidden war. There can be no end to this madness, as any retaliation in kind will result in the spread of worldwide disease; all created by man.

The new Coronavirus, (2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) one in a line of many that were not just likely but most certainly produced by man in laboratories, is affecting almost exclusively the Chinese at this point. This has seemingly opened the floodgates to speculation as to its exact origin. This virus has unique characteristics that have happened before with SARS and MERS, and has genetic material that has never been identified, and is not tied to any animal or human known virus. This should be troubling to all, because if this is manmade, it was manufactured as a weapon of war. So who is responsible for its release in China? It is possible that this virus was created in China and was “accidentally” released into the population, but that does not sound credible at any level. Do any think that the Chinese government would create a Chinese race specific virus and release it in their country?

Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda?

Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter

No Advertising – No Government Grants – This Is Independent Media

Interestingly, in the past, U.S. universities and NGOs went to China specifically to do illegal biological experimentation, and this was so egregious to Chinese officials, that forcible removal of these people was the result. Harvard University, one of the major players in this scandal, stole the DNA samples of hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens, left China with those samples, and continued illegal bio-research in the U.S. It is thought that the U.S. military, which puts a completely different spin on the conversation, had commissioned the research in China at the time. This is more than suspicious.

The U.S. has, according to this article at Global Research, had a massive biological warfare program since at least the early 1940s, but has used toxic agents against this country and others since the 1860s. This is no secret, regardless of the propaganda spread by the government and its partners in criminal bio-weapon research and production.

As of 1999, the U.S. government had deployed its Chemical and Biological Weapons (CBW) arsenal against the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Vietnam, China, North Korea, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba, Haitian boat people, and our neighbor Canada according to this article at Counter Punch. Of course, U.S. citizens have been used as guinea pigs many times as well, and exposed to toxic germ agents and deadly chemicals by government. Keep in mind that this is a short list, as the U.S. is well known for also using proxies to spread its toxic chemicals and germ agents, such as happened in Iraq and Syria. Since 1999 there have been continued incidences of several different viruses, most of which are presumed to be manmade, including the current Coronavirus that is affecting China today.

There is also much evidence of the research and development of race-specific bio-warfare agents. This is very troubling. One would think, given the idiotic race arguments by post-modern Marxists, that this would consume the mainstream news, and any participants in these atrocious race-specific poisons would be outed at every level. That is not happening, but I believe it is due to obvious reasons, including government cover-up, hypocrisy at all levels, and leftist agenda driven objectives that would not gain ground with the exposure of this government-funded anti-race science.

I will say that it is not just the U.S. that is developing and producing bio-warfare agents and viruses, but many developed countries around the globe do so as well. But the United States, as is the case in every area of war and killing, is by far the world leader in its inhuman desire to be able to kill entire populations through biological and chemical warfare means. Because these agents are extremely dangerous and uncontrollable, and can spread wildly, the risk to not only isolated populations, but also the entire world is evident. Consider that a deadly virus created by the U.S. and used against another country was found out and verified, and in retaliation, that country or others decided to strike back with other toxic agents against America. Where would this end, and over time, how many billions could be affected in such a scenario?

All indications point to the fact that the most toxic, poisonous, and deadly viruses ever known are being created in labs around the world. In the U.S. think of Fort Detrick, Maryland, Pine Bluff Arsenal, Arkansas, Horn Island, Mississippi, Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, Vigo Ordinance Plant, Indiana, and many others. Think of the fascist partnerships between this government and the pharmaceutical industry. Think of the U.S. military installations positioned all around the globe. Nothing good can come from this, as it is not about finding cures for disease, or about discovering vaccines, but is done for one reason only, and that is for the purpose of bio-warfare for mass killing.

The drive to find biological weapons that will sicken and kill millions at a time is not only a travesty, but is beyond evil. This power is held by the few, but the potential victims of this madness include everyone on earth. How can such insanity at this level be allowed to continue? If any issue could ever unite the masses, governments participating in biological and germ warfare, race-specific killing, and creating viruses with the potential to affect disease and death worldwide, should cause many to stand together against it. The first step is to expose that governments, the most likely culprit being the U.S. government, are planting these viruses purposely to cause great harm. Once that is proven, the unbelievable risk to all will be known, and then people everywhere should put their divisiveness aside, stand together, and stop this assault on mankind.

“In vast laboratories in the Ministry of Peace, and in experimental stations, teams of experts are indefatigably at work searching for new and deadlier gases; or for soluble poisons capable of being produced in such quantities as to destroy the vegetation of whole continents; or for breeds of disease germs immunised against all possible antibodies.” George Orwell – 1984

Additional notes: hereherehereherehere and here.

Gary D. Barnett is a retired investment professional living and writing in Lewistown, Montana. Visit his website.

Schiff Is Laying Groundwork for Tying Up Trump’s Second Term in More False Charges

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

February 22, 2020 “Information Clearing House” –  There is no evidence that Russia is interfering in the 2020 US presidential election in order to reelect Trump.  Nor is there any reason for Russia to prefer Trump, who has done nothing for Russia.  Indeed, Trump has imposed sanctions and endangered Russia by withdrawing from arms control agreements.  The claims of interference reported by the New York Times come from unnamed sources, described as “US intelligence officials,” in a recent briefing of the House Intelligence Committee organized by Rep. Adam Schiff.  We do not even know if such claims were made or whether this is another of Schiff’s many inventions planted on the New York Times, Schiff’s partner in crime and fake news.

Schiff is the highly partisan chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who was a driver of Russiagate and the subsequent effort to impeach President Trump.  He is a known liar, having been caught in numerous lies and misrepresentations.  Schiff arranged these new claims of Russian interference in order that, in the event of Trump’s reelection, the Democrats can tie up Trump for the entirety of his second term with bogus charges just as they did Trump’s first term. In that way the Democrats, the political party of racial minorities, sexual perverts, and immigrant-invaders, can prevent Trump from politically organizing white Americans whose lives, careers, and safety have been harmed by global US corporations transferring their jobs abroad and by the increasing attacks on white Americans as racists and “white supremacists.”  Despite the First Amendment, white Americans are losing the right of free speech, because if they “offend” a protected category of person when they exercise their free speech right, they risk being fired from their job and being investigated for a “hate crime,” a crime that can only be committed by white people. White Americans are slowly being marginalized, and, rightly or wrongly, they see Trump as a protector.

If intelligence officials actually made the claim of Russian interference, money is the reason. The intelligence community gains more power and a larger budget the more threats, real or imagined, that can be claimed.  The intelligence community, which has badly served Trump during the Russia-gate and Impeach-gate hoaxes, is worried that they will experience cutbacks during Trump’s second term.  Therefore, they are determined to keep the “Russian Threat”  alive.

The notion of Russian interference in US elections is hilariously funny.  There is interference in US elections from many sources. Interest groups interfere with massive amounts of money. The Israel Lobby is the most notorious.  Even if the Russian government went all out to interfere in American elections, Moscow could not possibly match the influence of the Israel Lobby.

Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda?

Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter

No Advertising – No Government Grants – This Is Independent Media

Powerful private interest groups also interfere. Candidates who stand for election need their campaigns financed by Wall Street and the banks, the military/security complex, the extractive industries (energy, mining, and timber), agribusiness, the pharmaceutical corporations, real estate interests, and so on.

The political parties themselves interfere by rigging electronic voting machines, by making voting difficult for supporters of the opposite party by such means as culling voting lists and providing an insufficient number of voting precincts for all to vote.  Democrats have also been noted for voting grave yards by stuffing ballot boxes with votes of dead people.

Many US elections are simply stolen.  Many Democrats believe, not without reason, that the US Supreme Court stole the 2000 presidential election for George W. Bush.

The obvious conclusion is that even if Russia tried to influence the election, Russia’s efforts would be insignificant compared to the many powerful forces interfering in American elections.

So what is the purpose of stressing Russian interference?  Moreover, the complaint of interference doesn’t set well coming, as it does, from the US, whose government has massively interferred in foreign elections—recently Hondorus, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil—and invades and overthrows governments—recently Serbia, Georgia, Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, and almost Syria— when election interference is not possible.

Schiff might succeed in tying up Trump’s second term.  Trump’s patriotic American base has been successfully brainwashed by neoconservatives to view Russia as a dire threat to the United States.  This indoctrinated view of Trump supporters and right-wing talk radio, makes unfounded charges of Russian interference believable to flag-waving Americans.  The consequence is that Trump’s base is susceptible to Democrat charges that Trump has sold out America to Russia.  If you listen to Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, what you hear is: “yes Russia interferred in our election, but it had nothing to do with Trump.”  So, Schiff will ask, “why hasn’t Trump stopped Russia from re-electing him?

A country ruled by propaganda and disinformation has no capabiity of knowing what its interests are, much less how to defend the unknown interests.  A brainwashed population cannot hold on to its country.

Americans have been brainwashed to believe that multiculturalism, that is, a flood of non-European ethnicities becoming a majority of the population, is in their interest. Americans are told that a flood of non-European immigrants are needed to provide business energy and innovation and to prevent population decline by having high birth rates.  White Americans are told that it is in their interest to become a minority that can be depossessed by the “replacement population.”

As the entirety of the Democrat Party has swallowed this line, what happens when one of them again becomes President?  Considering the virulent propaganda against white Americans, will they become endangered like Jews in Nationalist Socialist Germany?



How to Win the Democratic Nomination if There is a Contested Convention

Thx for taking the time to explain the process of a contested convention. It seems this year DNC insiders are manipulating the popular and delegate vote count against Bernie Sanders…. again.
A brokered convention is all but inevitable as Bernie may win the popular but lose the nomination due to lack of majority. Anything to keep the status quo, including blaming Russia for social media faux pas and Bernie Bros.
As long as Bernie loses, both establishment parties win, even if that means 4 more years of Trump. *Sigh*



Here we are again. It’s like Groundhog Day but on a four-year cycle.

Every time another presidential election rolls around, talk about the potential of a contested convention bubbles up. It appears to be some sort of political pundit parlor game — going over multiple scenarios about what might happen in the case of a contested (or brokered) convention.

Except this year, a contested convention seems far more likely due to a large number of candidates who are doing well in the polls. The reality of contested convention was being talked about as early as last summer. So, how does this all work? How do you get the nomination in a scenario like the one we have in 2020?

The Normal Scenario

First, let’s do a quick review of how it normally works.

As every state and territory holds its presidential primary or caucus, a certain number of delegates…

View original post 531 more words