Skewering Another Right Wing Conspiracy Ideation: "The Dems DID It!"

Kimberly Strassel: Is helping to pump the idiotic "theory" that the Dems, Hillary, Loretta Lynch and others ginned up the Steele dossier to "dig up dirt on Trump" and upend his nutso (p)residency. Now we know she - like her Reich cohort - are playing with 52 cards short of a full deck.

As the screws tighten on the Trump-Russia associations and the Mueller probe into undermining of the 2016 election by the same Russkies, it was expected the Right would at some point go batshit nuts and try to contest the facts.   That time appears to be now, as across the Reich fake news spectrum (Breitbart, FOX, Drudge Report etc.) they are peddling the nonsense conspiracy that Dems and the Left are the REAL culprits in a "Russiagate"  scenario - to take down Trump!

Writing in yesterday's WSJ, we read this codswallop from Kimberly Strassel (p. A13, 'Who Paid for the Trump Dossier?'):

"Here's a thought: What if it was the Democratic National Committee or Hillary Clinton's campaign (who did not sign letters asserting the hiring of Fusion GPS)?  What if that money flowed from some  political entity on the left, to a private law firm, to Fusion, to a British spook, and then to Russian sources?....What if they specifically made up claims to dupe Mr. Steele, to trick him into writing his dossier?"

Nice try, but you rival Alex Jones (with his Sandy Hook false flag bunkum) and Michael Flynn's  pizzagate conspiracy - with this abysmal dreck. Basically, lazily grabbing at any possible "event" and coincidence to attempt to parlay some combination into a conspiracy.

For example, 90 percent of this bull pockey got started when some right wing nitwit  (Michael Weiss) found a video or image of Russkie lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, e.g.

Sitting at a hearing (from June 14, 2014) behind then Ambassador Michael McFaul. Weiss - who we can designate as "Dolt Zero", yapped in a "Eureka!"- style tweet:

"Hey, look what I found. Veselnitskaya sitting behind @McFaul at a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Russia, June 14, 2014"

As if it was some huge discovery of a nefarious link, as opposed to simple seating coincidence. But this is the nature of egregious conspiracy ideation (can't really dignify it with 'theory'): it grabs isolated events and imagery and tries to stitch these disparate spots into a coherent whole - using all manner of irrational backflips, non sequiturs and hasty conclusions to arrive at some half-cocked rubbish. We've seen it before with Mike Flynn's 'Pizzagate' refuse.

Sure enough, as with all mind virus infections, Weiss' garbage was then picked up by Gateway Pundit - which we shall designate "Dolt Zero + 1".    These morons handle a website often known for inaccurate information.   Once again, following the playbook of conspiracy ideationists - notorious for jumping to conclusions with zero substantiation - the image was presented as evidence of a connection between Veselnitskaya and the Obama administration. (Based on the fictitious claim Veselnitskaya was "sitting with" McFaul, despite the fact she was doing no such thing. She was seated BEHIND him. BEHIND him is NOT seated with him.  If I attend a concert with wifey and our rabid right wing congress critter Doug Lamborn is seated behind us, that doesn't mean we are "seated with" him!  Doh!)

The spread of the mind virus then leapt again to "Dolt ZERO + 2" in the guise of the guttersnipes known as the "Sludge ....errrr..... Drudge Report".  WikiLeaks - which is now a pathetic shadow of what it once was when it released the Bradley Manning files (in 2011) then became the next victim (or accomplice) on Wednesday , further spreading this nonsense, re-tweeting the image with this:

Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at hearing on Russia left of Obama's @McFaul eight days after @donaldjtrumpjr https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMJkgSPSb0o …

 This fantasy conspiracy then jumped the shark - infecting  the usual stable of half-assed, right wing media personalities (e.g. Hannity, Limburger etc.) who then regurgitated this offal.

They suggested that Veselnitskaya was "hanging out" with Obama administration officials just days after the meeting with Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort.   And VOILA! We have the perfect false equivalence: "How can you media types howl about the Trump Jr., Manafort, Kusher meeting with the Russians when Dems were doing it too!"

Of course this is total horse shit. The proximate seating position of a Russkie lawyer to an Obama official (McFaul) can only be contorted into being "seated with" by a brain devoid of critical thinking and prone to making mountains out of ant hills. But let's not be too surprised as this is the noxious frequent tactic used by the pro-Trump media to try to discredit reporting from credible news outlets  It's a tactic we've come to expect from the Trump media mobocracy when faced with political peril. So they try to upend the latest political firestorm facing the Trump administration.  (Never mind much of the firestorm is created by Trump and his own hirelings, e.g. "Mooch")

Let's not forget there's another piece of this conspiracy "theory" which evidently originated with Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Trump's outside legal counsel. He said the Russian attorney was linked to Fusion GPS, a DC-based opposition research firm known for commissioning the Steele dossier. This is also clearly what has Kimberly Strassel's dander up. Veselnitskaya was representing Prevezon — a Cyprus company owned by a Russian national that is accused in the US of laundering money — at the same time Fusion GPS was doing work for a law firm that did work for Prevezon, according to the Washington Post.   Again, all this really shows is that Fusion was an "equal opportunity" business - happy to work with anyone who'd pay real money.  It doesn't prove that there is some nefarious connection or conspiracy, i.e. to slime Trump. (Hell, he doesn't need any help on that score!)

Corallo insisted  Fusion “was retained by Democratic operatives to develop opposition research on the president.” But what he and his cohort ignore is the fact that Fusion GPS was initially hired in October 2015 by unnamed Republican clients in order to develop opposition research on Trump to be used during the GOP primary.  These Republicans were part of the old (e.g. pro-Jeb Bush) order who respected norms and traditions. They detested the fact that a two bit Queens real estate weasel and lowlife like Trump could possibly become President. So they wanted "oppo" research on him. That is the hard fact.  Once Trump won the nomination, the research was continued by Democrats. That proves nothing more than Fusion GPS is a firm that is happy to be employed by either side.  If you want, call them a bipartisan oppo research outfit. But don't call them conspirators.

None of this proves a conspiracy or even near conspiracy other than in the deranged brains of the out of  control Rightist nuts.  Hence, Strassel's claim of Fusion as "the oppo research outfit behind the infamous and discredited Trump dossier ginned up by a former British spook" is false. In fact, all the evidence suggests that the dossier was completed by Steele ca. 2015 or while Fusion was still cooperating with the Republicans on the oppo.  Also, all these conspiracy nabobs on the right appear to forget that before going underground, the material gathered in memos was considered so explosive that Steele turned it over to contacts he had in the FBI last summer. This was without informing the opposition research group for which he'd initially begun his project.  If  Christopher Steele was indeed working with the Dems or Reeps why would he not inform them?

Christopher Steele, as I've written before, is no clown or stooge or even a "spook" likely to be fooled as Kimberly Strassel claims.  According to one Financial Times account (Feb. 16) , Steele was the "UK intelligence expert on Russia".  It is, therefore, highly unlikely he'd be 'fooled" by any kind of false intel or disinformation as Strsassel seems to believe.  James Nixey, the head of Chatham House's Russia and Eurasia program, informed the AP that sections of the dossier document created by Steele "read exactly as reports from the secret services".

Let's also reference the other case being made about Veselnitskaya having ties to Democrats which has the Right's  pseudo conspiracy mavens questioning why she got a visa to be in the country on June 9, 2016, i.e.  for the meeting with the Trump campaign.  The true fact is Veselnitskaya was initially refused entry to the United States when she applied for a visa for herself and her children for the end of 2015. According to court files, she said she was granted a temporary “parole letter” allowing her into the country to assist her client Katsyv, who was facing a trial in the U.S. linked to his alleged part in the $230 million fraud uncovered by Magnitsky.  She applied in the Southern District of New York for that temporary access to be extended beyond Jan. 6, 2016, when it was due to expire. Court transcripts show that prosecutors were reluctant to give Veselnitskaya a blank check to remain in the U.S. while the case stalled. Then subsequently, a NY judge ordered an extension, with the expectation that trial would start soon.

Again, nothing mysterious, nothing nefarious - other than in the febrile brains of the Right's idiot conspiracy allies of Alex Jones.  Again,  none of this matters a whit because ultimately Donald Jr. was happy to have a meeting with someone who told him they represented the Russian government and had dirt to share about Hillary Clinton.

Was this a "nothing burger' because nothing came of it? Maybe, but that's irrelevant.  The point is legally the intent was there to dig up dirt using a high profile Russian lawyer, irrespective of it not succeeding. Just because a wife hires a hitman to whack her hubby and he doesn't succeed doesn't let her off the hook. 

While the Right media has tried desperately to shift the Russia spotlight to the DNC, Hillary and Loretta Lynch - the incontestable fact is that it has always been Trump in up to his eyeballs with the Russkies - including to save his no good, bankruptcy- filing ass.  As noted in The New Republic (Aug./Sept. p. 29):

"A review of the public record reveals a clear and disturbing pattern: Trump owes much of his business success, and by extension his presidency, to a flow of highly suspicious money from Russia. Over the past three decades, at least 13 people with known or alleged links to Russian mobsters or oligarchs have owned, lived in, or even run criminal activities out of Trump Tower and other Trump properties. Many used his apartments and casinos to launder untold millions in dirty money .....Taken together, the flow of money from Russia provided Trump with a crucial infusion of financing that helped rescue his empire from ruin, burnish his image, and launch his career in television and politics....It's entirely possible that Trump was never more than a convenient patsy for Russian oligarchs and mobsters."

Of course, this very background helps explain why Trump is hyper paranoid now about Bob Mueller digging into his money trail, including leading right through his family finances. This is why, indeed, he's already telegraphed his guilt - first in firing James Comey, then in his recent obsession with Bob Mueller's probe - even warning Mueller not to veer into his "family finances" which would be taken as "crossing a red line".  Why? What's so all-fired important about them? What has Trump got to hide? Why has Trump released no recent tax returns?   All of this bespeaks a guy loaded with guilt and committed to obstruction of justice.

Thus, Strassel's blabber that:

"If Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Democrats and the media really want answers about Russian meddling, this (dossier)  is a far deeper well than the scant case against Trump"

Is pure horse hockey.  Those more in the know than Strassel -  concerning the integrity of sources and what the intel really shows -  acknowledge that what Steele compiled is very likely true, at least in part.  In addition to which the whole shtick fits the modus operandi ("Kompromat") of videoing any one who comes to Moscow and stays at a hotel- perhaps to engage in illicit sexual activities with Russkie "honey pots".  Kimberly may revolt at the thought of Russian whores jubilantly pissing all over her master, but there it is. Trump (and his loopy defenders) then may have more to worry about than where Bob Mueller is going. They better worry that if Trump signs the recently passed "sanctions" legislation Putin will go ahead and release the piss video.

The most laughable aspect of this whole farce? The Reich wingers trying to claim that Veselnitskaya was brought on by Democrats because there's no proof that she wasn't.  Wow. Great argumentum ad ignorantium.

Methinks we need to send all of these conspiracy hustlers and hucksters  back to  courses in logic 101 along with critical thinking 100. 

Crackpot "Pizzagate" Tale Promoted By Michael G. Flynn Almost Led To D.C. Tragedy

"Doh! I  duz know Pizzagate true 'cuz a real general did tweet it!"

I want to begin by knocking out the crappola bilge that off the wall, wild claims qualify as "conspiracy theories". No, they do not. They are pure unadulterated bullshit that no rational mind ought to entertain.. That includes the "Jade Helm" nonsense about the military taking over TX, as well as assorted other claptrap - including that the feds are "buying up all the ammo" to deny 2nd amendment rights, and especially the noxious waste "Pizzagate" - which reared its ugly head again over the weekend.    All of these are what I refer to as debased mind viruses or mental infections. The origin of mind viruses can be traced specifically to the chapter, 'The Kingdom and the Darkness' in the book, Chance and Necessity' by Biochemist Jacques Monod (Collins Books, UK, 1970)

Monod portrayed the spread of inherently primitive, anti-human and perverse ideas, to a kind of mind-to -mind infection. Hence the later coined term, "mind virus".  That is what "Pizzagate" is, not a conspiracy theory and certainly not even a conspiracy hypothesis.

I had no idea, zero, what "Pizzagate" was until watching yesterday evening's lead news story about a brain-jacked lunatic - Edgar Welch- who drove 9 hours from North Carolina to try to "free" child sex slaves at a D.C. restaurant called Comet Ping Pong . Evidently, this insane, insipid mind virus has been circulating on the web since the end of October. It has been traced to a lunatic named Michael G. Flynn, the son of Michael T. Flynn - actually tipped to be Donald Dump's national security advisor - if you can believe it.

As one writer on The UK Guardian put it:

"In any other year a story like 'Pizzagate'  would get you laughed out of a room. The conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton was part of a sex-trafficking ring run out of a pizza shop is bizarre and disturbing from start to finish.  But in 2016, a year when nothing makes any sense any more, it can be cited as a motive for a crime".

Before viewing the news segment, I got a heads up on the cockamamey BS circulated online by the American Right after reading an op-ed by Richard Thieme in The Milwaukee Journal -Sentinel in which Thieme wrote:

"I was asked to submit a bio to a local group as a possible speaker. My topics were misunderstood, distorted by the framework through which the contact for the group read them, and he sent an email defining the speech he hoped I could produce:

' ... it would be fantastic to have a ‘dream speaker’ that could link the topics of the Power-Elite, Occult ritual, who’s teaching them how to do this, why they are doing it, pedophilia, bohemian grove, Eyes Wide Shut parties, the Clintons, technocratic globalism, child trafficking, mainstream media, mainstream entertainers/Hollywood, Alien/UFO government mythology, Lolita Island, War, Alister Crowley followers, state-sponsored assassinations, CIA, FBI and much much more. ... a speaker who can skillfully link all of these dark connections in an eloquent, matter-of-fact way.'

The email provided a link to a video in which three men discussed all this and more in sensational unsupported terms and added satanic ritual, cannibalism, and child rape to the antics of the power elite, crimes that are unreported by “the media” because publishers are at those parties, participating in rape and human sacrifice, hence unwilling to tell the truth about them.

That group is a mainstream group. That video has more than half a million hits. That absurd narrative collects unthinking people into a homogeneous group, which by repetition reinforces the credibility of their assertions. In a similar vein, I am sometimes asked after speeches if I believe we went to the moon or have rovers on Mars."

I then did a follow-up Google search after watching the news yesterday evening and learned "Pizzagate" is a whackadoodle patch of nonsense  launched by Michael G. Flynn as well his crackpot  old man. . I am not going to dignify this pile of horse shit by repeating it in any detail, only to say it was confected by morons with too much time on their hands  - with the same reptile brain features as conspiracy lunatic Alex Jones, e.g.


It basically was assembled from a host of disparate incidents, events including photos of NYPD officers hauling supposed bags with email evidence out of a residence, speculation about Anthony Weiner and his sexting propensity and the presence of some Hillary emails left on his computer, by wife and HRC aide Huma Abedin. Supposedly all this in tandem with a paranoid schizophrenic's claim about :Hillary's "predilection for underage children".  Add in the phenomenon of stupid repetition and 'Voila!' - millions of idiots gobble this fake news like it's the real thing.

As one skeptic website (inverse.com) already noted, the Comet pizza place where all the horrific acts were supposedly taking place didn't even have a freaking basement!

Never mind, the hijacked brains invested in this bullshit are 100 percent convinced  they are really global citizens conducting a "worldwide citizen investigation" to rout the evil motherfuckers and elites behind it. Puh-leeze, get a life already, Sparky!   The kicker in all this is Michael G. Flynn's assertion in one tweet that:

"Until Pizzagate proven to be false, it'll remain a story."

Uh no, laddie. See you have it ass-backwards. It is logically impossible, indeed futile - to prove a negative. Tell me that 6 inch Martians are building tiny canals on Mars right now and it is my job to "disprove it" - and I will refer you to the nearest psych ward that offers ECT. That's not the way proof and disproof work - at least for those of us in touch with reality. (And as one who likely now faces metastatic prostate cancer - based on results from a new genetic test-  that's as grounded in reality as it gets. I don't have the time to indulge in half -assed bullshit circulated by clueless  screwballs).

No, the way it works is you proffer the claim and then you cite the evidence to support the claim. If you can't outright prove your contention you are at least charged with providing high QA support by way of documents, evidence. Oh, and that doesn't include photo-shopped images or edited videos that are a farce.

Daddy (Michael T.) Flynn isn't much better, tweeting 6 days before the election:

"U decide. NYPD Blows Whistle on New Hillary Emails. Money Laundering. Sex Crimes w. Children etc."

In fact, the FBI blew no such "whistle" instead admitting they had nothing, nada and basically jumped the gun in trying to tie the emails found on Anthony Weiner's computer to any nefarious deeds.  The real question, of what "U ought to decide" - is whether an unstable crackpot lunatic like this belongs anywhere near the seat of executive power. If he can make up bullshit like this what sort of bunkum might he confect - involving the Chinese- say to try to get Donald Dump to launch a missile attack on the Spratly Islands?  You tell me. Personally, I wouldn't trust this deranged imp or his son to even take the nuclear football to an NSA meeting.

When one speaks of a "theory" he at least means something with a residue of rationality, consistent explication and sense, even if later proven wrong. But these noxious tweets spouted by the Flynns and their supporters are straight out of Kook-land. The email cited by Richard Thieme (blue highlighted) above. "Power elite occult rituals"? "Eyes wide shut parties?" "Lolita Island"? These are the stuff of seriously disturbed paranoid fantasies which no one of any intelligence, mental stability or common sense ought to be feeding his neurons. 

A warning ought to be attached: "This balderdash is harmful to your mental health".  As it certainly turned out to be for the sorry Edgar Welch, who now faces an insecure physical future too after firing a round from his AR-15 into the Comet Ping Pong floor after realizing the fake news of "Pizzagate" had mind- fucked him. But too late! He'd driven nine hours to make a point that ended up being empty with him holding the bag....errr....gun....thanks to buying into the Pizzagate crap.

As I noted in my October 28 post ('Separating Paranoid Balderdash from Rational Conspiracy Thinking'), "Pizzagate" and other cockeyed nonsense like Alex Jones' claim that Newtown was a "false flag" are the stuff of an irrational, indiscriminate, paranoid culture not a serious conspiracy research community (such as one finds with most who investigate the JFK assassination-  supported by actual physics).  

In the same post I cited Barbadian psychologist Pat Bannister who envisaged the latter as the province of mature, rational, educated adults. The former, on the other hand,  constituted  the realm of the semi-literate or poorly educated who fancied themselves adults but really weren't.   They were more like overgrown children playing elaborate paranoid games. Irrationalists like the indiscriminate conspiracy monger, Alex Jones and yes, his lunatics. in arms, Michael G. and Michael T. Flynn.

Will the Pizzagate insanity stop now that Welch himself has essentially verified it's horse shit? Not bloody likely, because - as my spiritually inclined sister-in-law Krimhilde has aptly put it - some people will always feed their minds with the basest material.  As she told me when I last spoke with her in May of this year:

"Attraction of so many to porn, debased stories, gossip and lies is the outcome when we accept only the animal level mind and refuse to rise above it. Our politicians and leaders must seek to rise above this degraded low vibration mind and listen more to the higher Voice within, The still, small voice that beseeches each of us to embrace truth, to follow it....not lies"

While I don't necessarily agree with all her spiritual analogies and turns of phrase, I do think she is on to something. That also means that wretched and debased muck like Pizzagate will continue making the rounds on the net until people become  "the sentinels at watch at the front gates of their minds" - to use my late father-in-law's phrasing. (From Science of Mind)  In other words, people have to take ownership for what they themselves put into their minds, recognizing  "garbage in, garbage out".  We can blame the sources themselves up to a point but ultimately we choose what we will accept and reject. If we accept tawdry, unsupported and degraded filth then that is what our minds will reflect. And sadly, that filth will eventually resonate in our very personality and being - limiting and defining all future perceptions, choices.

Richard Thieme's ending words also ring out:

"The inability to discriminate between plausible and crazy plus the impossibility of knowing what’s real in this perpetual fog of information warfare causes anxiety and fear, which people counter with narratives to comfort the afflicted soul. Then it’s called “truth.” When we feel helpless and lacking control over our lives, we project impossible narratives onto fragmented data and comfort ourselves with theories which, if examined closely, would be seen to be foolish"

And to quote from the Uk Guardian author:

"Pizzagate is a lie but what it says about our society is real"

Sadly, the Trump voters have foisted upon us a cabal with only the most degenerate and degraded notions to offer up for consumption. A toxic mental cocktail of perverse ideation that has created an alternative degenerate mind virus "reality".  Since two realities cannot co-exist and lead to a stable union - say for a  nation - it means we are all for the high jump now unless these purveyors of lies are finally shut out of their efforts to seize power. That means we need dozens of state electors - mainly in Trump taken states- to turn the tables on December 19th and choose to be faithless electors.

See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/11/yes-there-is-non-violent-way-to-prevent.html

And:

http://www.salon.com/2016/12/06/michael-flynns-conspiracy-minded-son-who-tweeted-about-the-pizzagate-theory-is-on-donald-trumps-transition-team/

And:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/chris-floyd/70159/in-like-flynn-blowback-for-filth-peddling-fascists