Thursday a Conscious Life News report went viral, claiming to relay the point of view of a “pro-Israeli” shill, who claimed to have worked out of a mysterious, transient San Francisco office for a company that shills for corporate and political donors. Being apolitical, in addition to desperate, said guilty feeling alleged shill, was key to doing a good job fighting ideological opponents.
The San Francisco Office of Shill Central Floats Away to Safer Harbors: FILE
The mission of the poster was simple: Go on message boards and claim that critics of Israeli policy were necessarily racists or Nazis. This (probably) man was probably an expert in all of the facets of Godwin’s Law, especially as relentlessly accusing strangers of being Nazi sympathizers elicits some pretty serious outrage. The guilty-feeling shill says that, although he is still “pro-Israel” to this day, the dishonesty of the methods bothered him. Surely legions of Israel’s critics have already forwarded this to Max Blumenthal and Philip Weiss, and they’re probably spilling some ink on these sort of thing, as I write this message. Anyway, says the supposedly confessing shill . . .
If a poster wrote something close to “X,” we were supposed to respond with something close to “Y.” “You have to mix it up a bit, though,” said my trainer. “Otherwise it gets too obvious. Learn to use a thesaurus.”
Talented Internet social engineers know that changing up phrasing is the best way to avoid seeming like a singular personality. If supposed shill was even halfway serious, he had probably flooded the message boards on which he posted with numerous sockpuppet accounts. If this stuff is true I wish he would elaborate on how he hid his IP address, as moderators would surely watch for that sort of thing
[His trainer also discussed] a number of hints for de-railing conversations that went too far away from what we were attempting. These strategies included various forms of personal attacks, complaining to the forum moderators, smearing the characters of our opponents, using images and icons effectively, and even dragging the tone of the conversation down with sexual innuendo, links to pornography, or other such things. “Sometimes we have to fight dirty,” or trainer told us. “Our opponents don’t hesitate to, so we can’t either.”
It’s interesting that this shadow advocacy firm did not seek to simply bring off-topic conversations back online. Anyone who has browsed the Internet enough — or especially commented on YouTube videos — knows that people often never hesitate to engage in character assassination, even with people whose backgrounds are totally obscured. It is really a shame that we cannot see these low-blow tactics in action, as they are surely really instructive. How would linking to pornography really smear anyone? That’s one of the more dubious claims made in this confessional. Surely there are many saying that this confessional is just an attempt to smear pro-Israel activists. I do not even need to wade into the waters of Stormfront to know that a bunch of evil racial supremacists, actual Jew haters, are congratulating each other on the reality of this confessional, as well as far actually more understandably frustrated Palestinian rights activists.
[The shill's trainer offered] some notes on how to “push the psychological buttons” of different posters. Although I didn’t work for [Above Top Secret], I did see they had a lot of info on your so-called “WATS” posters here (the ones with gold borders around their edges). “Focus on the popular posters,” my trainer told me. “These are the influential ones. Each of these is worth 50 to 100 of the lesser known names.”
Fascinatingly, the inevitable Above Top Secret post of the original message was pulled, only a handful of comments on it available via a Google cache. It remains unclear whether this was the result of a lack of credulity offered to the article, or whether the moderators there are simply ashamed at not having been able to ID said shill.
As the Web crowd is ever larger and of diverse age groups, many news sources have actually been paying people to filter comments. How strenuous the filters are varies. The Huffington Post hires people who read the equivalent of Moby Dick in a matter of days. Reddit only edits “obvious nonsense.”
Supposed shill mentions that his trainers talked about playing hardball. Unlike in the famed art of politics, supposed shill firm were not seriously seeking to convince people in a conversation, but rather apparent bystanders who might stumble upon the article and be convinced either way.
“If you can convert one of the hostile posters from the enemy side to our side, you get a nice bonus. But this doesn’t happen too often, sadly. So mostly you’ll be attacking them and trying to smear them.”
If this person is as pro-Israel as he or she claims, it’s fascinating that he or she does not bother to offer any defense of the seriously held beliefs. The not-converting thing seems like a veiled crack at the actual Jewish religion here, and so that makes me skeptical. After all, the author himself claims to be a great liar one way or the other.
What is so cynical about the “pro-Israel” shill was his willingness to call anyone racist to score political points for an unpopular foreign policy regime, as well as his unironic lack of consciousness that Semitism can refers to Arabs as well. What has happened to Chuck Hagel this week has kind of put me on edge about this, as The Weekly Standard and Hagel “friend” John McCain have been gloating that the defense secretary nominee has set Iranian leaders into a tizzy of joy. The Internet Chronicle will discuss that a bit more tomorrow.
A lot of my job was de-railing and spamming threads that didn’t go our way, or making accusations of racism and anti-Semitism. Sometimes I had to simply lie and claim a poster said something or did something “in another thread” they really hadn’t said or done I felt bad about this[...]but in the end I felt worse about the possibility of losing the first job I’d been able to get since losing my “real” job.
Another aspect of this article that made me skeptical of its source was that the supposed shill does not discuss his “real” job. While his habits were dubious they were not illegal. How rare and identifiable could his “real job” have been that he could not tell us how desperate he was? The self-described meme patrol would generate a lot more sympathy if we understood him to be dirt poor or accustomed to some humble lifestyle. All of this is suspect, especially since he calls himself such an awesome writer.
As “pro-Israel” shill came to know the issue, as though a Thesaurus-armed fundraiser or marketing specialist, he started to get farther into debate. Again, no policy details here, no information on what he was writing that was so compelling about drawing attention away from Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. The supposed shill became an expert in Internet pop art, which has long included the cat, due to the Internet user’s typically sedentary nature it mirrors.
There were a lot of details to this more advanced [complex debate] stage of the job – everything from how to select the right avatar to how to use “demotivationals” [link added] (humorous images with black borders that one finds floating around the web). Even the proper use of images of cats was discussed. Sometimes we used faked or photo-shopped images or doctored news reports (something else that bothered me).
It is only toward the end of his essay that the self-described shill gets into his pangs of conscience about what he was doing. There is little sense from him earlier in the essay that his smearing might actually be making the pro-Israel side of the debate look uninvolved. Whether this confessional is real, people have grabbed onto this story in the United States because they view defense of Israel as something that is more of the brain, a path that can be made with less of a bleeding heart for a disenfranchised, more recently, anyway, indigenous population. It reminds me of Pamela Geller’s now famous “support the civilized man/ defeat jihad” “pro-Israel” public transit ads.
This supposed shill has written a lot about his methods but very little about why Israel has a great foreign policy, treats Palestinians well (or why they would not deserve such treatment); or why Zionism is promulgating apartheid. The only obvious reason the poster would not do this is to cover his tracks, and we would think he was just more imaginative than that, given how he says he got the job.
If my arguments were so correct, I wondered, why did we have to do this in the first place? Shouldn’t truth propagate itself naturally, rather than through, well…propaganda? And who was behind this whole operation, anyway? Who was signing my paychecks?
It is believable that an ardently self-considered American “pro-Israel” activist would see that country’s enemies as being mainly neo-Nazis. However that just doesn’t jive with the vast majority of the people all over the world who remain critical of the way Israel treats Palestinians. If so desperate and able to operate more or less autonomously from the secret office, why does the shill care who was writing the checks? Is he insinuating worry that he was inadvertently being paid off by anti-Israel trolls, goy supremacists?
[T]he shill way of life . . . is a deceptive way of life, and no matter how noble the goals (I remain pro-Israel, by the way), these sleazy means cannot be justified by the end.
Make no mistake, though: Even if this letter is fake, or even written by genuine Jew haters, the shill way of life will remain profitable for anyone willing to get his or her hands dirty. Private conglomerates, I was aware, had the resources and interest in pushing their products. If you have ever read the obsequious reviews over at Amazon, you know of that industry. What is changing is that the shill is now a nihilist, a mercenary of states (certainly not just Israeli ultra-nationalism), instead of the famous, self-interested 419 scammer.
الرياض، المملكة العربية السعودية – أشارت فرنسا القائمة على عبادة الاستنساخ أتباع رايل، وهذا الصباح أن نجاحهم في إنتاج في مجمع جزر البهاما استنساخ من نبي الإسلام النهائي، محمد بن عبد الله، وبعد أربع محاولات سابقة فاشلة.
يتحدث من مكان لم يكشف عنه في جزر البهاما، المتحدث باسم الرائيليين بريجيت الوطنية الفرنسية وبويسلييه، الذي أشرف على إنشاء استنساخ أول إنسان، وذكر ان العملية كانت ناجحة. “لقد أمضينا عدة أشهر في البحث عن مرشح المناسب تماما من خلال كريغزلست، وأخيرا وجدت الأم المثالية البديلة من خلال Jdate.com. في حين أن الأجنة المتقدمة القليلة الأولى انتهى يجري – كيف تقول – “لم تنفجر، ‘استغرق الخامس بشكل جيد، ومحمد جديد، ونحن ندعو له، وقد حصلت للتو من خلال الثلث الأول من الحمل وتبحث صحية” و. الرائيليين عبادة يقول أن الحيوانات المستنسخة السابقة كانت إما “مشوهة” أو “غير صحية”. أمراض النساء الرائيليين إحباط الأربعة الأولى الأجنة محمد بعد تسعة أسابيع من الحمل.
السيدة بويسلييه، الكيميائي عن طريق التدريب، بالتفصيل كيف أن أتباع رايل تعاونت مع المجتمع الاستخبارات الإسرائيلية للحصول على الحمض النووي من التبجيل وأكثرها شهرة على قيد الحياة البشرية من أي وقت مضى. في العام الماضي وعلم أن الحمض النووي لديه نصف العمر فقط العملية لبضعة آلاف من السنين. ذهب أتباع رايل والموساد أقفال العديد من الشعر النبوية هي تطوف في العالم، ولكن من أجل ضمان جديد محمد كان حقيقيا، والحق في المصدر.
في أكتوبر 2012 من قبر محمد والمنزل السابق كانت مخترقة من قبل مصور. أخبار الشيعة Shafaqna الموقع يبرهن هذه الحقيقة جدا. وقد داهمت قبر محمد، والمادة الوراثية المستخرجة من الجسم بالنسبة لنا في الاستنساخ.
وقال النبي، نيي كلود فوريلهون، وقال انه يأمل أن المشروع سوف تثير المزيد من الاهتمام في استنساخ البشر ورفع القيود المفروضة على الممارسة، في مواجهة العديد من بلدان العالم وأتباع رايل بعد أن تجرم الاستنساخ البشري بعد فترة وجيزة من إنشاء الثورية خروف مستنسخ ، دوللي، في 1990s. ولا ينبغي له أن يواجه أي مضاعفات في الثلث الثاني أو الثالث، ومن المقرر الجديد محمد أن يولد يونيو من عام 2013.
David Coombs, Army Reservist, America Hater Photo: Tyler Bass, Washington Correspondent, The Internet Chronicle
WASHINGTON — December 3rd Bradley Manning Attorney and Army Reservist spoke to a congregation near Mt. Pleasant, District of Columbia. He spoke for almost 90 minutes, part of which included a question period in which he answered questions from the press feed to him by members of the Bradley Manning Support Network, a group that has collected legal fees for the private suspected of leaking thousands of pages of data documenting war crimes, innocuous activity, the overclassification of information. Some call the Army Private a traitor; others, including Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, have called him a whistleblower.
“He told me that his dream would be to go to college to get a degree. And as a young man at that time he was 23. That makes sense. We all know that college degrees are pretty much the ticket to a productive future.” The Unitarian Church is notable for being one of the most educated denominations in the country, and certainly this line resonated well with attendees.
While Mr. Coombs told the crowd that he did not want to try Private Manning’s case with the public, whether or not he believes that the immense public pressure surrounding the case — especially since the diminutive former, now demoted, specialist no longer leaves in doubt his being the source of the WikiLeaks data that sparked global revolutions — was and will be key to shining attention on his mistreatment at the hands of the Quantico Marine Base in Virginia, where he was held and Judge Lind has ruled that he was mistreated. As though Mark Antony describing Caesar as an “honorable man,” Mr. Coombs said, “As I said to begin with, this public appearance is the exception for me. I believe that trying the case is not the way to representation of a client,” despite the public’s opinion certainly having an a heavy influence on the inevitable sentencing of the private. Mr. Coombs continued, “And Brad — at least from what he testified in the open hearing — didn’t want his case to be tried in the press, either. And also because that was his wishes early on but also because my perspective is you shouldn’t try your case in the press — I respected his wishes and didn’t grant issues. And even after this day I won’t be granting interviews. And the reason why, again, is because your focus has to be on your client and not on, you know, basically putting out facts to spin something your way in the press when that doesn’t achieve anything in the courtroom. When you’re in the courtroom, that’s what matters. What happens there matters. In the press, as I said here today, what really matters is you, the public, being involved and being informed and that the press can do wonderful things. That’s why I’m happy to see them here today. And that’s what really resulted in Brad being moved, in my opinion, from Quantico, to Fort Leavenworth.”
Next was The Internet Chronicle’s question (answered at 01:20:00 in the file below this article), which was based on concerns we had from the trial, in which Private Manning had complained about his jailers listening in on his phone call: “Are you and your client able to communicate freely on a privileged basis.”
Replied Mr. Coombs to The Internet Chronicle’s question, “Yes, Brad and I speak at least once a week, if not more, and we — obviously we see each other quite often as well. Our communications are always privileged. They’re never subject to any sort of recording or being monitored by anyone. And so because of that I act basically as kind of the conduit for Brad, giving him information and helping him stay in touch and informed. So those communications are not subject to monitoring.”
While attending the pre-trial in May, this reporter engaged in a conversation with a military police officer — last name “Parker” — who volunteered his view that protesters outside of Fort Meade, where the private’s trial was being held, in fact disliked the military. Asked if Lt. Dan Choi, a high-profile anti-“don’t ask, don’t tell” activist, also disliked the military, the MP still expressed skepticism. This is exactly the dynamic that drives Mr. Coombs to speak in public, despite his
Said Mr. Coombs, “I asked Brad: ‘Well, with that degree what do you plan on doing?’ And he said, ‘I want to go into pubic service.’ And I asked him what he meant by that. And he said, ‘I want to join some sort of campaign group, go into public service and perhaps one day run for public office.’”
That statement by the attorney was met by gentle murmurings.
Mr. Coombs continued with: “And I asked Brad, why would he want to do that. And he said, ‘I want to make a difference. I want to make a difference in this world.’”
“I can tell you that standing here today I hope that someday soon Brad can go to college. I hope someday soon he can in fact go into public service. But I am confident, as I stand here today, that Brad doesn’t have to worry about making a difference in this world. He has made a difference.” With that line, Mr. Coombs was greeted with steady applause by all in attendance except the press.
Of the two questions that The Internet Chronicle submitted on note cards to Nathan Fuller, this was perhaps the best answer to the other question staff had for Mr. Coombs, which we would later pose to leadership of the Center for Constitutional Rights: “Was there a net positive value in Private Manning have orchestrated the large leak of classified information in military history?”
Speaking to The Internet Chronicle, Michael Ratner, from the Center for Constitutional Rights, said, “Assuming [Private] Manning leaked it, there’s no doubt that he has exposed material that has been very important for both ending wars, end the hypocrisy of our government, and ending the corruption. I mean, it consider it to be no issue about it.” Mr. Ratner added, “What we have is a government of incredible secrecy that’s getting more secret. And unless you have people starting to expose material, we are facing a situation of a total surveillance state. And these guys are heroes, in my view, for what they’ve done.”
Asked if there were any negative consequences of leaking, even if they were outweighed by positives, Mr. Ratner told this reporter, “The government hasn’t come up with any that are negative in the sense of hurting anybody. What they’ve said is, yeah, they can’t do their diplomatic stuff in the same way and all that, but I don’t consider that a negative.”
Despite criticism from press, such as the highly intrepid Alexa O’Brien (@carwinb), who when we attended the trial, complained about lack of access and documentation, Defense Counsel Coombs said that the military justice system was the best place for Private Manning to be in and even said that it was more just than the civilian court system. He called it “the best courtroom you can go into.”
Speaking from the podium that evening to about 50 members of the public, “When you look at it from the outside, you could see and perhaps think that the system is built to obtain a certain outcome. I can tell you with confidence — again, having practiced both in state and federal and in military practice — that a court-martial is by far the fairest, justest system that I’ve ever practiced in. And that may sound confusing. And I actually get some looks of — I don’t — I don’t know about that.”
With that line, there was chuckling from the audience. The congregation, which I have attended, in which my own son was dedicated, I have noticed to be skeptical of military activities. Two years ago I attended a morning session in which an activist spoke of disassembling the entire nuclear weapons infrastructure in the United States to acclaim, to agreement and to accord.
“But let me tell you why,” said Mr. Coombs. “Military judges are not just picked out at random. They’re not voted in. A military judge is somebody who has done in most instances both federal — excuse me — acted as a prosecutor and as a defense counsel for a period of times, has seen both sides.
“Also that person usually has taken on the role of a chief of military justice, which would be the equivalent of a DA; or a senior defense counsel. And so from that perspective you have a lot of experience, plus once the judge becomes a judge usually that person is a lieutenant colonel or a colonel. People who go that route are not interested in becoming generals. And so you’ve kind of tapped out at the top of where you would want to be. So there is no influence issue. And you have somebody there that is truly experienced, who truly understands the law. And from my perspective I would take a judge who knows the law and is very experienced over many of the judges I’ve practiced in state and federal.
“And then from a panel standpoint, if you go with a panel, almost everybody in the military — once they have obtained a certain rank — has some sort of college degree.”
And here once again, Mr. Coombs was making an appeal to the members of the audience.
He said, “And I think that in and of itself speaks volumes about the person’s ability to at least have an open mind on certain topics.”
Since the date of this speaking engagement, the trial continues to be pushed back — court officials blaming the delay, as did Mr. Coombs, on “further defense motions.”
Nonsense at the beginning — Complete Internet Chronicle audio of the David Coombs speech on Manning, hosted via SoundCloud (Ratner begins at 35:00) while Coombs’ first public presentation begins at (51:00):
“The beauty of art is that it can be interpreted many ways by many different people.”
WASHINGTON – Andrew Auernheimer, an American gray hat hacker better known as “weev,” tells The Internet Chronicle that his indictment in a New Jersey District Court over a June 2010 AT&T data breach is at its root an important free speech issue. Speaking to Chronicle.su’s Gray Phone, Mr. Auernheimer, a 27-year-old associate of Goatse Security, claims he made certain AT&T was aware of the breach in time to patch it, he never sought financial gain from what was in effect the the extraction of 114,000 iPad users’ email addresses, and that he never personally possessed more customer data than enough to communicate that the breach was bona fide. While prosecutors imply Mr. Auernheimer’s actions and statements may constitute computer fraud and foreknowledge of possible insider trading, he and his fellow Goatse Security associates saw themselves as merely tarnishing a company’s reputation due to its own reckless mishandling of customer data.
The actual extractor of iPad users’ email addresses, Daniel Spitler, 26, who may face as many as 10 years in prison, has already plead guilty to having gained unauthorized access to computers and identity theft. Mr. Spitler’s sentencing is forthcoming. Mr. Auernheimer served as a media liaison for the group, and only possessed iPad device signatures and email addresses related to media, such as Thomson Reuters and News Corporation.
Citing ’90s law enforcement debacles, such as the civilian deaths at Waco and the deaths in the Weaver family at Ruby Ridge, Mr. Auernheimer issued his appraisal of the honesty of federal law enforcement: “These are lying, perjurous, murderous thugs.”
He added, “If they will murder people, and no consequences of it will come for them, do you think they won’t manufacture evidence or coax false testimony? Give me break.”
“I’ve never shorted a stock, I’ve not solicited a third party to short a stock. And there’s nothing that I do that’s any different than what the financial press does. I’m issuing my opinion on AT&T’s — the information that they’ve made publicly accessible and giving my opinion of their infrastructure, as a result and of course Apple’s products.” He added, “There’s nothing illegal about this. This is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution, and also there is a system in violation here in that they have denied my right to due process by allowing AT&T to arbitrarily after the fact of access determine what is and isn’t not an authorized without the use of Congress to determine what is or is not an illegal act.”
A New Jersey district court informational document reads, “[D]efendent SPITLER, [Mr. Auernheimer], and other Goatse Security members discussed who in the press had disclosed the data breach to At&T, since, contrary to the Gawker Article, neither defendant SPITLER, nor anyone from Goatse Security had.” The document goes on to catalog an exchange between Mr. Auernheimer and colleague “Nstyr” in which they intimate they have not informed AT&T tech support by telephone.
“I don’t fucking care [about calling AT&T directly.] [I] hope they sue me,” wrote Mr. Auernheimer, in private correspondence confiscated by federal investigators. Asked by The Internet Chronicle’s Gray Phone why he didn’t go to AT&T first, he was concerned about greater liability by even talking to the telecommunications giant.
“Many people that have direct dialogue with companies in this sort of situation are accused of extortion, and I specifically wanted to avoid being accused falsely of extortion,” he says. Mr. Auernheimer contacted at least one third party — whom he declined to name but AT&T identified as a “business customer” — and says he was certain the patch would be forthcoming before leaking the data to Gawker could cause any harm. The third party’s identity, he says, makes it “inherently obvious” that he or she would make AT&T knowledgeable.
AT&T, he says, doesn’t “need to be informed by me. They need to be informed by somebody.”
An associate named “Pynchon” wrote to Mr. Auernheimer, “[H]ey, just an idea [ -- ] delay this outing for a couple days[,] tomorrow short some [AT&T] stock[,] then out them on [T]uesday[,] then fill your short and profit[.]
With this quote posed to him by Chronicle.su, Mr. Auernheimer said, “I don’t believe that anybody had an interest in shorting a stock,” adding, “And I certainly did not solicit them, too, and I’ve received no kickbacks for doing so. And I don’t believe anybody did, or otherwise I’d be charged with a securities-related crime, which I of course am not.”
Mr. Auernheimer said he doesn’t recall writing a reply to “Pynchon’s” stock-shorting idea with the reply: “[I]f you want to do it[,] go nuts.” However for Mr. Auernheimer and ultimately Mr. Spitler, the only entity to have extracted and held all the data, prosecutors are sure to make much of the transcript’s mentioning of any of their associates’ even jesting about or humoring such a securities violation. To be sure Goatse Security has a long history of conducting operations simply for reputational gain or their laughter at others’ expense — known as “lulz.”
Mr. Spitler’s indictment falsely claims that AT&T is headquartered in New Jersey. Mr. Auernheimer characterized this as perjury motivated by venue shopping, intended to maximize chances at prosecution. AT&T is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.
In their analysis of chat logs federal prosecutors independently construed the sad-face emoticon “D8″ as the sexual metaphor “balls deep,” or as they put it, “to be deeply involved in an activity or to perform an activity to the greatest extent possible.” This revelation is not only humorous but shows, when taken in the context of Mr. Auernheimer’s relayed concern about civil, not criminal, liability for the data breach, Mr. Spitler was actually expressing fear.
Firstly, I would like to admit that I am a true believer in David Icke’s reptilian theory. However, as time has passed, I’ve realized that Icke’s increasingly influenced by the very reptilians he believes he is fighting.
David Icke’s visual frequency is not attenuated to his own image; hence, he is unable to realize he is himself a reptilian. Theorists have speculated that Icke’s proven status as a reptilian is in fact a false-flag theory proposed by the reptilians to discredit him. This, of course, is a naive assumption buttressed only by a cult-like admiration for Icke’s manipulative, charismatic and altogether reptilian personality.
Just beyond the thin veneer of Icke’s friendly exterior lies an emotionless obsession for control of others — the trademark of a reptilian. The cold stare in his eyes is an experience many have recounted upon close contact with his piercing and otherworldly gaze. He has absolutely no empathy for those he preaches to, and the ridiculous way he treats the reptilian threat is a classic example of hidden-in-plain-sight strategy. The saddest part of it all is that he, himself, does not — cannot–recognize his own reptilian nature.
On an interstitial plane between dimensions, the reptilians effectively have hidden their agenda through the vessel of Mr. Icke. As with others manipulated by this agenda, Mr. Icke himself is totally unaware of the possessors tainting his bloodline. His manipulative and viral reptilian fear, which he has made millions of dollars promoting, is precisely the favored tactic of the reptilians he so often rails against.
In essence, when one is afraid of the reptilians, they increasingly fall under the power of these Masonic Illuminati forces that permeate our corrupted bloodlines — perhaps our ape ancestors interbred with snakes, as hinted at in the biblical tale of Adam and Eve. No one has blood that is “clean” of reptilian influence, and the fear that has taken its grip on David Icke is proof that he, more than anyone else, is suffering from the pervasive and menacing power of reptilians.
WASHINGTON – In the past month an anti-Islam film trailer for a movie called “The Innocence of Muslims” has triggered a international debate about free speech and the murder of 50 people. The director, an Egyptian national and convicted methamphetamine distributor by the name of Nakoula Nakoula, now faces up to three years in U.S. prison for lying to probation officers about his role in the creation of the trailer. Numerous countries, including Egypt, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, India and Singapore, have blocked the video. Turkey, Brazil and Russia have taken steps to see the video blocked.
A Pakistani man this week offered $200,000 to anyone who would kill Mr. Nakoula.
Before serious violent protests initiated in Egypt on September 11, Embassy Cairo officials responded to growing local disgust with the film by releasing a statement that violation of “religious feelings” was outside of a reasonable interpretation of a universal value of freedom of expression. The Weekly Standard would in the coming day incorrectly imply — by using the term “meanwhile” to describe the timeline of the release of the embassy’s statement vis-a-vis the violent protests — that the statements were in response to what would be the actually eventual climbing of the embassy walls by an angry crowd and the burning of its flag. The same day Republican President Nominee Mitt Romney would attack the White House for the embassy’s statements.
An ABC/Washington Post poll released Saturday showed a 15-point dip in President Barack Obama’s credibility on international affairs among political independents compared to Mr. Romney, the likely additional consequence of an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Libya and a nearby safe house that left dead Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Speaking with Politico on the Eastern Seaboard in the hours after the attack in Egypt, the White House would walk back Embassy Cairo’s statement, saying that it did not reflect the White House’s own view. But in the past week President Obama spoke before the U.N. General Assembly to the effect that:
“The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. But to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see in the images of Jesus Christ that are desecrated, or churches that are destroyed, or the Holocaust that is denied.”
Speaking during the same session, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi would articulate his view that a right to freedom of speech could not rightfully apply to an attack on a “religion or cult.”
Mr. Obama’s expression at the United Nations comes 25 years after the release of “Piss Christ,” a National Endowment for the Arts-sponored photograph of a crucifix submerged in artist Andres Serrano’s urine. Persecution of Christians, particularly Coptics such as Mr. Nakoula, is about as bad in Egypt as in any other country.
In mid-September, The New York Times’ Claire Cain Miller, after having spoken to Google representatives, wrote that the company’s decision to keep the video up in the United States was due to its content being “against the Islam religion but not Muslim people.” Even the title of trailer however seems to indict Muslims personally. Indeed the trailer attacks the character of Mohammed, albeit in crass tones, Islam’s founding figure and obviously a Muslim himself, for his having sought a nine-year-old wife, a widely acknowledged historical event.
8:30 p.m. EDT – Georgian Attorney General Sam Olens is saying that the individual mandate tells you “what to think.” I’m not sure what to make of that.
8:35 p.m. EDT – Senator John Thune (R-SD) says that when playing basketball President Barack Obama is easy to predict because he “always goes to his left.”
8:54 p.m. EDT – Senator John McCain (R-AZ) is telling PBS that Mitt Romney supports offering military aid to the Free Syrian Army, seeming to simply that the United States is not currently. Sen. McCain touts that French President Hollande — “a socialist,” he makes a point of saying — supports a no-fly zone about the Mediterranean country.
9:14 p.m. EDT – Steve Cohen, as Media Matters is most prominently pointing out, has received more than “$2 million in government contracts, including nearly $220,000 in stimulus funds, and claims a ‘long and proud history of supplying heavy-duty American Made equipment to government agencies and the US military.”
9:19 p.m. EDT – In the face of PBS Host Gwen Ifill pressing the senator on the unpopularity of keeping taxes lower on the top 1 percent and 2 percent — and the inevitability of Democrats being determined to hang that policy “around the neck” of the Republicans, Senator Ron Johnson says that Democrats have not adequately challenged Republicans, as they have not presented their own budget.
9:27 p.m. EDT – Republican delegate Becky Davis (MO) says that female voters are “feeling [economic woes of late] in the grocery store,” seemingly emphasizing women loving cooking.
9:32 p.m. EDT – Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is attacking President Obama’s vacation time. CBS News has reported that, at least a year in, Obama had taken a third of the vacation time than the last Republican president, 20 months in.
9:41 p.m. EDT – Fox News Channel Host Mike Huckabee says that convention attendees might be asking themselves how former rivals can unite to support one of them. The two, says Mr. Huckabee, “have Barack Obama to thank,” fully embracing the notion that the enemy of one’s enemy is one’s friend.
I get the sense that Huckabee didn’t listen to the previous speaker who referenced Obama claiming that if deficit controls didn’t work, that he would himself be looking at a “one-term proposition.” Otherwise he would have gone slightly off of the teleprompter, instead of saying, “Do you remember when” the president made that statement.
9:51 p.m. EDT – Mr. Huckabee says that Obama is an evangelical Christian. However the United Church of Christ, President Obama’s denomination, is not a member of the National Association of Evangelicals.
10:12 p.m. EDT – By saying that “hard decisions” prevented a follow-up attack to 9/11, is Condoleezza Rice implying that the Iraq War, who cause is now doubted by most House Republicans, was that hard decision?
10:14 p.m. EDT – A defining quality of this convention is how rarely the speakers mention Barack Obama by name.
10:16 p.m. EDT – Regarding the ongoing “we built it” private-sector theme, Arizona Governor Susana Martinez says, “[my parents] built it,” meaning their livelihoods, even though her father was a government employee, as a Marine and later a sheriff.
Gov. Martinez says that, despite Democrats controlling her state’s legislature, she talks about her state turning a state budget deficit into a surplus, saying “we,” presumably meaning her administration, “did it without raising taxes.” But did they do it, or did the private sector?
10:32 p.m. EDT – It’s interesting that Vice Presidential Nominee Paul Ryan references the Obama administration’s failure to oversee the reopening of a GM plant, in front of which, he says, Obama engaged in grandstanding about its reopening. However, Mr. Romney was an advocate of bailing out Detroit in his own right.
10:52 p.m. EDT – Rep. Ryan referencing Jack Kemp, his mentor, could evoke similar discomfort as to when then Governor Schwarzenegger talked about his admiration for Richard Nixon’s speech-giving.
WASHINGTON – 7:17 p.m. EDT, House Speaker John Boehner is referencing that President Obama “you didn’t build that” line, easily evoking for me the story of Gilchrist Metal Fabricating, featured in a Romney ad, a company that relied on hundreds of thousands of dollars in government subsidy.
7:19 p.m. EDT – Crowd shots from C-SPAN, heavily bleaching on the women’s hair.
7:24 p.m. EDT – Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus seems like he’s awfully loud, considering that he has a mic.
7:28 p.m.. EDT – Mr. Priebus strongly hammering home the “you didn’t build that” as well, disparaging the infrastructure that comprises a mixed economy.
7:40 p.m. EDT – “Not up to government to save our country . . . up to us,” says Mia Love, Utah House candidate, in ad, further espousing the view that the government is not in fact representative of public will. Is the common law the will of mankind, as Robert Kennedy contended?
7:45 p.m. EDT – The United States, says Love, is the “last, best hope,” a country with an accelerating fall in human development index.
7:48 p.m. EDT – When actress Janine Turner describes an ever-growing government, she is trying to describe the federal government’s level of control, not the net number of federal and state employees as a percentage of the population, which is in fact in serious decline. (Source: Hamilton Project)
7:51 p.m. EDT – When RNC officials and spokespeople endorse “God” blessing America, are they really respecting the First Amendment, and the tacit separation of church/synagogue/whatever, which also protects polytheists and atheists?
8:04 p.m. EDT – Delaware Republican lieutenant gubernatorial candidate Sher Valenzuela touts that Mr. Romney understands the “human case for free enterprise,” but her own family’s business relied on “millions of dollars in secure government contracts.”
8:16 p.m. EDT – It’s interesting that “penalties” Ayotte discusses for a small-business owner, who might otherwise expand a business, others might describe as funds meant to provide a basic social floor for employees.
The senator also disparages the “rolling back” of “Obamacare” by a President Romney, while Mr. Romney’s book, “No Apologies,” in fact postulates a nationwide expansion of the widely disfavored individual mandate.
8:20 p.m. EDT – And here’s Jack Gilchrist, who no doubt desires to trumpet how he “built it.” He says the Obama administration is “killing us” and “won’t get out of our way.” However, as discussed by the New Hampshire Union Leader, his company received $800,000 in tax-exempt revenue bonds.
8:36 p.m. EDT – Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin reminds me once again how popular bleached hair is in the GOP female crowd. We’re adding the fashion tag now.
Gov. Fallin is remarking that the first oil well in Oklahoma was not subsidized by public capital. According to a 2009 study by the Environmental Law Institute, between 2002 and 2008, the government subsidized oil drilling and exploration to the tune of $7.1 billion.
8:59 p.m. EDT – There is the biggest of all cheers yet for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Gov. Walker says we need to elect Mr. Romney and Representative Paul Ryan (WI) to “save America.”
9:09 p.m. EDT – Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval expresses pride in Nevada’s role in putting Abraham Lincoln in the White House. It is an interesting historical footnote that Communist Manifesto co-author Karl Marx would write to President Lincoln to congratulate him on his win.
9:15 p.m. EDT – Road sign builder, Phil Archuletta, who makes signs for the Forest Service and a variety of federal agencies, takes the stage, ambiguously a part of the “we built it” agenda.
“[The Obama] administration is putting us out of business,” says Mr. Archuletta, referring to their denial of subsidy to his busines, saying that he is “barely hanging on with orders from the state of New Mexico” thanks to Republican Governor Susana Martinez.
9:22 p.m. EDT – Mr. Santorum conspicuously dodging a reference to his Italian communist heritage.
He says that welfare reform didn’t work precisely because the “welfare rolls were cut in half.” It’s unclear at this point from his statements how seriously he is implying that cutting welfare rolls unto itself actually spurred job creation.
9:48 p.m. EDT – Texas Senate candidate Ted Cruz espouses his parents’ involvement in the, for decades, massively subsidized petroleum industry.
9:51 p.m. EDT – Former Representative Artur Davis (D-AL) knocks the individual mandate, endorsed by the conservative Heritage Foundation in the early ’90s
9:58 p.m. EDT – Mr. Davis disparages the prospect of the Democratic Party, at their Charlotte convention, showing off their most famous presidents, while every president since the New Deal, Republican and Democrat, oversaw much higher taxes on the top 1 percent and 2 percent. In disagreeing with those rates, the modern Republican Party engages in the most unpopular part of its platform — on which it has distanced itself even from its voting base.
10:01 p.m. EDT – In pushing voter ID laws, comparing them to the necessity of carrying ID onto an airplane, Governor Nikki Haley (SC) overstates how common voter fraud is, and understates how alarming, easily exploited not requiring ID to board a plane, would be. Plane trips are and should be a relatively luxury compared to suffrage. Citizens with the economic wherewithal to afford plane trips are more likely to have the time and resources to more conveniently obtain state ID.
Fascinatingly, Gov. Haley calls President Obama a “mack daddy,” apparently a reference to virility — fascinating because he has so many fewer children than Mr. Romney.
10:15 p.m. EDT – It sounds like Ann Romney is slightly caving to Democratic spokesperson Hilary Rosen’s criticisms from months ago, when she contended that Ann Romney had never worked a day in her life. In the prepared remarks, Mrs. Romney references “the working moms who love their jobs but would like to work just a little less to spend more time with the kids, but that’s just out of the question with this economy.”
The calculation here is to improve Mr. Romney’s lagging numbers with single women. Even Rick Santorum extended a hand to the “heroism” to single mothers per se.
10:21 p.m. EDT – Also, from Ann Romney’s prepared remarks (but as she more or less said it), she says her father “moved to a small town in the great state of Michigan. There, he started a business — one he built himself, by the way. ” However even her father took advantage of the government dime to expand his business and expertise, helping to design the landing crafts for D-Day.
10:36 p.m. EDT – Seemingly channeling Obama’s own terminology, New Jersey Governor Christie calls his own speaking gig “improbable” due to his being a Republican from a relatively Democratic-leaning state. But in fact that is one of the main reasons for his degree of influence and certainly his speaking position.
10:50 p.m. EDT – Potentially confounding Gov. Christie’s comparison to other developed countries’ relatively successful educational systems is that most of those other countries have relatively robust teachers’ unions and pensions.
INTERNET — Thursday, Anonymous, the idea, was arrested by the U.S. Government. Tired of butthurt countercultural types touting such a smug slogan, Anonymous imagery was symbolically “imprisoned” at Guantanamo Bay. “We just wanted to show those kids that, yes, we can arrest an idea. We’ve arrested every single one of those snide kids and we’re waiting on evidence so we can make a move on the rest,” said Guantanamo Torture Artist President Obama.
Barrett Brown didn’t have time to comment, as he was busy rewriting his book to reflect how wrong he was about Sabu. When offered advice from Chronicle.SU strategists on countering persona management with increased use of reverse Turing Tests, Brown flew into an uncontrollable rage. “Why should I listen to YOU? You’re just some freak who was completely right when I was woefully wrong about Sabu.” Brown’s indictment for grievous lapses in journalistic ethics remains hilarious, and his continued hijacking of Anonymous for huge personal profits has paid off with his new fake title of “Ex-Anonymous Spokesperson Security Expert.” Brown has been featured by clueless networks like Bloomberg and Russia Today because of his facile relationship with so-called Anonymous ‘Snitch’ leadership.
Kids, the hate’s only beginning! Hold on Tight, because if you think Barrett Brown’s been a silly-nilly wait till you hear about Assange!
Assange has gone completely insane with power! The mission of WikiLeaks has drifted from revealing government ‘cover ups’ of accidental killings of journalists to ratting out internal gossip at Stratfor, a ‘fellow’ publisher! If that’s not enough, they’re responsible for at least one hoax planting lies (!) on a New York Times columnist who would never say such things.
AND ANONYMOUS HAS FINALLY, INEXTRICABLY, BLOWN THEIR COVER!
As we all know, Anonymous is a longstanding phenomenon of angry kids who gang up out of nowhere to DDoS web sites that piss them off for some reason. This has been going on long before the term ‘Anonymous’ gave such a group a crystallized identity. Now that the ‘Internet’ and ‘Social Media’ are big things, they’re able to generate huge headlines by leeching of of Internet-related media events and leveraging the ‘cool,’ threatening imagery. Used to be they’d have to take down Yahoo or something to get any attention, but that was back when Yahoo meant something. Kids these days, I’m tellin’ ya…
BUT WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH CHRIST ASSANGE?
So now this contrived mantra, “DDoS is something like a sit-in during the Civil Rights movement,” has been put to the fucking test. The sacred WikiLeaks has come under DDoS attack from an opposing camp, AntiLeaks, which considers WikiLeaks a new form of terrorism. The argument, which is consistent with Assange’s own theories, is that these major leaks are not intended to reveal specific crimes but rather to inhibit communications networks and undermine, specifically, America’s imperialism. There’s nails, strings, and planks of wood. You probably couldn’t understand Assange’s transcendently enlightened Theory of Conspiracy without decades of self-absorption.
What did Anonymous say to this act of ‘free speech?’WE WILL DESTROY YOU, ANTILEAKS!
PLEASE CONCLUDE SO MY SIMPLE MIND CAN SYNTHESIZE ALL THIS NONSENSE!
Assange let his Jimmies get Rustled and became worse than Rupert Murdoch. Much worse. Instead of letting a broken bureaucracy do his dirty work through mismanagement, Assange has engaged directly, if the body of evidence is not all fabricated, in intensely unethical, questionable practices. Enlisting hackers, educating informants in hacking techniques, and putting on hoaxes is not behavior I can defend. It’s disgusting and sick! Shame on Assange! Shame on Brown! Shame on Topiary! Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame! *chant continues until all of Occupy has been arrested.*
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