So, the new US President has redecorated his home office, and the bust of Winston Churchill that Trump and George W. Bush retained there is now gone. Cue the usual fury from the right-wing tabloids and outrage-merchants.
For what it is worth I have never understood why some British people get so animated by this. Biden is an American President. Naturally he draws inspiration from great Americans. As far as I am aware, Biden hasn’t put up busts of Garibaldi, Gandhi, Clemenceau or Michael Collins, all of whom are inspirational in their own way. So why this is conceived of as a ‘snub’ to Britain and/or Churchill I will never understand. I think these episodes reveal more about the people complaining than they do about the President.
It is too early to discuss President Biden’s thinking, but this does provide an opportunity to revisit the controversy during Obama’s Presidency.
In 2001 George W. Bush requested the British Embassy loan him the Jacob Epstein sculptured bust of Churchill that was located in the British Embassy in Washington DC. Ironically, in light of all that has happened since, at the time some people complained about Bush being given the bust. After the presidential election in 2008 the British embassy offered to extend the loan. The White House declined, and it wasreported they retained a bust of Abraham Lincoln instead. Later on the story was that Obama had replaced a bust of Churchill with one of Martin Luther King Jr, although as far as I can tell Obama had busts of both men in the Oval Office.
The offer by the British Embassy to extend the loan was just a formality. It doesn’t seem like there was any expectation that the bust would remain in the Oval Office. To quote the British Ambassador at the time:

"So, to be honest, we always expected that [the Churchill bust] to leave the Oval Office just like everything else that a president has tends to be changed,” he explained in a valedictory interview with the Guardian. “Even the carpet is usually changed when the president changes.”

According to White House curator William Allman, the decision not to keep the bust was made before Obama became President.
Part of the reasoning for not retaining the Churchill bust was practical – you can only put so many busts on the tables of the Oval Office before they look cluttered. Another part had nothing to with Winston Churchill at all. As an African American, Obama (rightly, in my view) thought it would be appropriate to honour Martin Luther King. After all, had it not been for the effort, determination and bravery of Martin Luther King then arguably Obama could never have become President of the United States.
In fact, Obama retained an identical bust of Churchill - by the same sculptor - in the White House throughout his Presidency. This was originally donated to the White House in 1965 by American admirers of Winston Churchill. It was placed in the Treaty Room and there it stayed until 2017. Obama saw it ‘every day’. Here’s a pic of Obama admiring it with then British Prime Minister David Cameron. Incidentally it was this bust that Trump had moved into the Oval Office in 2017, until he could be loaned another one.
There has been speculation, which frankly borders on racism, that Obama had the bust removed because of a dislike of the British Empire. This in turn fuelled a myth that Obama had the statue removed because of a personal dislike of Churchill. Apparently, Churchill had his grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, tortured. This was reported by the Daily Telegraph in 2009, repeated by journalist plagiarist, sock puppeteer and liar Johann Hari in 2010, and you get people repeating it online constantly.
The claim that Hussein Onyango Obama was tortured in colonial Kenya originated with Sarah Onyango Obama. She was Obama’s grandfather’s wife. However, Obama’s biographers take her claims with a pinch of salt. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Maraniss writes in his book Barack Obama: The Story:

In its specifics the story seems unlikely. There are no remaining records of any detention, imprisonment or trial of Hussein Onyango Obama. Sarah did not witness any of it, and she is the only person to offer details. While there would be no obvious reason for her to contrive such a tale, her accuracy on other matters that can be documented is uneven. She speaks only in Luo, knowing some Swahili and no English, so her quotes are dependent upon the inclinations of the interpreter. And five people who had close connections to Hussein Onyango said they doubted the story or were certain that it did not happen.
John Ndalo Aguk, who worked with him before the alleged incident and kept in touch with him on a weekly basis in Nairobi thereafter, when he was placed in the homes of several employers at Hussein Onyango’s recommendation, said he knew nothing about a detention or imprisonment and would have noticed if his mentor had gone missing for several months. Zablon Okatch, a Luo who worked with Onyango after the supposed incarceration, when they were servants in the house of American embassy personnel, said, “Hussein was never jailed. I know that for a fact. It would have been difficult for him to get a job with a white family, let alone a diplomat, if he once served in jail… All prospective workers had to have details about themselves scrutinized at the Labour Office”. Chales Oluoch, whose father, Peter, had been adopted by Hussein Onyango when he was a young boy, said he doubted the story: “He did not take part in politics, nor did he have any trouble with the government in any way.” Auma Magak, Hussein Onyango’s daughter, disputed the story but offered a different version: “He was not detained. There was an incident where some thugs kidnapped him. He mysteriously disappeared. He was taken to a river where he was tied and left there. Some leopards were around him but left him alone. But the detainment never happened. He was working in Nairobi during those years. He never disappeared [for six months].” Perhaps the most authoritative account disputing Sarah’s story came from Dick Opar, who went on to become a senior police official in Kenya. “At that time, I would have known”, Opar said. “It may have been a day or two. People make up stories. If you get arrested for another thing. No. No. I would have known. I would have known. If he was in Kamiti prison for only a day, even if for a day, I would have known.

Maraniss goes on to add:

Several pieces of logic contradict the story. First if Huessein Onyango had been imprisoned, even if one were to further accept that he was eventually cleared of whatever charges were against him, he likely would have had difficulty, as Zablon Okatch noted, securing employment in the homes of security-conscious white officials in the following years, when the country was in turmoil and there were increasing concerns about the motives and loyalties of Kenyan workers. Yet he continued to be hired throughout the next decade…. Second it is also unlikely that his son would have been accepted into the most prestigious boarding school in western Kenya within a year of his father’s imprisonment, or that after many months without a salary the family would have been able to afford the tuition

Let’s assume though that Hussein Onyango was in fact tortured. Could this explain why Obama dislikes Churchill? Well, there are two holes in this theory. Firstly, Obama is on the record as saying:
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“I love Winston Churchill, I love the guy,”

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Obama has also quoted Churchill in his speeches, producing much reeing from the usual suspects.
The second problem is that Sarah Onyango never claimed that Churchill had Obama’s grandfather imprisoned and tortured. As reported in 2009, Hussein Onyango Obama was imprisoned in 1949. He was allegedly held for two years, meaning he was likely released some time in 1951. Churchill didn’t return to office until 26th October 1951 so the odds are that Hussein Onyango Obama had already been released from jail by then. If not, it was under Churchill’s premiership that he was set free. It is hard to see why Churchill should be blamed for the atrocities inflicted on Obama’s grandfather when he was not Prime Minister when he was arrested. If any blame should fall on a British PM for the mistreatement of Hussein Onyango, it should fall on Clement Attlee, not Winston Churchill.
In sum the Washington Post was correct in their assessment that:
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The Churchill bust story has been a constant source of poor reporting.

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Since I’ve been banned off of pretty much every mainstream Reddit political news sub and discussion board for pointing out inconvenient facts I’m making one last ditch effort at an election post mortem (maybe) write up in an attempt to bring the obvious to light. 2020 has been an epic wave of relentless propaganda. I argue that the vast majority of what the typical American sees in the mainstream news is basically lies and most of the “crises” that we’ve been dealing with are either totally overblown of completely fake and the media has a direct hand in all of it. So let’s start with the first big fake crisis that has been going on since Trump was elected.
Russia Russia Russia
The “Russian Collusion” narrative is one of the most fraudulent stories ever concocted in my opinion. If you love or hate Trump is fundamentally irrelevant. The notion that you can accuse a sitting President of being what amounts to a Russian agent is egregious slander if you don’t have exacting, precise proof, which they never had. It was a non stop show on the nightly news programs with child like news anchors spinning tales of how Czar Putin has Trump on strings, dictating his every move while continuously hacking everything. It was mostly fiction asserted by the Democratic apparatus and the Intelligence Community. All presented evidence was flimsy at best. So how did they pull this off? Easy, by relying on the average person’s complete ignorance of technical details. I see this tactic used over and over again to great success with the now uninformed, vapid and narcissistic American public. In this case the details are of the Information Technology nature. Let’s start with the DNC “hacks”. It’s the most obvious example.
When looking at this, bear in mind that operators purported to be based in China hacked both the 2008 Obama and McCain campaigns. But in the instance of the DNC hacks they were never even considered to be suspect. Odd, isn’t it? Very odd indeed actually, just like the whole story of the DNC breach. The DNC lost 300 gigabytes of “sensitive” data from their systems. It was reported by the intelligence Community (IC) that Russian actors breached the system and made off with that massive amount of data without anyone noticing until it was too late. And that even more data was lost after the initial breach and during remediation actions by the third party security firm that was called in to respond to the active threat, which was Crowdstrike. The narrative is that Russians broke in using software that the GRU uses. I’m not going to rehash the whole thing as it’s too long but the bottom line is that the IC and Crowdstrike asserted these findings and Crowdstrike claimed to have direct evidence of it. The reality is that they actually didn’t have direct evidence, and any evidence that they did have has never been publically released for secondary analysis by any other independent security firm.
In the Senate hearing report Shawn Henry was asked point blank if hey had direct evidence that the data in question was moved off the network (exfiltrated) via the internet, and shockingly he answered “no”. Bear in mind that every single day the media was reporting that there was concrete evidence that Putin himself was responsible for this breach. But in reality there was no definitive evidence that the data moved off the DNC servers via network access. This report wasn’t released for two years and then was only finally released under threat of action by another Senator. So what happened?
In my opinion if there was no direct evidence of exfiltration then there leaves two main possibilities:
The attackers had tools that were so sophisticated that they covered their tracks completely. This is virtually impossible though in my opinion given the timeline and the size of the data being moved. Even if the attackers tunneled into the system throughput is still throughput. There is also the fact that the files that were leaked contained metadata that indicated that they were copied at very fast rates of speed, too fast to have been moved over the internet . The DNC’s systems, and/or their ISP would detect a data transfer that large, especially at the denoted transfer rates. If they didn’t it would have to mean that they had no NIDS (Network Intrusion Detection System) in place whatsoever, which is absurd. So that leads into the next possibility (which I happen to agree with), which is:
It was an inside job. If there was no data exfiltration then it had to be a local disk to disk copy. In other words, someone plugged a USB drive (or other portable storage media, like a cell phone) into the system and had admin privileges (whether valid or escalated through a hacktool) and did a local disk to disk transfer. This makes the most real sense. No data exfiltration occurred because no data moved off the network. This is basically what Chelsea Manning did. Also, Julian Assange has repeatedly stated that the DNC data did not come from a Russian source. Once it was transferred it could be packaged for transport on another network, thus retaining the original metadata. And don't get me wrong, I may well have believed that it was the GRU that was responsible if it wasn't for the DNC's very odd response to the hack.
So how did he DNC respond? Immediately call in the FBI as would be standard procedure in a case like this? Nope, try again. They instead called in Crowdstrike, and refused to allow the FBI to examine the actual physical hardware even though they requested to repeatedly. Gee, that’s kind of weird. But it is what they did. It's as if they wanted to keep it quiet because they had an internal problem they didn't want anyone knowing about. There was a standard excuse that I saw being given ad nauseum for this very strange course of action:
They need the hardware to continue operations, it's critical infrastructure. Er, no. In an enterprise IT environment there should be multiple levels of failover protection. In the event of a serious show stopping event critical server infrastructure should have timed backups. The affected systems should be able to be taken out of service and timed backups that are isolated from the event can be brought online. Furthermore, even if this isn’t feasible for some reason the affected systems can be cloned to identical fresh systems and put online in their place. This is basic IT infrastructure management. The DNC declined to turn any hardware over to the FBI. Instead they gave them system “images” to look at. What are those? The easiest way to explain what those are is to think about the “recovery disks” that used to come with PCs. If you got a virus on your PC and it corrupted your Operating System and you couldn’t boot the system you could either hire a tech to try to repair the OS and recover the data or you could bite the bullet and reinstall the OS from the disks. That’s because when they configured the system at the factory they would then take a “snapshot” of it, hence the word “image”, that was basically a complete byte for byte copy of your brand new system. They would put that on a DVD with an embedded program that would erase your system’s hard drive (thus eliminating all previous data, including your personal data, any programs or viruses, etc.) and recopy the original factory hard drive data to the system thus restoring it to the state when you first took the PC out of the box and turned it on. However, as with all things, the devil is in the details. This is especially true when it comes to system imaging.
When you delete a file on your computer unless you use an “eraser” program (a data destruction algorithm like Bleachbit) the data you erased is still there. You simply “unlink” the “pointer” to the data that the OS created to be able to see and access the data when it writes the data to the drive. If you use an “eraser” program when deleting files it will write random data in place of a file that you delete so as to make it irrecoverable. You can also erase entire hard drives using this method. There are varying methods of system imaging. If you take a “forensic image” of a hard drive then you are copying the whole drive, including empty space and fragmented and deleted data that still exists on the drives. If you take a standard image it only copies active data that the operating system can see and access. All empty space and deleted data is ignored during the copy process. The only reason I can think of why the DNC didn’t allow the FBI to look at their hardware is because they’re hiding something. To me there’s no other plausible reason. I don’t know what types of images were turned over to the FBI but even if they were forensic images they still aren’t the actual hardware and it is not standard practice to do this in regards to this type of breach event on government affiliated systems. This is shady to say the least.
The Podesta email “hack”.
John Podesta had his entire Gmail account copied. Yes, it was a Google Gmail account that he was using for official business. This happened, quite frankly, because John Podesta is careless and understands nothing about computer security. He was a victim of what’s called a “Spear Phishing” play. This is when you get sent a fake email by someone with nefarious intentions in order to trick you into giving them something, typically your password or a credit card number. A phisher created an email that looks like a Gmail password reset request. Podesta clicked on a link in the email and input his username and password. As soon as he did that a program logged into his Gmail account and downloaded all of is emails. Make no mistake this is an absolutely baseline attack that no one should fall for, especially someone with high level security clearance. The phisher probably couldn’t believe it actually worked because yes, even a 14 year old could have pulled it off. Email protocol works a lot like regular mail. You can put whatever return address you want (The “from” or return email address) on an email just like on a regular letter. It’s up to the email provider’s security algorithms to analyze the email origination data and determine if it’s malicious or not. It’s also extremely easy to make emails that look official. This is because they’re basically just html web pages being sent using the email protocol. You can design emails to look like any webpage on the internet using basic tools built into your web browser that you probably don’t know are there. I don’t fault anyone for getting phished but Podesta was about to possibly become a high ranking official in a Presidential administration. He should have known better on multiple levels.
That also brings us to Hillary’s email server.
I’m not going to deep dive on this but there are three undeniable facts about this debacle:
She used a private email server, and this practice is frowned upon for security reasons. Anyone can set up an email server, as long as you have a computer and an internet connection it can be done. All the software to do it is free online. Linux distributions have it built into it.
She erased large swathes of data off of the server when it came to light that she was using a private server that may have been compromised.
The email server had no encryption protection for roughly three months because the security certificates were expired. This is just crazy. It’s beyond incompetent. It essentially means that the server was out in the open and low level hackers could snoop her emails and compromise the system with relative ease. It’s totally unacceptable and denotes a level of carelessness that’s mind boggling.
With all that being said, let’s get into how “The Russians” actually operate. There was something back in the day called the RBN, or “Russian Business Network”. This was server infrastructure that the Russian mob leased to cyber criminals that they could use to run hacking and phishing ops with impunity and the Russian govt tolerated it. Putin was, and still is, the Godfather. Any hacker from any country could use the RBN but if hey hit a big enough score they needed to render unto Caesar what was Caesar’s (Putin’s) or face his wrath. The GRU (Formerly KGB) is an active threat, no doubt about it. But so are other state actors and individuals, especially North Korea and China. Just because an attack originates from Russia, or uses hacktools with a Russian signature doesn’t mean that it’s the GRU and that Putin directly ordered it. It simply means that Russia IT infrastructure, either belonging to the state or the Russian mob, was used at least in part to carry it out. Brian Krebs wrote about the difficulty in defining what attacks come from where in regards to Russia. I simply feel that viewing Putin as this boogeyman that controls our sitting President like a puppet is disingenuous at best and pure opposition propaganda at worst. Russia is not some mythical super villain. China has far more money, influence, technological and military power that Russia does right now, and commits espionage against us daily even though our economies are tightly intertwined. Putin is not a nice guy in any sense, but to continuously call a sitting President a traitor and a puppet without any prosecutable proof is crazy and juvenile in many ways. So why all the Russia hate then? Other than the fact that Russia has always been our enemy in whatever governmental form it has taken? Well, you could just follow Glenn Greenwald or Matt Taibbi to figure that out but if you want it boiled down to a single word then here it is: Snowden.
Edward Snowden was a computer science prodigy and was recruited by the NSA to run several IT surveillance campaigns, including illegal domestic spying programs. He leaked top secret information and has bee a fugitive ever since. Julian Assange ran Wikileaks and was also a fugitive until his relatively recent arrest. Snowden is still at large and is being harbored by Putin on Russian soil, and may soon achieve citizenship. The bottom line is that until Putin turns Snowden over to US intelligence agencies he will be super villain #1 to the NSA and CIA. His continued defiance angers a lot of not nice people in our government. I find this somewhat amusing given how many crimes the United States government commits against its own citizens and citizens of other countries on a daily basis. “Do as we say not as we do”.
And last but not least there is the laptop of the illustrious Hunter Biden. This whole ordeal is the most obvious sign of blatant media hypocrisy to date. The mainstream corporate media has run with virtually every unsourced anti-Trump conspiracy theory ever concocted. And yet they implemented what was essentially a total media blackout regarding his laptop, or rather the contents of it. You can claim whatever you like regarding how the data was obtained. Whether the computer repairman story was actually true or if it once again was “The Russians”. What is actually incontrovertible is that:
The media has shown rank hypocrisy in refusing to cover the story.
Irrespective of whether or not the emails leaked are authentic or not the videos and images leaked of Hunter Biden are real and paint a very disturbing picture of him. Especially since he recorded his behavior without consideration of what it could do to his father if it was discovered.
The Biden’s legal counsel has never denied the validity of the leaked information.
Yet this warrants no media coverage whatsoever by the obviously in the tank corporate media.
And after all this anyone who questions their current narratives are labeled “fringe” and “conspiracy theorists”, or my favorite: “A Russian Asset”, which you can do without any real proof whatsoever these days.
EDIT: Someone pointed out to me that the GRU is not formerly the KGB. This is correct. The KGB is now defunct and has essentially been replaced by the FSB. The GRU has always existed, even though it changed after the fall of the Soviet Union. I made that general statement to try to give context but it is inaccurate. For full explanation look here:
https://themoscowproject.org/explainers/russias-three-intelligence-agencies-explained/

https://mg.co.za/africa/2020-12-08-a-glimpse-into-the-future-of-government-propaganda/
Ethiopia is the latest government to hijack the business of fact checking, imitating the work of independent media and repurposing it for government propaganda while in the middle of a conflict.
One example: On 20 November, more than two weeks after the conflict in Ethiopia began, the African Union chair announced a three-person special envoy who would travel to Ethiopia to mediate, and thanked Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for accepting the initiative.
The following morning, government social media accounts and state-owned broadcasters came out swinging, calling the mediation “fake news”. The first account to deny the mediation plans was the newly created government account, the Ethiopia State of Emergency (SOE) Fact Check, which has more than 14 000 followers on Twitter and some 160 000 “likes” and “follows” on Facebook.
The government’s “fact-checking” claims, particularly pertaining to the military operation in Tigray, are troubling because the internet shutdown in the region makes it difficult to independently verify information about the conflict.
“It’s good for them to have something on record but they are also hijacking something that becomes a function of the press to keep them [the government] in check,” said Eric Mugendi, Africa programme manager at Meedan. Mugendi previously worked at Pesa Check, an independent fact-checking site. “What these governments, or bad actors as I like to call them, are trying to do is put the media in a fix; what ends up happening is no one really knows where to look for credible information.”
It is not just the government that’s using social media to claim and spread “facts” about the conflict, directing messages towards international audiences, government critics are too. But they are using two very different strategies.

Quantity versus quality

While the government has sought to position itself as the sole provider of reliable information, as funnelled through their SOEFactCheck account, anti-government groups have adopted the opposite approach. Until recently, anti-government accounts and messages on Twitter were having a wider reach than pro-government accounts.
The anti-government strategy appears to be one of quantity over quality — leaders, particularly in the diaspora, have encouraged followers to create new Twitter accounts, spread hashtags, respond to content and tweet at influential accounts. The result has been a significant increase in the number of single-issue accounts tweeting about Ethiopia, and a high volume of anti-government tweets.
A sample of 90 000 tweets about Tigray and Abiy between 3 and 10 November showed that accounts created in 2020 were responsible for 30% of the discourse. More than a quarter of these tweets were from accounts created in October and November, and were overwhelmingly anti-government. We subsequently analysed more than 38 000 tweets from 13 to 19 November that included the hashtag #NationalDialogueNow, and found that nearly half (46%) of these tweets were from accounts created in July (after Ethiopian activist and singer Hachalu Hundessa was killed), October and November of this year.

Going viral

But the SOEFactCheck account recently saw a significant increase in the reach and spread of one particular tweet. The content of this tweet has the potential to undermine one of the last reliable sources of information about the conflict — the eyewitness accounts of refugees.
The tweet, which was sent out by the SOEFactCheck account on 24 November, reads: “We have received credible intelligence that TPLF [Tigray People’s LIberation Front] operatives have infiltrated refugees fleeing into Sudan to carry out missions of disinformation. We caution media entities & international organisations to thoroughly investigate & verify information they receive.”
It was subsequently retweeted by Abiy, his press secretary, Billene Aster Seyoum, and other prominent government accounts. It was then retweeted by an independent “influencer” account, with more than half a million followers.
Analysis conducted by Alexi Drew, a research associate at the King’s College London’s Policy Institute, found that unlike previous tweets by the SOEFactCheck account, this particular tweet gained significant traction. The reach and spread of it reflects a turning point in the government’s disinformation strategy, and suggests that a “quality over quantity” strategy might be working.
Drew described this tweet as a “lynchpin” message in that it pulls together multiple strands of the narrative the government has been seeding about the conflict, in a way that connects to an existing discourse about the unreliability of information. The effect is a muddied information environment, and a general sense of suspicion of all information coming out of the conflict.
“What they’ve managed to do is lay the groundwork to potentially undermine all accounts coming from refugees fleeing the region, by suggesting that they have ‘evidence’ or ‘credible evidence’ that the TPLF has seeded refugees with disinformation actors,” she said. Though this is in the realm of possibilités, the government has provided no evidence that this taking place.
Hours after this tweet was sent out by SOEFactCheck, it’s immediate reach was about 57 000. The reach of subsequent retweets and other mentions was well over a million and continues to grow. “This is a significant amplification ratio — higher than anything else I’ve seen during this conflict,” said Drew.

A country in conflict

This information war takes place against the backdrop of a real conflict. Fighting in Ethiopia erupted on 4 November after months of escalating tensions between the federal and Tigray regional government. Abiy sent military troops into the region in response to a TPLF attack on a federal military base. The government also issued a six-month state of emergency in the northern region, characterising the military incursion as a “law enforcement” operation, designed to uphold “justice and the rule of law”. Ethiopia rejected all calls for mediation and on 28 November, the Abiy announced “full control” of the Tigray capital, Mekele, and an end to the military offensive, yet fighting is still reported in Tigray by the time of writing.
The conflict in Ethiopia now risks deteriorating into a full-blown civil war that could draw in neighbouring states including Eritrea, whose president has long been at odds with Tigrayan leaders. Ethiopia dismisses such claims.
The overall casualties of the conflict are not clear because of the communications blackout; in one incident, reported by Amnesty International, hundreds of civilians were killed in the town of Maikadra by Tigrians militia. This is not the only case of mass violence in Ethiopia. Incidences have been reported recently in other areas including Benishangul-Gumuz, West Wollega, the Afar and the border between the Oromo and Somali regions.
Fears have also been raised about discrimination against Tigrayans. The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission has called on the government to not overstep their limits, saying that it has noted “complaints of ethnic profiling of [people of] Tigrayan origin”. Redwan Hussein, a government spokesperson, admitted that the conflict has affected the wider Tigryan population. One resident said she is afraid of speaking Tigrinya, the predominant language spoken in Tigray. “It has become a crime. I have never felt such hate my entire life”, said Genet, who agreed to speak under a pseudonym. Reports say that thousands of Tigrayans have been arrested.
Both sides of the conflict use derogatory terms to refer to each other, language that makes negotiation or future rebuilding of trust difficult. These terms include the “greedy junta”, “criminal clique”, “conflict entrepreneurs”, “fugitive”, “traitor”, “the enemy”, “fascist”, “terrorist and dictatorial junta”, “aggressors”, “dictator” and “sadist”.

Hate speech and disinformation

“Hate speech” and fake news have served as justifications for shutting down the internet in Ethiopia before, and were used to justify a controversial law criminalising some social media activity, which was passed in Ethiopia in February. Hate speech and disinformation by the different actors do pose a significant problem to the country, and may play some role in the increasing incidences of ethnonationalist violence in regions beyond Tigray.
Pre-existing fears, which can be deeped by unverifiable rumours and uncertainty, may precipitate violence as it did in Rwanda. Independent checking might have been a protective factor — but the government’s co-opting of this practice, in combination with the communications blackout in Tigray, will only worsen the climate of fear and mistrust.
Ethiopia is not the first government to recognise the political power of fact checking claims. In November last year, the press office for the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party changed its Twitter handle to “factcheckUK” during the debate between its party leader, Boris Johnson, and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, a move that sparked widespread condemnation. The Conservative Party remained unapologetic and revived the fact checking brand a month later to celebrate Johnson’s victory.
Also in 2019, the Mexican government hijacked the Verificado Notimex, a brand used by independent fact checking organisations designed to “debunk false news on social media as well as to fact-check dubious content published by traditional media outlets”. In the Czech Republic, a prime ministerial candidate created his own fact-checking site in 2017. Other examples abound, from Turkey’s FactCheckingTr Twitter account to India’s government-run fact checking unit.
“These actions are going to be more coordinated and more organised, especially as more and more governments are engaging with PR companies for image management,” Mugendi said. It is difficult to know who runs PR campaigns on the behalf of governments without the work of independent journalism, which has helped to expose the infamous disinformation campaigns run by Cambridge Analytica and Bell Pottinger.
“The reason they do this is because there is a narrative to control and the first thing you do is discredit anyone who has a dissenting opinion or message, [and] that seems like what this Ethiopian initiative is trying to do,” Mugendi said. “If it was truly interested in fact checking it would work with the journalists working in Ethiopia who are working to fact check information. It feels very disingenuous, very hypocritical.”
The conflict has seen its fair share of crackdown on journalism, including the international media. Several local journalists have been arrested and international journalists summoned and reprimanded. The Foreign Correspondents Association of East Africa raised its concerns in a statement issued on 30 November: “The FCAEA is also alarmed by criticism of international and Ethiopian media organisations, just for doing their jobs, on social media by Ethiopian authorities.”
This is not to say the international media has not made factual mistakes while reporting; for example, the BBC had to delete and apologise for a tweet that misquoted Abiy. These kinds of mistakes, which SOEFactCheck has accurately called out on Twitter, has issued a blanket dismissal of the international media and analysts, helping the government position themselves as the sole provider of reliable information. This is also a reminder for independent fact checkers to keep the media accountable.

Should Twitter step in?

While it is clear that governments cannot independently fact check themselves, what’s less clear is who ought to be responsible for fact checking, particularly on social media and in complex conflict situations.
Twitter has recently taken on a more active role in terms of evaluating the credibility of information shared on its platform. Its updated policy on misleading information states that warning and context labels will be applied to tweets in three broad categories: misleading information, which include statements that have been confirmed false; disputed claims, where the truthfulness or accuracy of a claim is contested or unknown; and unverified claims, which include information that could be true or false, but which is unconfirmed at the time of sharing.
At the very least, SOEFactCheck’s tweet undermining the credibility of refugees fits the definition of an “unverified claim”, if not a “disputed” or outright “misleading” one.
The government has provided no evidence to support this claim, and no evidence has surfaced from other sources. Twitter has not applied any label to this tweet. On 30 November, Abiy claimed that the Ethiopian refugees going to Sudan are mostly young men, and asked where the women and children were, insisting investigations needed to be done. This claim was made despite the fact that the United Nations Human Rights Council data of registered 44 682 refugees shows 45% were children and 43% were women, as of 30 November.
Similarly, when the army accused the World Health Organisation director general of supporting the TPLF, the SOEFactCheck account did not step up to provide evidence.
When we asked Twitter if they were monitoring and evaluating claims being made about Ethiopia’s conflict, a spokesperson said only that “our goal is to give people the context and tools necessary to find credible information on our service — no matter the topic or where they are seeing the tweet”. She added that Twitter’s policies are “uniform across the globe” and that they are “prioritising the removal of content where it has a clear call to action that could potentially cause real-world harm”.
While the absence of information labels confirms Twitter’s focus on disinformation in the West, it is not necessarily the case that these labels would be a good source of fact checking in the Ethiopian context. During this year’s United States presidential election, Twitter began to attach labels to some of President Donald Trump’s unfounded claims of electoral fraud. Twitter has since said its efforts slowed the spread of false information. But researchers are divided as to whether this kind of fact checking is helping to build a more reliable information environment, one where fact claims are subject to evidence-based debate and independent scrutiny.

Undermining the power of fact-checking

Independent fact checking is a crucial (if imperfect) tool in the fight against disinformation and political manipulation. But its power is being eroded by governments bent on repurposing the practice as propaganda.
While some governments and political groups continue to rely on the spreading of mass disinformation on social media (often in the form of automated “bots”), evidence from Ethiopia suggests a new, and deeply troubling strategy. Abiy’s government appears to be trying to dramatically limit the number of actors able to claim access to the truth, as well as limiting potential sources of truthful information, with the intention of spreading their messages to as large an audience as possible while maintaining control of the narrative.
“This will be the future of government propaganda, because at some level the government is trying to play a seed of doubt in any information that they don’t like”, Mugendi said. “It’s becoming less viable to shut down the internet. This is the next best thing”.

I know this subreddit isn’t supposed to be pro-Clinton, it’s mainly just an anti-Trump platform. But with that post debunking The_Donalds K.K.K meme. I thought I should make my own posts debunking other myths about Clinton not as an endorsement of her but just as a clarification of facts.
A “correction of the record” if you will.
Myth: Hillary volunteered to defend a man who had raped a 12 year old girl and after getting him found not guilty she laughed at the victim and called her a slut, mocking her in court for being raped.
Even though this has been debunked by Snopes and various other fact checking websites and Media Watchdog groups. Conservatives still are touting this myth as a smear against Clinton.
So here is what actually happened.
In 1975, Thomas Alfred Taylor (41-year-old factory worker) was charged with raping a 12-year-old girl in his pickup truck off a highway in Arkansas.
At his court hearing, Taylor asked for a woman to represent him. The county which this case took place in had six female attorneys in it. The judge looked over the list and picked the first name on it. Which happened to be Hillary Clinton.
When Washington County prosecutor Mahlon Gibson contacted Hillary Clinton. (Age 26 and fresh out of Yale at the time.) She told him she didn’t feel comfortable taking the case and asked to be taken off it. Only for the Prosecutor to remind her that as a court appointed attorney she doesn’t have the right to refuse to represent a client.
(If Hillary had outright refused to represent Taylor not only would her legal career be over but she would likely face contempt of court or disbarment. Which would of made the last 8 years she spent going to law school and being accepted by the Bar Association meaningless.)
Taylor at the time was facing up to 30 years in prison only for it to be discovered through the course of the investigation that the police had mishandled evidence involved in the case. At this point the prosecutor offered Taylor a plea deal if he plead guilty to a lesser charge which he agreed to.
Clinton never mocked or laughed at the victim or called her a lying slut on the stand because there was no trial since Taylor pled guilty. Which is pretty much the norm even without the police mishandling evidence. At the time 97% of court cases never went to trial and would result in a plea deal.
Now conservatives, instead of spending your time fabricating myths about a presidential candidates connection to people who raped 12 year old girls.

Maybe you should look at Trump who instead of defending a child rapist has actually been accused of being one.

Trump on convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein:
"I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,'' Trump once said about the convicted sex offender. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it -- Jeffrey enjoys his social life." - Donald Trump
Trump Named in Epstein's Little Black Book
Epstein’s “little black book” was stolen by a former employee in 2004. The book, nicknamed "The Holy Grail" by the employee, revealed the name of Donald Trump and listed “14 phone numbers including emergency numbers, car numbers, and numbers to Trump's security guard and houseman.”
Trump Accused of Pedophiliac Rape at “Sex Slave Island.”
Radar Online reports that a woman in California, “identified” as Katie Johnson, filed a $100 million lawsuit against Trump on April 26, accusing the real estate mogul of raping her when she was just 13 years old. Johnson “claims Trump raped her when she was 13-years-old and forced her to engage in sex acts by threatening to harm her and her family,” notes The Independent UK. “She claims the alleged abuse took place over a four-month period at underage sex parties held in New York City in 1994.” Epstein was also named for alleged sexual misconduct and threats.
UPDATE: Affidavits Released [Nauseating] (Courtesy, spitefence)
Epstein Admitted to a Friendship With Trump, But Pleaded the 5th When Asked if Trump Engaged in Pedophiliac Rape
Epstein admitted to knowing Trump under oath, and curiously pled the fifth to Trump attending sex parties with underage girls. Back in 2010, Epstein admitted to “socializing” with Trump, but when a lawyer representing an under-aged victim of Epstein’s asked if he has “ever socialized with Donald Trump in the presence of females under the age of 18,” Epstein curiously pled the Fifth.

Per Vice News:
Q: Have you ever had a personal relationship with Donald Trump?
A. What do you mean by "personal relationship," sir?
Q. Have you socialized with him?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Yes?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Have you ever socialized with Donald Trump in the presence of females under the age of 18?
A: Though I'd like to answer that question, at least today I'm going to have to assert my Fifth, Sixth, and 14th Amendment rights, sir.

At least one of Epstein’s underage sex victims was recruited from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago — which both Epstein and Trump frequented often.
Virginia Roberts, an alleged victim of Epstein’s, "was recruited to perform a massage for Epstein while working as a $9-per-hour locker room attendant at Mar-A-Lago.”
Roberts claims that “Epstein turned her into a ‘sex slave’ and pimped her out to various friends, including England's Prince Andrew. Over the years, the passengers on Epstein's jet, she said, included ‘a whole bunch of other girls, sometimes famous people, sometimes some politicians.'"
BUT THERE'S MORE: Trump's Ex-Wife Accused Him of Rape Too
The first time Trump was publicly accused of rape was during his divorce proceedings from his first wife Ivana Trump in the early ’90s. It was chronicled in “Lost Tycoon,” a biography of Trump that came out in 1993.

Suddenly, according to Ivana, the Donald storms into the room. He is looking very angry, and he is cursing out loud. “Your fucking doctor has ruined me!” he screams. The Donald flings Ivana down onto the bed. Then he pins back her arms and grabs her by the hair.
The part of her head he is grabbing corresponds to the spot on his head where the scalp reduction operation has been done. The Donald starts ripping out Ivana’s hair by the handful, as if he is trying to make her feel the same kind of pain that he is feeling.
Ivana starts crying and screaming. The entire bed is being covered with strands of her golden locks. But the Donald is not finished. He rips off her clothes and unzips his pants. Then he jams his penis inside her for the first time in more than 16 months.
Ivana is terrified. This is not lovemaking. This is not romantic sex. It is a violent assault. She later describes what the Donald is doing to her in no uncertain terms. According to the versions she repeats to some of her closest confidantes, “He raped me.” When the Donald finally pulls out, Ivana jumps up from the bed. Then she runs upstairs to her mother’s room. She locks the door and stays there crying for the rest of the night.

• In 1990s A woman claimed Trump tried to rape her her and told her he wanted to, “Make her his sex slave.”
  
• Trump Open-Mouth Kissed, Groped, and Harassed Beauty Pageant Contestants
  
• Trump Worked His Ass Off to Get an Avowed and Convicted Rapist Out of Jail
  
• Trump on Twitter: Male Soldiers Raping Female Soldiers is What You Get When You Let Women in the Military
  
• Trump Accused by Staffers of Sexual Harassment and Discrimination
  
• Former Trump Campaign Manager Repeatedly Accused of Sexual Harassment
  

AND THEN THERE'S IVANKA...: Donald Trump Quotes About His Own Daughter

• "Yeah, she's really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren't happily married and, ya know, her father …" — to Rolling Stone in September 2015
  
• "If Ivanka weren't my daughter, perhaps I'd be dating her." - On "The View," Appearing beside his daughter who gives a pained look, shifts uncomfortably, and declines to respond to the bizarre comment, which drew groans from the audience and prompted comedian Joy Behar to compare Trump to filmmaker and accused pedophile Woody Allen.
  
• Trump was asked how he would feel if Ivanka posed for Playboy. “It would be really disappointing — not really — but it would depend on what’s inside the magazine. I don’t think Ivanka would do that, although she does have a very nice figure. I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”
  
• Earlier in 2003 on The Howard Stern Show, Donald Trump was also bragging about his daughter’s hot body: “You know who’s one of the great beauties of the world, according to everybody? And I helped create her. Ivanka. My daughter, Ivanka. She’s 6 feet tall, she’s got the best body. She made a lot money as a model—a tremendous amount.”
  

Thanks to It_Could_Happen_Here for information about Trumps connection to pedophilia.

But what about all those women Bill Clinton Raped and Hillary tried to smear?

Looking into the cases of rape against Bill Clinton. The weird thing is how for many of them the media sources don’t even attempt to give proof for these women existing.
Now current rape shield laws prevent journalists from publishing names and pictures of victims without their permission so because of that you can understand why you wouldn’t find much info about rape victims in local papers reporting crimes like that.
I wouldn’t normally accuse journalists of using this to fabricate stories and justify them giving nameless or anonymous women who apparently they spoke too, claiming they were raped by Bill Clinton and who never came forward with any accusations.
But Roger Stone isn’t really a journalist. And previous statements where he accused Capt. Humayun Khan of being a Muslim Brotherhood Spy without any real evidence, makes anything he claims very questionable. and unless he actually provides more evidence besides just saying,

“I tracked down a woman who was raped by Bill Clinton in 1974 when she was 19. And in order to protect her identity I can’t provide you any evidence on who she is or how I found her.”

Then I’m going to dismiss those accounts that were “discovered" by Roger Stone and Robert Morrow in their book.”
(I also want to point out that Texas State Politician Robert Morrow who co-wrote the book that “found” dozens of anonymous women who had been raped by Bill Clinton for some reason is wearing a Jester hat in the majority of images I find of him online and just seems like a very bizarre person in general, doing things like pulling out a baby pacifiers with a picture of the Trump Logo on it and sucking it during an interview. Not to use that to discredit his claims, just something I felt like needed to be pointed out.)
Another thing that needs to be said is that Bill Clinton isn’t the only President to have been accused of crimes like this. Literally every single President in the past few decades has had multiple people come forward claiming to be victims of a rape or sexual assault perpetrated by the President after that person is elected.

• It happened to George Bush Senior and even resulted in a little remembered federal investigation when multiple people came forward claiming him along with the CIA were involved in a child prostitution ring and that the president had raped numerous boys during child sex orgies.
  
• It happened to George W. Bush. When a woman named Margie Schoedinger claimed President Bush had his men kidnap, drug and rape her and her husband on multiple occasions. (The woman later died mysteriously as well, where is our Bush Body Count Theory?)
  
• It happened to President Obama when conservative “media outlets” reported how two former male classmates of Barack Obama claimed Obama sexually harassed and assaulted them while he was studying at Harvard.
  
• It happened to the Pope when people tried to start a criminal investigation claiming Pope Francis personally kidnapped, raped and murdered children as part of a Satanic human sacrifice ritual.
  
• It happened to the Queen of England when the Children of God Cult decided they would start making propaganda accusing the Queen of sexually abusing hundreds of children and having their members come out and formally claim she molested them.
  
• It even happened to The Aliens when Niara Isley (An Air Force Radar Technician who worked at Area 51.) claimed she was raped by Reptilians on a government moon base.
  

I’m not trying to say these events didn’t happen or the women accusing President Clinton of rape are lying or mentally ill. But all I’m saying is the evidence against President Clinton is as good as the evidence for these other events happening that I described above.
Discounting other extremely questionably accusations that fall apart to the extent where they don’t even need to be addressed, the tangible accusations of rape or sexual assault against Bill Clinton boil down to a total of three women.

1. Juanita Broaddrick
2. Paula Jones
3. Kathleen Willey

Juanita Broaddrick is a former nursing home administrator from Arkansas. She alleged in 1999 that United States President Bill Clinton had raped her two decades earlier in April, 1978.

• There have been whole books written pointing out discrepancies in Broaddricks story.
  
• How she may of had connections to Clinton's Political rivals.
  
• How she says things that outright don't add up. Such as how Broaddrick said that after the assault, Clinton told her not to worry about pregnancy because childhood mumps had rendered him sterile, despite Bill Clinton having children.
  

Today looking at her Twitter and how its filled with retweets of separate non sexual assaulted related Anti-Clinton Conspiracy Theories or Tweets about her hating Hillary or doing AMAs on /The_Donald it would bring into question a lot of the validity of her statements.
Paula Jones is a former Arkansas state employee who sued U.S. President Bill Clinton for sexual harassment claiming he propositioned and exposed himself to her in a hotel room.
The case about Jones is pretty different than most sexual harassment cases just due to how much she seemed to be focused on media attention rather then the actual case:

• Such as when she went to media outlets to show them her new makeover.
  
• Or when she contacted Penthouse Magazine and agreed to be interviewed by them if they let her pose naked on the cover.
  
• Or how even 25 years later, she is still focusing her life on doing interviews with as many people as possible about the accusations she made against Bill Clinton.
  

Kathleen Willey is a former White House volunteer aide that alleged Bill Clinton had sexually assaulted her in the oval office.
According to another White House employee named Linda Tripp who said during grand jury testimony that Willey seemed to be somewhat obsessed with President Clinton doing such things as:

• Constantly talking about wanting to work on assignments with him.
  
• Wearing a black dress to White House events because she believed President Clinton "had a thing for that."
  
• And even going as far as to try and plan a way for President Clinton to meet her at her house.
  

Ontop of that The Final Report of the U.S. Office of the Independent Counsel report noted that:

"Willey gave false information to the FBI, and acknowledged having lied about it when the agents confronted her with contradictory evidence.

According to Independent Counsel Robert Ray's report, "Willey's Paula Jones deposition testimony differed from her grand jury testimony on material aspects of the alleged incident."
Even more incriminating Julie Hiatt Steele, a friend of Willey, released an affidavit, accusing the former White House aide of asking her to lie to corroborate Ms. Willey's account of being sexually groped by President Clinton in the Oval Office.
Years later Kathleen Willey would later accuse president Clinton of burglarizing her house, in order to steal a copy of the manuscript for a book she was writing.
Now it's pretty clear at this point that the accusations against Bill Clinton fall apart quickly if you actually look into them unlike the accusations against Trump which are enabled and made stronger by Trumps own statements and the statements of other known rapists and pedophiles.
And ontop of that the lies about Hillary helping a rapist be set free is a complete misrepresentation of the truth. It's very odd that Trump Supporters need to fabricate reasons why Hillary is bad if she is really as crooked as they claim she is.

The first episode of Reddit's Drag Race: Season 1 Remastered is finally here. While there were MTQs in the comments below, let's have a better look at out queens, shall we?
Our first queen is new to the RDR scene. With a hometown flair like no other and rudemption storyline just waiting to happen, please welcome—

QUEEN #1: Anita Dragname!

. . .
ORIGINALLY: 14th Place
. . .
For her promo lewk, Anita is a mad witch in the 1800s who was caught for her witchcraft-y ways, with the villagers drowning her in a well and forgetting about her. Hundreds of years later, she was found, still alive. She is wearing a black corset with emerald jewels bedazzled on it and a long skirt with an extremely long train made entirely out of seaweed. Her body and face is a mix of pale green and lime green with blue shadows to accentuate the veins. Her eyebrows are glitter green and my eyeshadow is a strong emerald and limegreen mix, both on the eyelid and under the eyes. She has white under the eyelids to make my eyes pop and green contacts to match, with the contours done done with the same emerald on my eyes and the lips a mix of dark purple as a base, black for the corners and a light turquoise and white as highlights in the middle. The hair matches the seaweed skirt as she have on a mix of dark green and light green ombre in curls. As she is crawling out the well, (aka posing for my solo promo look), water begins to leak out of her mouth as poses on the spot for the video.
. . .
Hi, I’m Anita Dragname, I’m 25 years old and I come from the beautiful island of Singapore, not in China. And yes, Trump, Kim and I certainly had some fun together. I named myself Anita Dragname cause: 1, I had a good friend called Anita and she gave me 10 bucks for me to name myself after her, and 2, I’m too busy sucking dick to think of an actual drag name. I would describe my drag as sex meets camp.
I decided to return cause I went home first and I didn’t even know why? That was some riggory right there and I’m here to prove that this bitch can turn the party. I’m in musical theatre by trade so I got the whole triple threat and sewing thing going down. Being raised by 2 lesbian hookers definitely influenced my eclectic fashion tastes, so mixing those 2 together forms a force to be reckoned with.
I was inspired to do drag when I did a performance of Cell Block Tango in drag for the first time and I fell in love with the art. From there, I was blessed to be given more female roles. As I help to make costume adjustments for the cast, I thought, why not combine everything that I love about Theatre and put it into drag! Thus, the she-devil was born. I’m known for doing more intellectual performances, tugging at the heart strings and teasing the mind with my lipsyncs. But that doesn’t mean I can’t tear up the dance floor with Top 40s hits! The splits, high kicks and shablams would definitely be there when I’m not making people feel things.
Season 1 Remastered is going to be… crazy! Y’all better watch out cause I’m gonna Shangela it up in this house!
Our second queen is well-known in the RDR community. The original Miss Bitch, now host of Big Sissy, is back, back, back, baby. Please welcome—

QUEEN #2: Angelique!

. . .
For her promo look, Angelique is returning from below Pompeii. She is covered from head to toe in gray as she is covered in soot. She is wearing a flowy blue dress that is that is brought in at the waist by a belt. Her dress easily billows in the wind and flows easily down to her feet. She wears a white shawl around her shoulders. Her face is gray with a darker gray contour and black eyeshadow with a slightly darker brown lip. She has a dark crack doing down her right cheek from head to chin. These cracks go down her arms and legs. She is wearing brown sandals as shoes to fit her Roman woman illusion.
. . .
Do I even need to introduce myself? These girls know me... JK, Miss Thing! I'm Angelique, I'm 24 and I'm from Kansas City. My best asset are my obnoxiously large pads and nails. Good for knocking bitches out.
I would describe my drag is Big Booty Bitch. Simple, I know, but it puts the B in Beautiful. Speaking of bitch, I was last year's Miss Bitch, thanks for the votes, and I plan on keeping that title. A wise queen once said, "A bitch is being in total control of herself", so eat it, cunts.
I started drag last year after Trump's election in order to blend with the straight white women and be safe from the trumpster fire. I'm political fish. I look forward to winning some challenges and showing these hoes that I'm fierce as fuck. And yes, Caprice, I did take acting challenges, perhaps you should take some shade lessons, get some new material. Fuckin' whore.
A message? For the other bitches? Quit drag.
Our next queen is coming for the comeback to end all comebacks. Please welcome—

QUEEN #3: Marianna!

. . .
ORIGINALLY: 11th Place
. . .
Marianna wears a grey body-hugging strapless satin dress that hits the floor. There's a black embroidery, that, upon closer inspection, depicts spider web, spiders, and roses. The bottom of the dress is covered in grime and is somewhat tattered. She also wears a black lace shawl on her shoulders, with pattern also depicting spiderweb, spiders and roses. Marianna's hair is jet black and incredibly messy, almost like an aura behind her head. Her whole face is pale and her features are purposefully darkened, with added wrinkles. Her facial expression is full of grief and regret, she looks like she's half-crying and half-screaming. Her pose makes her look crestfallen and downtrodden.
. . .
Приве́т! I'm Marianna, I'm totally-21-yup-yup, and I'm a Russian! I'd say that my drag is gothic, sexy and femme-fatale. I'm so inspired by badass heroines and villainesses who are just like "Fuck the patriarchy!", y'know? I mean, my look today is the modern version of The Lady of the House of Love. I've never read it, but.. she sounds fierce.
My best asset are these LEGS, girl. Look at these luscious, long goddesses. Such beauty. . .. Just don't tell Naomi, I can't hold a candle to her! I've been doing drag and all the fellas from my local bar for a year and a half now, so I'm still a baby queen, but I've had a lot more experiences than older queens, so don't underestimate me.
I can't for Snatch Game, honestly, not because I'll win, but because I'll be so bad it'll be the most entertaining shitshow of your life! In Season 1, I think I was most notable for being part of Team Safe with Obeseia. Now, with there being more of a chance to shine, I think I'm a lock in for Top 7.
My personality hasn't really changed, to be honest, I'm still a supportive queen, love my girls Caprice and Annie. I'll continue to be supportive to my Season 2 sisters as well, there's nothing to lose and all to gain from being nice!
Although, I hope we can still be friends after I win.
Our next queen is the original lip sync assassin. More fashionable than ever, please welcome our very own dancing diva—

QUEEN #4: Annie Depressant!

. . .
ORIGINALLY: 8th Place
. . .
Annie is wearing a bodysuit with full arms & a neckline that is tight on her up to her chin. Her body suit is stoned completely with black stones on the left side. The right side the body suit fuses to Annie’s skin just past her nipples. Her skin is a alabaster white with a grayish tone to it. She has a chunk of her neck missing on her stoned side which is stoned red and is jagged to represent her skin sticking everywhere from the bite. A singular line of red stones curves down her body and where it hits the end of the body suit it turns into beaded jewels that act as a singular fringe.
On the left side of her body her skin is porcelain & pure. She is wearing a red bottomed stiletto that has a singular red jewel that hangs inside of the arch of the shoe. She has on fishnet tights & a black Smokey eye. On the right side her heel is cracked off so she has to lean her foot to the side to stay level. She is wearing no fishnets on this leg so her grey dirt laden skin is exposed. Her body looks red & irritated where the bodysuit melds to her skin in a latex type material. Her hair is in a big loaf like Eureka’s & is perfectly styled on the left side w/ black stones styling it. Her right side of the load is misshapen & knotty like Eufreka’s w/ red diamonds scattered throughout.
…
Hello, I'm Annie Depressant, I'm 22 and I'm from Wilmington, DE! I would describe my drag as regal stoner housewife. Does that make sense? It worked in my head!
My best asset to this competition is my lipsync skills. I delivered some high-end performances with "Raise Your Glass" and "Emotions", so I know that I can give you high-energy as well as soul. I grew in a small town in Maryland that was more conservative, and after being inspired by Drag Race and the like, got the confidence to put on that wig, and begin the journey to becoming Annie! She's everything I fantasise about being.
Will I continue being congenial? Look at you! Tryna' get a sassy answer! All jokes aside, of course I'm gonna keep it up! But come for me and I will cut you. Last time I was on, I was given a free pass onto Season 2, but now there's new rules, a new game, and trust me, I have no advantage. I'm gracious that the pass still was valid, to be quite honest. I just hope I can get past 8th, and claim that win I know I deserve! I'm most looking forward to showing everyone how much I've improved, and Snatch Game! I've got a really cool character planned and I hope you enjoy!
To sign off, I would like to quote Lord Mother Disasterina, "Shut the fuck. Put your God damned pantyhose on, and fucking slay. But don't do better than me.”
Our next queen is the full fantasy, and the ORIGINAL Miss Robbed. Will she get justice? Please welcome—

QUEEN #5: Fantasia Four!

. . .
ORIGINALLY: 7th Place
. . .
Fantasia Four is back, back, back again from the dead. She coughed a spout of sand from her mouth, shooting out from in between her mahusive lips which were cracked, dry skin peeling off the top of them. The trail of sand was stuck to her face, flowing down her chin, stuck to the skin by the tacky surface of spit which had leaked from her mouth over time. Embedded in this stream were small ‘diamonds’ and glistening holographic glitter, also seen on her eyelids in a different colour of a metallic gold. Her caramel, warm skin-tone accommodated the metallic shades perfectly, and the harsh contour she had painted, emphasising on her already strong facial structure, her appearing almost skeleton like. Her eyes emitted a ray of brightness; the bright amber contacts she wore shrunk her pupils and made her supernatural like, cohesive with the gradient of the golden tones of eyeshadow and glitter on her eyelid that followed her dramatic eyeliner wing and black waterline. She wore a Egyptian Pharaoh headdress that had the classic gold and blue appearance, despite maintaining a polished sheen, it was rusted and cracked, symbolic of its age. Her long, sleek brunette hair flows downwards from the headdress, intertwined with the golden beads that dangle from it. She wore a translucent kimono, printed on top were hieroglyphics with a bronze tint, cohesive with the pallazo pants she wore that seemed to be made out of a bronze silk, attached to her corset that cinched her waist to minuscule proportion. Her chest was on show, her nipples covered by white tassels opposing the rest of her padded body. The five inch copper heels that she wore made her appear taller, showing for the loose fabric of the pants which had more ability to flow.
. . .
Hey! I’m Fantasia Four, 7th place and Miss Robbed of season 1! Yay, I’m back! Here’s the thing: Season 1 was AGES ago, and the actual season wasn’t really the most incredible thing in terms of decisions. 4 of my fellow old-school friends got a chance to come back last year, and I’m snatching this opportunity for myself this year! Now, let’s move on from this to talk more about my favorite subject: me!
I’m originally from UK, but I’m now living at New York. My age? No one needs to know that! I’m a queen, you don’t ask a queen for her age! Fantasia Four originates from the concept of my own drag. I was inspired by my own fantasies in wanting success and my ambition, and that I also sometimes gives off fantasy looks that are unique and can be eclectic. Four comes from my favourite number.
3 words to describe my drag? Past, present, future. I’m all about being a drag queen for all times! 3 queens that inspire me? Miss Fame, Nina Bonina and Alaska. I believe Fantasia Four is an amazing, theoretical character that could easily be put into any season and allow the person running it to have flexibility. She has her weak points like any other queen but can redeem herself the next episode of with a great lip sync, and in contrast she has more strong points.
The originator of the first truly interactive (non-random) RDR season, we'll give this bitch a lot of credit. Current contestant of RDR4 and former judge on Season 3, please welcome—

QUEEN #6: Caprice Sun!

. . .
ORIGINALLY: 6th Place
. . .
Caprice stands fierce, looking straight into the camera. Her look is a fierce take on a Celtic warlord, like Boudicca. The top of her outfit is a golden metal chestplate, protecting her body. The bodice has intricate details of engraved Celtic runes and symbols of war. The abdomen of the bodice cinches her in slightly, acting like a corset, and the breastline cups her breastplate nicely. The skirt of her outfit is a teal and green checkered dress, with a side slit exposing her right leg. The skirt falls down to her ankle, leaving her foot exposed. Her right leg is tattooed in black runes and war tattoos also, leading down to a brown ankle boot, with a high heel, covering most of her foot.
Returning to the top of the look, Caprice’s shoulders and arms remain exposed, and visible blackened veins can be seen. Caprice’s wig is a long tangled ginger wig, with leaves and dirt entwined within her fiery locks. Her face is a morbid look, with purple, dry lips and a red nose. Her eye makeup is dramatic, with a purple eyeshadow and green cut crease. From the corners of her eyes, and trickling down her face is a dark red, resembling blood. Her cheeks has the illusion of bursted capillaries, and she has bloodshot contacts in her eyes.
Caprice’s pose is dominant, and she stands, slightly left-centred, with her legs spread apart, drawing attention to her right leg. Her right arm is pointed down, following the stance of the right leg, and her left arm clutches her throat, tainted by the dark veins. Her face juxtaposes her strong stance, with a tone of remorse and regret painted on her.
. . .
I’m 23, and I’m from the UK! In real life, I am 18, but she’s still that English ho! Okay, so on the base level, it’s a classic pun name, y’know, Capri-Sun, Caprice Sun. But there’s more to it. I was in English class, and we were going over exam technique, and he pulls up an example essay question. On one side is a messy bitch laughing about prostitution, on the other is a diary from a former sex worker called Caprice. I was immediately inspired by this Caprice woman, although she doesn’t exist. Then it struck, Caprice Sun.
My drag style in three words? Conceptual, campy, fierce. nMy inspired self wants to say that I want to use this as an outlet for my creativity and poetic juices, as well as just having fun doing this silly stupid competition we all love, but also, I have something to prove. I’ve been a host and a judge, and I’ve been known to be really fucking harsh. I want to show that I’m just as good as I’ve made myself out to be, if not better, but also show I can be nice! It’s rare but I can be! This is my time to fucking go balls to the wall and own it gurl. My edge is my competitiveness, my drive. My fear of bombing anything will ensure that I work at something until it’s absolutely perfect. Although you didn’t ask, I’m gonna be real. I do have some weaknesses. I’m very bitter at losing, so expect a Korn-level bitchfit when I bomb. JK Miss Thing! Failure gives me the fire to step it up 10x as hard on the next challenge, though. And I will be here ‘till the end, cuz I ain’t gonna lose a challenge, let alone a lipsync. My stress levels are gonna be off the charts. And do you know what that all means? DRAMA. I’m gonna break down the fucking T for every bitch, I will not keep it cute, and I will tell you straight up if you’re shit. Once again, ask Korn. My inspiration in drag? Very cliche, but EVERYTHING. God, I mean, look at me, I’m a fucking candlestick! I’m very inspired by movies, TV shows, pop culture. I love finding just funny, wacky shit and making something out of it. Also, video games, eastern culture. I love those badass bitches in games, kicking ass and popping their pussies.
The only thing I’m known for is being a cunt, but that’s a performance in itself. It’s hard out here for a bitch. Y’know, I would say I’m known for being a dancing, rapping queen. I split, I vogue, I waack, I deathdrop. She’s a dancer, she’s showing the audience that was there! Owww! My art, it’s very conceptual. Oh, category is flowers? Let me be a fucking sunflower. You know a winged creature? I’m gonna be a gargoyle queen! I go fully committed to a concept, and that’s saying something. I’ve never committed to anything in my life, just ask my husband! One final message: Stan LOONA.
Our next queen is in the running for our next dancing diva. With a soul train flair, she’s about to get sickening! Please welcome—

QUEEN #7: Tish Hughes!

. . .
ORIGINALLY: 5th Place
. . .
Tish is wearing a light brown form fitting mermaid gown. The gown is tattered and dirty, giving it an aged appearance. The sides of the gown are covered in wilted flowers, creating a dark contrast to the light beige and further creating the illusion of a slender, cinched waist. The bottom of the gown is layers upon of layers of decaying calla lilies, giving it a ruffle like appearance. Tish’s hair is a black layered bob, that’s been teased to all hell, with baby’s breath weaved into it. Her face and body makeup is a clown white, giving her an extremely pale and sickly appearance. Her white sclera contacts are a sharp contrast to her dark black eye makeup that gives her a sunken in look. Instead of contour, Tish put bloody stitches around her face and under her high cheekbones. As a prop, Tish holds a bouquet of red roses, presumably stolen from the grave next to hers. Tish created a storyline of a former starlet who died while in recovery of a facelift, trying to revive her career. She’s furious that her fans don’t visit her grave and leave her her flowers anymore, so she’s coming for everyone else’s. She wants you to know if you see her, she’s not after your brains, she’s after the bouquet you left on Aunt Barbara’s grave.
. . .
Hi, my beautiful boogers, my name is Tish Hughes. I’m 22 years young and I’m from Brooklyn, NY. When I was 18 and I first listened to Partition by Beyonce there was this one line that I lived for! It went like “I sneezed on the beat and the beat got sicker”.
I thought it was so fierce and then I came up with the name Tish Hughes because every bitch here is going to need one when they see how sickening I am. If I had to describe my drag style in three words it would be fluid, colorful & gobsmacking. I decided to return for S1 show that with a stable internet connection, I’m able to turn the party.
I believe that life is a banquet and we are all starving. But this for this banquet I’m pushing everyone out the way and hogging all the expensive calamari and dinner rolls. My hunger for this is my edge and I’m ready to push all these girls off of it. Hope their padding breaks their fall!
The fierce black performers I grew up admiring. I was raised by a mother who always played Jody Watley, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, Diana Ross, Stephanie Mills and so many more!
I get a lot of fashion inspiration watching Soul Train videos on YouTube. Those girls were there to dress their absolute best and turn it out as well, amazing! I’m a dancing diva. I can turn a lip sync like no other. Whoever I’m in the bottom with needs to bring it because there is no way I’m going out without the claws coming out.
Season 1 Remastered is going to be alluring. You’re going to need a tissue to wipe your tears after I wipe you all out.
Our next queen is a well-known worrier and spooky ooky kooky extraoirdnare! Please welcome—

QUEEN #8: Kornucopia!

. . .
ORIGINALLY: 4th Place
. . .
Kornucopia is serving some sort of undead, glamazon humanoid that crawled out of a gold vat. Every single inch of her exposed skin is coated in gold glitter. This mainly includes her head (which has been completely shaved), neck, and arms. Her garment is a gold sequin mermaid dress, the same color as her skin so that the two almost blend together. The only thing that sets them apart are their textures. The dress follows the standard mermaid silhouette, with tons of black neoprene ruffles at the bottom of the dress, and a front slit that exposes her lower left leg and a black, seven inch stiletto. The sleeveless garment is held up by two thick, black elastic straps. The black elements are to give the idea that the creature before the camera used to be a glamorous lady who was out for a night on the town. The straps, along with the ruffles and heel, also prevent the look from being an overflow of gold and sparkles. All along Korn’s arms and hands are long, almost floor-length strings of gold beads that have been connected to her skin with an adhesive before applying the glitter. Molten skin, but make it high fashion. The beads are closely threaded together to give them more of a melting, dripping appearance.
As the camera gets closer, a few finishing touches of Kornucopia’s look are revealed. She lifts her head to reveal the fine details of her face. Her eyes are completely covered by black sclera contacts. She opens her mouth in a snarl, revealing two rows of sharp teeth prosthetics. The fake teeth have been completely coated in non-toxic black paint, as has Korn’s tongue. Meanwhile, the rest of her mouth is pale white, with a slight gold-yellow tint. Korn also sports sharp, sparkling golden nails.
…
Ding dong! The witch is back! My name is Kornucopia, because I got a lot to give. I’m 28 years old from Salem, Massachusetts! I’m campy, creepy and odd: the perfect combination to slay this competition!
My drag is inspired by the work of Laila McQueen for the goth, Kim Chi for her out of the box looks, and Melissa Befierce for her versatility. Honorable mention: Disasterina, icon. All of that mixed up together resulted in me, the Season 1’s 4th place that is ready to slay the competition again! I truly am a gift that keeps on giving!
I was raised somewhere in the middle of Wyoming, then hitchhiked my way to Salem, Massachusetts. Living here was my destiny. Some of the people who lived here long ago were supposedly witches, and I have taken a lot of inspiration from the history of Salem. I believe I deserve to be the next drag superstar because I am something different.
Yes, we’ve had Sharon and Sasha, who gave crazy and unique looks, but I feel what departments they were lacking in, I have that. I can do comedy, socialize properly, and not rely just one thing. I’m not gonna say I should win because I’m ‘weird’ but. . .. I should win because I’m weird.
Our next queen went by the name of Proud Mary but, to quote Monique who quoted the Bible, “what is done in the dark shall eventually come to light.” And the light is blazing! Please welcome—

QUEEN #9: Alex!

. . .
ORIGINALLY: 2nd Place
. . .
There is a giant dusty liquid hyperbaric chamber upright with the writing “Winter 2017: Season #1 Escape Pod” on it. Alex is shown to be stepping out with a moldy blue and green heel stuck and peeling off from her skin. The glass door is opened from the top (similar to the one from the 1979 movie Alien). Blue dyed water pours out from the bottom. Alex is completely naked with what seems to be mold and algae all over her body. Her eyes are as white as fog and are bleeding a gooey blue blood. Her skin has a slight light blue colour to it with red veins all over her body. Her hair is dyed a navy blue and buzzed into a military style haircut. Scales have formed all around her body and shine with a green tint against the lighting.
…
Hello! My name is Alex but you can refer to me by my drag name… GARTHOLOMEW! No, it’s Alex too.
I was referred to as Proud Mary in Season 1 but it didn’t roll off the tongue well. It didn’t keep rolling if you know what I mean. Yes, boring, I KNOW, EVITA.
I’m from the country of Canadia eh and I’m turning 22 tomorrow. Practically a sad MILF already. The origin of my name is that I like being referred to by my real name on stage and not some stupid name like Evita.
My drag style can be described with “quitter”, “over emotional” and “wow-I-can’t-believe-he-didn’t-quit-yet”. I decided to return because I love this game with all my heart. What gives me an edge is that I know how this game works. I’ve in some way been apart of every season so far. My drag is inspired by my intense road rage at the guy that attempted to run me off the road when I was leaving work. I’m also known for my high energy, tight lip sync performances on the stage.
Fill in the blank: Season 1 Remastered is going to be— Marianna’s. My final message? Hmm.
AAAAAAAAAAA
Our next two queens are NOT from RDR1, they have been instead asked to enter the competition because of special circumstances. Our next queen is technically the first winner ever of this whole series, but will she snatch the official title of Reddit's First Drag Superstar? Please welcome—

QUEEN #10: Bianca Bibancos!

. . .
A NEW CHALLENGER ARRIVES!
. . .
Wearing a black and white mermaid gown, Bianca poses for the promo picture with a dress that fits her body perfectly. With a V-neckline the look is very Frankenstein inspired: the two parts of the sequins dress, divided in black and white halves are “stitched” together with big, oversized, almost comical sized over proportioned crooked stitches, that go from the bottom of her skirt to her breasts. Over her left breast, a small cut whole lets out “drops” of blood made out of fabric. Her skin is also painted half and half, but half green (on the same side where the dress is black) and half purple (on the white side of the dress). Bianca’s body is painted in perfect symmetry, dividing her body in two, with the exception of her right hand, painted in yellow, and part of her left shoulder, painted in blue. She’s multicolored, and in the division between a colour and other, there are also a line of fake stitches splitting her body parts. On her face, her makeup is simple: a black lip (with cartoonish stitches cutting across her lips from ear to ear) and a white running mascara are combined with her white sclera lenses. She’s also wearing a large, hairsprayed-up-for-the-gods black and white wig split in half life two big horns.
. . .
Hola! My drag name is Bianca Bibancos! Bianca is 24 years old from Brasil, and she's the intersection between Honey Boo Boo and Billy the Puppet!
Bianca is a dark-minded, horror fan camp comedy queen ready to win all the challenges and send the other Kandy Ho's packin! I love to tell stories with my characters and- Oh, sorry, only three words! Fuck it, Bianca also likes to break the rules.
I started drag after being inspired by legendary alumni like Max, Milk, Acid Betty (hopefully I get further than those queens). I watched the show and thought, "Y'know, I would do this and this if I was there", and so, Bianca was born, and she has trained to get that crown!
I look forward to WINNI- cough. Oh god, what was that? I have to no clu—SEND THEM BITCHES HOME— cough— I am so sorry, I have no idea what came over me, I needs to settle down. Keeping it real: I look forward to hearing from fans, having fun and letting my creativity go full force!
I hope everyone enjoys watching this international fish be crowned! It's Bibancos time! And remember, come TO Brasil, but don't come FOR Brasil.
Our final contestant of the day was an early out from RDR4, but because of divine intervention herself, she has been given new life on RDR1 Remastered. Please welcome—

QUEEN #11: Ruby Jubilee!

. . .
A NEW CHALLENGER ARRIVES
. . .
Ruby’s skin is painted snow white, contoured with dark shadows to give definition in her face, arms and legs. She is further detailed with intricate blue veins, etched on her skin all around. Her hair is a big 80’s tease and crimp, coloured black with two white streaks on either side of her head, in a half-up ponytail, the rest of her hair flowing down to the small of her back. Her face is snatched using high contours and dark features. Wearing blackout contacts, her eyes are completely smoked, complimented with her signature red glittery lip. Cascading from her bottom lip, is dark red blood FX, dripping all the way down her neck. Her nails are long stiletto points, coloured in a pattern of red and black, and every finger is covered in a ring of different size and shape of animal skulls. Around her neck, she wears a black leather choker, on which hangs an inverted pentagram. Attached to the choker, is a Dracula-esque collar, rising high around her neck. Supporting her enlarged breastplate, is a leather corset, adorned with red crystals (replicas to those of her final runway from S4), that cinches her waist to unordinary levels. Wearing matching leather cuffs on her forearms, a leather cape that is attached on the cuffs and the high cut of the corset bellows as a train behind her, adorned with silver engravings of bats and cobwebs. Her lower half is a black leather hoop skirt, further adorned in red crystals, and lined in crimson red crinoline, however it split in the front, revealing her long, statuesque legs. To finish the look, she wears the same red pumps from her original promo, but now, the heel of the shoe is a sparkling silver cobweb.
…
I am Ruby Jubilee, the drag firework! I am 21 years old and I hail all the way from hot-as-fuck Australia! And yes, my down under is just as big as Eureka’s ego! No shade, just loving tea! Ruby is my grandmother’s birthstone, and my grandmother is easily the most glamorous woman I know, besides from myself, of course). Jubilee is in honour of the X-Men character, that bitch was a walking firework show! That’s also why I’m known as the drag firework, when I’m on stage, I am the only shimmering spectacle, and ALL eyes are on me and my tucked labia.
My drag style in 3 words? I’m not good at math, so we’re gonna use 5 words. Curvy, because I’m not tryna be some twig bitch. I am ridiculous, barely taking life seriously, except this competition, I'm reading to put on a bitchy power-suit and enter a financial debate. I am most definitely theatrical, I’m a centre-stage whore; I like spotlights and being the most dramatic queen in the club. I’m also fierce, I mean, have you seen my contour? But most of all, the best word to describe me is BAM! Did I lose the Q&A portion?
I auditioned for Season 4 because I was low-key obsessed with reading the earlier seasons, and I said, if these pretend queens can do it, then I can shit all over their parade. Just kidding, I just want to show people that I still got it. I’m a fresh queen who pays homage to theatrical traditions, and I’m excited to show people the siamese, conjoined twins of old and new drag. I’ve got an edge on the other queens because I’ve spent all my life dodging dingoes and boxing kangaroos. Ok but for real I think what makes me stand out is that I’m not a “category” queen. I can be campy, I can be fishy, I can be a diva, I can have the sad storyline that producers are pushing from Day 1. If you give me a challenge, I’m gonna win.
Thank you. My drag is inspired by MELODRAMA. My theatre background sorta instilled in me that even the most extra things are boring, turn that shit up to 1001%, nothing less. Whether that be a performance of 10 death drops and 24 splits, or an outfit that is literally cutting my body— still have cuts on knees from the last time, I promise I’m not hoe— I have to be extra. Like Bianca Del Rio Season 7 finale extra. It’s a problem, but I love it. I am known for KILLER lip-syncs, where I mix stupid, often inappropriate humour, with a diva track that results in spins, kicks, twirls and hurls . Yes, vomiting. I also sing live, thanks to the theatre background. Yes, I am THAT queen. Now toss your tips, Reddit! And a final message for my competitors: You’re doing amazing, sweetie!
Except for Serena.
Well, there we have it folks. Our eleven queens of the season! Stay tuned every week to see who goes home, who wins, and who will eventually snatch the crown of Reddit's First Drag Superstar!

I'm glad the Russiagate narrative is getting a good spanking, because the end goal is to backstab the USA before their bullshit catches up with them. When these accusations start they are always speculative, without a strong foundation, and strangely enough, usually orchestrated or promoted by the Fusion GPS. I would like to recommend everyone about this story, specifically because the source material (DNS logs) is available to examine and the fact that Mrs. Clinton tweeted about it. Could Alfa Bank Servers Be the Link Between Trump Campaign and Kremlin. This whole event about capturing Trump Tower connections showing DNS lookups to Alfa Bank is where a Russian connection narrative can actually be examined, and where illegal wiretap claim comes into play (in which I will return to). You get arguments like this in response Trump's claim of Obama wiretaps.

If federal authorities did have cause to listen in on Trump Tower, though, and they provided enough evidence for a FISA court to approve the snooping, Obama is not the one who ought to worry.

Now, arguably, just simple DNS lookups isn't definitive proof of guilt, but why stop there? Hammer it. Disarm this line of speculative fallacy. The only log that exists contain 4 flaws.

• > FLAW #1: Wrong IP address for client destination
• > FLAW #2: Wrong client format
• > FLAW #3: Wrong time format
• > FLAW #4: Recursion-desired bit set

This has been compiled from this examination of the logs. It was recovered by multiple web archives before it was removed. The main issue and summary from this examination is this.

The other objections don’t address the elephant in the room: the logs that have been clearly manipulated to look like BIND9 logs.

The reason I chose this is because its better engage at the source based accusations instead of speculative and immeasurable ones like, "What're Russia's propaganda mission with and the effects of RT and Sputnik?" However, I will get to the Crowdstrike narrative shortly.
So this was used as reasonable suspicion to justify a FISA Warrant. Is this really the standard for investigations? Where false and flimsy evidence is pursued and real crimes are not?
We had an FBI that can't confirm or deny the existence of an any investigation but Ex-Director James Comey, himself, announced the existence of classified emails on Clinton's private server and devices and that work related emails were not all turned over. Hillary Clinton's setup was not encrypted either or secure and her severs and devices could have been vulnerable to hacking while she was the Secretary of State. It doesn't stop there, we even had the Colin Powell, Former Secretary of State, instructing Hillary Clinton how to work around the State Department server and use blackberries. The email in particular (check the PDF attachment), Wikileaks published to the Hillary Clinton Email Archive. A common complaint to Wikileaks is that they're doctored, like Donna Brazile claimed. However these emails are particularly easy to verify through a simple test. In Colin Powell's case however, Hillary's own corroboration with the FBI simply proves this. We have Hillary getting her maids to print out classified documents, We had a round of cover-up or "oddities". Hillary got a Contractor to delete and overwrite "Non-work related" emails on her server with the help of Bleachbit while a subpoena was still pending. Sorry for Hillary, but the BleachBit creator states that any deleted emails may be recovered through a 3rd party ISP. She also had blackberries destroyed with hammmers and arguably not destroyed thoroughly enough for prevention of data recovery.
Inspite of all that, we get this! Bryan Pagliano, who installed and maintained a private server for Hillary, who originally plead the fifth, was granted immunity by the the DOJ. The man who was instructed to destroy the emails, a Platte River Networks employee, misled and refused to answer important FBI questions. Cheryl Mills also and specifically refused to answer FBI questions about Clinton Emails. Oddly enough Cheryl Mills was there with Hillary Clinton in an FBI interview invoking attorney-client priviledge even as a witness to the same alleged crime as Clinton gave bizarre answers about her phones and her past knowledge of classification. Hilary Clinton also had the luxury getting FBI agents to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement. Clinton and also avoided Larry Klayman's FOIA requests by the help of the DOJ. Now at the State Department we more witnesses such John Bentel, the Director of S/ES-IRM, who works as an IT at the State Department plead the fifth. He also had an IT Manager working for him, named Cindy Almodovar, who was never questioned by the FBI. And it all goes back to Hillary circling around FOIA.
So now, what is our solution as the FBI? Lets not pursue a single case or charge of any kind. Lets setup a strawman legal argument about "intent" to commit crime. Lets not care we didn't interview all witnesses before coming to multiple flip-flopping conclusions and then finally draft exoneration papers at the FBI.
All of this in summary is why these premises deserves scrutiny and why everyone hates the hypocrisy, contrarian, doubletalk, and partisan mindset of these narratives being perpetrated by the media and even our own government.
Now, back to the CrowdStrike narrative about claiming Russians hacked the DNC. First of all, CrowdStrike isn't only criticized for its DNC hack claim, but its credibility also comes into question with claims about how Russia targeted Ukrainian Artillery. IISS themselves criticize CrowdStrike by claiming that no losses or hacking occurred. The report itself lives up to scruntiny. Before trying to explain forensics for profiling hackers we must understand why attribution isn't foolproof. What I find striking are these two points made by Cybersecurity researcher and consultant, Jeffrey Carr:

1. Why attribution alone doesn't work in cybercrime accusations.
   

   “When it comes to cybersecurity estimates of attribution, no one holds the company that makes the claim accountable because there’s no way to prove whether the assignment of attribution is true or false unless (1) there is a criminal conviction, (2) the hacker is caught in the act, or (3) a government employee leaked the evidence.”
   

2. An Intelligence analysis done by Maj. Robert D. Folker, Jr. in 2000 published by the Joint Military Intelligence College.
   

   "After reading the scenarios members of the control group formed a conclusion, then went back to the scenario to find evidence that supported their conclusion and ignored contradictory evidence. When asked to justify their answers, analysts in the control group often cited some “key” information that gave them a flash of insight." "Members of the experimental group examined all evidence provided in the scenario prior to making their decision. They felt confident that they were making the best decision they could with the amount of information available. They acknowledged that their decision may not be the right one and added that if more evidence became available they would reevaluate their conclusion taking into account this new information."
   

Carr also states,

"Many of the cyber intelligence analysts who work at companies like CrowdStrike, FireEye, and Mandiant have come out of the military or the Intelligence Community with prior analytic training."

Many fall victim to making conclusions first then reaffirming them with evidence, but especially when interpreting things such as cybercrime and warfare.
Another thing mentioned by Carr,

Unlike Crowdstrike, ESET doesn’t assign APT28/Fancy BeaSednit to a Russian Intelligence Service or anyone else for a very simple reason. Once malware is deployed, it is no longer under the control of the hacker who deployed it or the developer who created it. It can be reverse-engineered, copied, modified, shared and redeployed again and again by anyone. In other words — malware deployed is malware enjoyed! In fact, the source code for X-Agent, which was used in the DNC, Bundestag, and TV5Monde attacks, was obtained by ESET as part of their investigation! During our investigations, we were able to retrieve the complete Xagent source code for the Linux operating system. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time this Xagent source code has been found and documented by security researchers. This source code is a fully working C++ project, which was used by Sednit operators to compile a binary in July 2015 (at least). If ESET could do it, so can others. It is both foolish and baseless to claim, as Crowdstrike does, that X-Agent is used solely by the Russian government when the source code is there for anyone to find and use at will.

So now that the innate plausible deniability of this type crime has been examined, lets see what possibilities exist with public malware. Wikileaks released CIA documents known as Vault 7 that covers the CIA intensive and sophisticated computer hacking programs. Remember earlier that the malware is up for grabs upon release? Well the CIA collects malware from other hackers as well and this shows an effect tactic and potential plausible deniability at play. Now, while I'm not suggesting that the CIA breached the DNC like some articles do, I am suggesting this is a legitimate technique that hackers use and that its difficult to find a suspect with attribution, let alone finding involvement with government or state-party. It is almost worth nothing to adopt or tweak other persons software, but more time and resources are required to originally create software. Since the CIA had severely damaged everyone's security in the process of this cyberweapons arsenal buildup, Assange himself offered to help companies fix exploits in their software.
In addition even though hacking capability is important for the CIA, they also have the ability to attribute false "fingerprints" to cyber attacks, covered under the group named UMBRADGE. More evidence that compiling software for false attribution to malware is possible.
So now that the claim of Russian hacking itself is weakened, is there anything that contradicts the report? While I don't think it is necessary at this point to continue because of the speculative nature of attribution, and the fact that the burden of proof lies with the claimant. Although I don't fully agree, I will list the counter arguments against the Russian Hack narrative to be fair.

1. Warren Flood's, a data-analyst for Obama, name was found in the metadata of the Guccifer 2.0 documents. While this suggests argues that Guccifer 2.0 was an inside job, its more reasonable that the metadata contradicts the original claim of Crowdstrike, and further proves that attribution is still unreliable.
   
2. Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) claims that the download speeds for the Guccifer 2.0 hack would be to fast for internet transfer, making a local transfer more plausible. It is flawed because it assumes that there are no ISPs or networks that offer connections that fast. However, it still makes the transfer speed implausible for certain parts of the world and certain computer networks with multiple nodes, so this part of the premise is more plausible as to rule out certain attack vectors for the hack.
   

What is the most deadly is that the government and media advance this narrative to be an active and significant player in surveillance, disinformation, and censorship. Now we return to Trump's claim that Obama illegally wiretapped Trump tower.
Now we know for fact the NSA already sweeps up and collects most Americans' private data from Downstream (Indirectly from Websites, Email providers, Social Media, etc.) programs like PRISM Edward Snowden leaked and Upstream (Directly from Telecoms or Internet Service Providers) programs like STORMBREW. We even have whistle blower and ex-NSA Technical Director William Binney reaffirming the nature of the upstream dragnets and "At least 80% of fibre-optic cables globally go via the US".
So there's no real reason to argue pointless semantical meanings about the word "wiretap" so fiercely.
Inlight of these programs, the agencies deny surveillance and active targeting. Ron Wyden asked Ex-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper if the NSA collects data on Americans.
James Clapper responds,

"No, sir."

This has to be a lie right? Well does intent count if you believe the collection of data is different from analyzing or directly reading it? However it is irrelevant to the topic at hand. Maybe Clapper does believe so, regardless Wyden repeats his question. Clapper now understands and backpedals an explanation,

"Not wittingly. There are cases where there could inadvertently perhaps collect, but not.. not wittingly."

So, collection still takes place. Thanks for the information, Mr. Clapper.
Unfortunately, we are now at this point in time where popular narratives are using George Bush logic to justify wide-spride surveillance. That logic that simply being affiliated with anyone foreign or the more rare exception, suspected of terrorism in regards national security. Or it could be the fallacious mindset that since Trump is a target of this, then it must be okay. It's a very fallacious contrarian argument. Although, it all seems to be enough reason to convince people to comply with NSA surveillance and collection of American citizens' personal data without a proper court order.
However, does it stop there? Well we had Obama expand the powers of intelligence agencies allowing agencies to share information more easily with fewer restrictions, before he left office. Even if it did what is was suppose to do (it does not), it also comes with its abuse and consequences. Also, referring back to Binney he stated in an interview,

They say they don’t conduct economic espionage, that they’re not interested in people’s political views, that they don’t blackmail internally . . . Is any of that true? That’s nothing but a series of lies. You could look at the attacks on the Tea Party by the IRS. They had access to the NSA’s reconstructed networking of everybody in the country.

Not only do these agencies fail but there is fear that data not involved with national security collected by the NSA can be used by other law enforcement agencies through the process of the unconstitutional "Parallel Construction" process.
So, even if it all worked with no abuse and these agencies all cooperated and pursued these criminals, atleast innocent citizens data is masked, right? Even though citizens are masked and that citizens and those in the US are targeted more than foreigners, the masked data can still be illegally or wrongfully unmasked. Take the case of were an intelligence contractor Dennis Montgomery, Larry Klayman, and others plaintiffs pursue a lawsuit against against Ex-FBI Director James Comey and other officials. He alleges that millions of Americans were illegally surveilled and unmasked, and that efforts were taken to cover it up.
The meat and relevance of the case,

Montgomery divulged to the FBI a ”pattern and practice of conducting illegal, unconstitutional surveillance against millions of Americans, including prominent Americans such as the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, other justices, 156 judges, prominent businessmen, and others such as Donald J. Trump, as well as Plaintiffs themselves,” Montgomery and Klayman alleged in their suit. “Plaintiffs were assured that the FBI, under Defendant Comey, would conduct a full investigation into the grave instances of illegal and unconstitutional activity set forth by Montgomery. However, the FBI, on Defendant Comey’s orders, buried the FBI’s investigation because the FBI itself is involved in an ongoing conspiracy to not only conduct the aforementioned illegal, unconstitutional surveillance, but to cover it up as well,” the suit added. Klayman and Montgomery also alleged that they have evidence that they themselves have been improperly spied upon by U.S. intelligence. The suit named numerous other defendants as well, including current NSA Director Mike Rogers, former CIA Director John Brennan and even former President Barack Obama.

There was further elaboration on an Alex Jones Show interview with Detective Mike Zullo, that worked under controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio, explaining the where Montgomery's information, while a governent contractor, of the surveillance Project Dragnet Database originated and where it went. The case asserts that the database includes Trump, and Alex engages with the screenshot source material with reporter Jerome Corsi of the illegal database on video. The reason I cite this, even though people criticize Infowars, is that this info seems exclusive due to a contractor not knowing where to blow the whistle on the case. It's worth it to sit through the video to collect relevant info.
Now, I know you may roll your eyes but the point isn't who is targeted, it is how they are illegally targeted.
From all that we know surveillance powers are expanded, abused, and can be politically targeting. Futhermore, we know Trump's assertion that illegal "wiretaps" exists is reasonable and true, and If more revelations occur or if the current case gets resolved we may even see Obama administration participation in this illegal surveillance activity and coverup.
Now we get to the "countering disinformation" campaign that the elites in government and media are trying to start. Not only did Obama expand surveillance powers, he made his very own government based Correct-The-Record center. The congressional law establishes government to be an active player in the propaganda (A "Ministry of Truth", if you will). This was a bipartisan effort in response to the Russian election interference allegations.
Here's its mission:

SEC. 1287. <> GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT CENTER.

The purpose of the Center shall be to lead, synchronize, and coordinate efforts of the Federal Government to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts

Generva posted a fact sheet about it.
Here's the results:

Operating at a local level, our partners use credible voices to deliver messages that resonate with at-risk populations. Our partners include NGOs, schools, young people, social and civil society leaders, religious leaders, governments, and others. We support them through a variety of means including funding, technical assistance, capacity building, and conceiving and implementing joint projects.

So, the US government already has an already erroneous, propaganda-based, and abusive view of its politics and citizens. How is this not concerning to people when they are trying to inform us and the next generation? Besides we already private companies "correcting the record" that don't use taxpayer money for political rhetoric.
Similarly, we have the reoccurring terrorism excuse again but from Rand Waltzman, a former DARPA contractor, who wants to expand this concept further to social media (archived) by presenting it to The American Foreign Policy Council. It's an interpretation using more George Bush logic but dealing with counter intelligence and ISIS.
Now, since this narrative crap is trying to delve into social media. What does it mean?
It means Youtube targeting specific political ideologies and (not-radical-enough-leftist) by a de-monetization campaign. It means Twitter suspending accounts that disagree with them or consensus on the site. It means Reddit policing of ideology of its users. It means Google, the biggest tech company search engine to ever exist, using massive politically motivated blacklisting.
You understand that just because you are not a target, doesn't mean you won't become one? I mean they're are even expanding the definition of the word alt-right.

For folks who don’t know what the alt-right is, it might be worthwhile to just sort of start at the beginning and talk about what the alt-right is—because there are a lot of these various definitions floating around, nearly all of which are wrong.

This is why this quote is so significant. Its not just about political assumptions about a movement, its about government and large corporations discarding your concerns in exchange for power. In the end it doesn't care about politics, only that it used those politics to usurp that power.
We have Google that has the power and potential to satisfy the censorship demands of China. I mean Facebook helped a man in Pakistan get sentenced to death. Facebook already assisted Pakistan's blasphemy laws in the past to get to this problem in the first place.
Please, smell the coffee and realize these are insignificant or distant problems. This could happen to you. Stop resorting to, "Oh, we're going to get those hateful rightwingers." Or, "Stupid, libtards concerns are invalid."
Now, I don't deny that Russia or any other foreign power would be interested in politcal subservion, but who doesn't. The story is exploited and beatened to death by George Orwell style repetition. The paradigm is built on a house of sand, it will erode with steady truth.
Regardless of your ideology, class, race, or nationality, you all have been targeted bipartisanly for the sake of just power.
This is why many people are going to other places to have a competitive market for our next generations ideals. The big tech giants are going to have to keep up with many new platforms.
https://gab.ai/ https://www.minds.com/ https://www.bitchute.com/ https://www.startpage.com/ https://duckduckgo.com/ https://steemit.com/ https://vid.me/
I want to thank the Truth Factory and her analytical approach for pointing me in the right direction. I just merely expanded upon the over-arching narrative and arguably put too much effort into it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0flTn4IuYM https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2aQGaCZjQC1lM3DOwbCIFw
And Please you may, you can use this post for whatever want, whether it be to share, critique, conversate, cross-post and copy. Doesn't matter, we all benefit by sharing information.
If I want to add something, I'll post in the comments. For something against Reddit secret comment editing, I'm going to copy this post to pastebin and generate an archive.is link. In the comments there will soon be my links to my pastebin, archive and the sha hash generated by the whole post, in other words this sentence's point.

Intro
So last week, we discussed some root causes behind how the Brexit vote came to be; Britain’s frustrated voter base could have become disillusioned with the pundits, economists and politicians constantly bombarding them with the guidance that they knew what was best for Britain. I blamed it, “the Exit victory”, on collective mistakes generated by successive governments and the lack of a system, that’s able to catch these mistakes – ultimately the British people said “No” to EU mistakes generating costs and debts for the UK government. The big problem is that governments worldwide keeps making decisions, with some leading to mistakes and sometimes these mistakes are counted in the billions of dollars. In this week’s article, we’ll temporarily put aside discussion of the EU, and we’ll look at the smaller economy of Ontario whose market size is $750B (around 38% of Canada’s total economy and comparatively smaller than the EU economy which is around $14.3T). Costly mistakes keep seeming to happen in Ontario, that means the system is missing something, some type of feedback that stops those mistakes from happening in the first place. I will first talk about the current political scene, then go into detail about the political history of Ontario, until finally presenting a solid argument for what qualities a leader should have to lead a political party.
The Scene – it’s members
For those of you not in know, the Liberal Party of Ontario has been anointed the ‘centre-left party’ in Ontario and has dominated the political seen for well over a decade; the right end of the political spectrum is occupied by the Progressive Conservatives (henceforth denoted the PCs) and the left wing, by the NDP, who don’t even get an acronym explanation. The Liberals have been in power since the 2003 provincial election, which granted them a majority government and have basically been in that same position since then; outside of a 3-year window, where they were still the biggest party, but in a minority parliament situation. It’s safe to say they’ve been given ample time to prove their policies out.
Growing up in Ontario, I can tell you that it’s very clear from the election time ads that the Liberals have the support of the public sector. This is clear because in each of the last 2 elections, the Canadian version of superPACs, have bombarded our airways with scare campaigns that the right wing party (PCs) will take away all our rights and sell off public assets to satisfy their ideological viewpoints. Now this is reasonable for them to say because the last time the PCs were in power they passed the single most damaging piece of legislature that any party in Ontario has passed – the privatization of the 407; it’s basically given the Liberals a monopoly on politics for the last decade.
Why the Liberals have had a Monopoly on politics for the last 13 years
To put it into perspective why this was such a damning piece of legislature, to drive ~100 km from Hamilton/Burlington border (where the 407 starts) to Markham (where the 407 ends), it costs anywhere from $20-25 dollars one-way! Depending on if you have a 407 transponder, a $5 surcharge applies whenever you enter the highway with no transponder. Bullshit with a capital B. So let’s say you live in Burlington and get a job in Markham, you can do any one of the following (the number in parentheses is annual cost of each decision with the breakdown followed below):
Take the non-privatized highways ($4,000) Take the 407 ($10,400) Move or rent ($16,800) Cost breakdown – Take the non-privatized highways ($4,000)
Now let’s say you want to stay in Burlington and not pay any toll fees, then option 1 is your course of action. But here’s where things get complicated because instead of paying out of pocket, you’re paying with your sanity. To drive that distance every day non-toll, (which people do) you’ll end up spending at least an extra 8 hours a week in traffic. That ends up being an extra 400 hours a year (if you work 50 weeks a year) that would get completely wasted. Let’s just say you’re getting paid minimum wage – which you won’t be because then you’d actually be crazy to drive the 401 to Markham from Burlington – that’s around a $4,000 annual cost + the opportunity cost of not using that time more productively.
Cost breakdown – Take the 407 ($10,400)
Your next course of action is to just suck it up and take the 407. Let’s see, assume you’re paying the lower end of the spectrum @ $20 per way. So that’s $20 * 2 (times a day) * 5 (days a week) * 52 (weeks in a year) which is $10,400/year. Ouch. That’s why I’ve hardly ever been on the 407, even when I was working construction, I genuinely felt bad expensing it and I woke up early to avoid having my boss pay that out of pocket.
Cost breakdown – Move or rent ($16,800)
Finally moving costs or renting. Rent in Markham can be expensive and typically you won’t find a ‘nice place’ for less than $1400/month. That ends up being $16,800 annual cost. Remember this is the economic cost, we’re not even taking into account social cost.
Decisions have consequences – Why the PCs are STILL paying for this today
Again, I touched on the ramifications of traffic in my last article and how traffic limits skills to a constrained geographic areas. It brings about inefficiencies to the Southern Ontario labour market because it effectively makes it so people work less in a day – a time tax. But forget people, think companies. This one piece of legislature has made conducting business in Ontario more expensive. It’s also effectively lowered the house prices all along the 407 corridor – again this is in theory, house prices in Ontario have just shot through the roof, and we haven’t been able to really understand precisely why. Btw the fact that policy makers don’t have this data already on hand is kind of embarrassing; the fact that they’re now getting to the data shows me government is in for a data revolution. The governments we currently vote for, react to problems that come up and are not active in observing where risk fundamentally lies. But you get what you pay for and currently I don’t know what exactly I pay for. This criticism of government has to lay dormant until government adopts control plans and PFMEAs, so we can know where we stand from a efficiency standpoint.
But back to the catastrophe which was the privatization of the 407. Let’s see, sold off to a foreign company in 1999 for $3B on a 99-year lease! Now it’s worth ~$10B and that means Ontario lost out on $7B since the PCs decided to sell it.
We did the math. We lost out on $7B.
What’s even worse is in the contract itself. Ontario cannot build any competing highways in a certain geographic area that would take traffic (revenue) away from the 407 (aka converting Highway 7 kind of deal) and the fact that we have 80+ years on the lease, makes it even harder to digest; a politician, who I didn’t vote for, had such a colossal f*** up in asset valuation, that he literally screwed his GREAT GREAT grand kids (who are probably not going to be living in Ontario). I know of Native cultures where the elder statesmen of the tribes consider the effects of a decision seven generations down, but someone should have told Mr. Mike Harris that those policy decisions were supposed to have positive, not negative effects on those downstream generations. I’m also glad that I didn’t vote for the mess that was Tim Hudak either. He was a cabinet minister under the PC government who sold off the 407 and the fact that he wasn’t sly enough to realize his government had been had means he’s not worth my vote. If he was just some backbencher, fine ignore it, but he was a cabinet minister. Moral of the story, if you’re a cabinet minister and your government does something dishonest or proves themselves to be incompetent, then there should indeed be a halo affect that rubs off on you. As I mentioned above, with the increase in pay, the cabinet designation should carry forth added responsibility that your government does not do anything foolish.
Punishing politicians for bad decisions should also carry over in the USA as politicians who voted for the Iraq War should have that badge of dishonor hurt their future ambitions. Such obviously terrible decisions need to be punished and as an electorate our only voice is our vote. If you disregard morally reprehensible actions by politicians by continuing to vote for them, you’ll continue to get that kind of incompetence from your elected officials.
In summary, unless politicians hold a plebiscite, they should be held responsible for major unnecessary cost decisions (e.g. Iraq War for USA & Highway 407 privatization for Ontario) that have negative effects on their countries. We live in a world of unlimited debt, where bad politicians can just mask their incompetency with social program or other promises to effectively selectively bribe the portions of the population they want to vote for them. By the way, this happens with both parties, no matter the level of government. I was disappointed in Stephen Harper and all his selective tax breaks (e.g. income splitting), rather than across the board tax breaks. Earlier in the article, I talked about some type of feedback that stops big mistakes from happening; voting out bad politicians is this feedback. Politicians should put a lot of thought into their votes and should understand that poor decisions have ramifications. This entire 407 debacle is also the primary reason I do not vote for political parties who privatize government assets (cough * Hydro One * cough). They’re not effective asset evaluators and they pay the people who will make the asset evaluation – screams corruption. But don’t worry I’ll write a Hydro One article too. Not this time though.
Liberal Ascension to Power
Now that we’ve kind of covered the primary reason behind why the PC party of Ontario has suffered for so many years, we’ll touch a little on what the Liberals have done since being elected. Since 2003, debt has grown by 230% with no clear end to annual deficits, in sight. The government says they’ll be back in the black by 2019, but who knows. In my mind, they don’t seem focused, and haven’t adopted important private sector efficiency tools. The rest of this article will discuss the three major spending scandals + one non-spending scandal from their checkered past. The scandals are as follows:
Spending scandals
E-Health Scandal Ornge scandal Gas plant scandal
Non-Spending scandal Deleted email scandal
Computers and doctors do not mix
Let’s start this story off with the E-Health Scandal that rocked the Liberal majority government in 2008. E-Health was supposed to be exactly what its name infers, that is an electronic health record system for every citizen in Ontario. I guess it was supposed to replace some of the bureaucracy present in the current day healthcare system – all told it was supposed to save $6B dollars a year. Whatever that means and how those cost savings would have come to fruition are uncertain. What is certain is that this was a scenario where the auditor general brought up government incompetence as the root cause of $1B being wasted over a 6-year window (2002-2008). Everything from no-competition contracts being handed out, to clear evidence of corruption in sourcing those no-competition contracts, to over relying on consultants (auditor generals words not mine), to effectively giving an incompetent person a blank checkbook as the CEO. But the greatest error of judgement was the lack of accountability at the top – McGuinty (old Premier) did not go to jail over this, and neither did his Health Minister. Clear negligence and someone (ex-CEO) only got fired – McGuinty would go on to be Premier for another 5 years.
Ornge on the outside, rotten on the inside
The Ornge scandal was not one that was in the $1B ballpark, it was only in the tens of millions of dollars but it goes to show another case where control plans and PFMEAs could have saved the taxpayer money. In 2011, it was “uncovered” to the shock and dismay of the government that someone who headed the provincially funded air ambulance service, was hiding his salary from the public “sunshine list”. It’s been documented that there were examples of misuse of procurement in the Ornge scandal as well, specifically an inflated payment for helicopters whose owners provided an odd payment of nearly $7M to one of the CEO’s other companies. Who knows how much the CEO actually managed to extort from taxpayers (this is unknown) but again another scenario where the people at the top, found a scapegoat and a way to breathe another day. McGuinty did not take the fall and neither did the Health Minister, I’m surprised to see that the CEO got the axe but again, why don’t these guys go to jail. I could be sent to jail for stealing milk from a corner store, but steal millions from the taxpayer? Just hope the party in power has your back.
Gas plants & how we deleted how we talked about it
And here’s when we get to the straw that broke the camel’s back and finally saw Premier Dad (McGuinty nickname) leave the highest office of the Ontarian land. The Gas plant scandal and the deleted email scandal go hand in hand, adding much needed drama to the 2014 election. One (deleted email scandal) happened after the other (gas plant scandal) and they were directly tied to each other. They should have taken out the current premier (Wynne) along with the last premier (McGuinty). The current premier was able to apologize in a debate on public television and somehow that was enough to convince Ontarians that the Liberals were fit to lead. This scandal was so big that the government went to the extent of wiping email servers (not just hit delete on the email), so that it wouldn’t get around to the public that the government was fully aware of how it had lied about the cancellation costs. Long story long, power plant was supposed to be built at the Oakville/Mississauga border (south of the Ford plant), and after much debate the Liberals finally decided to cancel it, for purely a political means, might I add. Liberals blamed it on re-analyzing the supply & demand and seeing the plant really was unnecessary but it’s been basically proven they cancelled it because the Party knew it would lose 3-4 seats in and around where the gas plant was being build. How it got to the point that the province was still on the hook for $1.1B before having this realization is still not explained – partially deleted emails and partially politicians just straight up lying to our faces. During a transition of one government to the next (aka Premier dad quitting because the opposition pressed him into admitting that the cancellation costs were misrepresented), someone who didn’t work for the government, logged into “the system” and just so happened to delete emails related to the government cancellation of the plants. Forget that when initially asked how much the cost of cancelling the plants was going to be the government said $40M – the cost ended up being $1.1B (a mere 4% of the grand total). I don’t get how politicians (Premier Dad) can just claim that they didn’t know what was going on and allow for that to be an adequate reason for criminal activities going on. This is the biggest reason why we need control plans and PFMEAs, to stop mistakes like this from happening again. Imagine knowing what our politicians actually do and where their responsibilities begin & end. We need to know those types of things so citizens can better direct their input to the right person so that actual work gets done. There also needs to be a log of open action items so issues don’t linger. We shouldn’t allow for situations like the gas-plant cover-up to happen again. Due to a transition period between governments, we’re supposed to believe that that made it okay for someone who didn’t work for the government to log into the government system and delete sensitive emails? Really? This is where it’s important for young people to realize that if you want government to change to work for you, instead of you working for it, it’s essential to vote corruption like this out. Just like how the PCs got voted out for the 407 issue, we need to vote in parties that utilize the private industry tools of efficiency.
Moral of the story
For the reasons listed above it’s important for Conservatives to not put up with bullshit from our Conservative parties. Last time we voted (Canadians & USA) Conservative, our governments just flat out kept being dishonest (Bush & Harper) and it burnt us with left wing glory boys following them up. We (Canadians) elected someone who if he hadn’t previously resided in an ex-PM’s ballsack, would have barely been qualified for the substitute teacher position he started his career off in; especially in today’s day & age where teaching school grads are forced to take up jobs overseas or substitute for many years before landing a full time gig. For left wing party supporters – you’re getting fooled, unless costs are controlled, the government can’t really do anything because they spend a ton of your money on non-value add tasks. Government is bloated and has services implemented that solved problems from 10 years ago with the technology present 10 years ago. You shouldn’t be solving problems and designing processes (essentially what government does) unless it’s the most efficient way to solve it or if you at least have efficiency tools set in place to optimize processes down the immediate line. Think about it… if we want more problems solved (World Peace, Space Travel, Global Warming etc.) we have to free up the capital & labour from the problems we already have solved (e.g. BUREAUCRACY) and re-train our public sector as this will carry over to the private sector. But we also need to document and make sure that the problems we currently solve do not fail the “quality/$” relationship. When I vote for right wing parties who are not going to implement control plans and PFMEAs, I worry that this “quality/$” relationship will not be maintained. In this article, I spoke to the water catastrophe in Flint and how by utilizing Control Plans and PFMEAs, poisoning innocent lives could’ve been avoided. Right wing politicians should be cost cutting using those tools (as well as Pareto charting) since this is the way private industry regulates costs. Utilizing control plans and PFMEAs, will be the key to creating innovation in the workforce and society. Learn, if a politician f***s up. Punish them by not voting for them. Tell people about it so those politicians are unable to make poor future decisions. Politicians will stop doing a shitty job because they understand that one poor decision means they’ll lose their job.
Primary reason I wrote this article
The primary reason for this article was to communicate that conservatives need to reject Donald Trump as the Republican candidate. The man is a racist & bigot and his election will lead to the public at large rejecting Conservative political parties. He has slip-ups and when those slip-ups occur, it shows his true character. I thought being a businessman, growing up in NYC, I thought that would’ve made him a non-racist person but the positions he eschews are not those of a President. The President controls an army. Obama did one great thing during his presidency and that was he did not start wars. He was diplomatic. I love Obama for this, even though he doesn’t know anything about the economy. I’m thankful for no new wars. I’m thankful for relative world peace and Trump’s antics from the previous few weeks have turned me from a full on Trump fan, to someone who would vote Gary Johnson (even though he has some precarious views) in a heartbeat. It’s disheartening as a voter when no new wars is looked at as a redeeming quality from a President. Obama got elected on so much of a promise for transparent and responsible government and 8 years later, trillions more in debt, there’s still no semblance of a transparent government.
At the end of the day, I don’t want a war and if you vote for Trump, I now no longer believe he would not start one. In my article from two weeks ago, I don’t think he can responsibly “ban all Muslims from entering the USA” either. He will push forth with a ban but he certainly won’t do it responsibly and I predict he’ll empower racists across the USA, if he’s voted President. Additionally, there’s a trend of disturbing things happening at a few recent Trump ralleys. Specifically there was violence and it wasn’t met with stern disapproval, Trump did not even condemn it on the spot. Conservatives do not need someone like Mr. Trump representing us. Trump should’ve at least said “no violence here please”; the fact that he didn’t disappoints me, along with the combination of his reaction to the Orlando shooter being gay, to how he talked about the Mexican judge, who was overseeing the Trump University case. It bugs me to the point where I’m not going to defend a person who I’ve never known before (outside of Celebrity Apprentice) just because he won the Repub primaries – as far as I’m concerned, I’m perplexed how this trust fund baby has been able to somehow finagle his way to the top of the Repub party. This shows me that the Republican voters of the USA are not ready to transform government – they got swayed by a tacky marketing campaign, forget the chance for real change. If I had my ideal President he wouldn’t be bringing people down and he certainly wouldn’t be advocating for violence at his ralleys. Trump will introduce inefficiencies in millions of American’s lives, forget about making America great. In the case of the Mexican judge, he shouldn’t be talking about race Period. If he wants to talk about how he thinks the judge will be biased, present thorough arguments and let people decide for themselves. The fact he defaulted to race as ‘a publicly held view’ makes me question him and certainly question his ability to be president. This is because Trump WILL make a major mistake and for the consequent 15 years, we’ll have a person even more left wing than Obama in office. Trump will fuck up. It’ll be royal. Then you can usher in the age of Left wing problem solving and see humanity crumble because that’s what Ontario just went through for the last (almost) decade and a half. It’ll happen if Trump is elected President & it cannot be stated that Trump is a racist and that’s why people shouldn’t vote for him. Urge Bernie to come into the race, and organize republicans to force Trump to run in a 1-on-1-on-1-on-1 otherwise it’s Shillary or the NYC Trust Fund Racist.
Future Articles
No more Trump articles, I promise. I’ve said all that needs to be said and I hope I’ve been able to effectively communicate why Conservatives shouldn’t want to associate with him. I also thought I’d make a little summary of important topic of conversation that need to be discussed in the near to immediate future. I hope to have articles on all topics listed below completed within the next 6 months.
Pareto Charts – how they’re used alongside Control Plans & PFMEAs to control costs Fishbone Diagrams & 8D decision making – where they’re used, why they’re used Toronto Public Transit Summary Hydro One Privatization – timeline and what Ontario ACTUALLY got Green Energy Act – from the view of a Mechanical Engineer I’ll also sprinkle in some articles on the NBA and cold showers in there as well but hopefully I can present great articles in the time period I’ve mentioned above.
Article was written by gtareguy (Greater Toronto area real Estate guy) . I release a new article every Friday and I write about economics, the nba and real estate in the GTA.
For embedded links and better formatting, read more here: https://gtareguy.wordpress.com/2016/07/08/ontario-politics-a-brief-history-of-two-fighting-enfants/