Issues Under Fire: What If Its All Fake News?

 

What If It's All Fake News?

Since we're just running out the clock awaiting the beginning of Issues Under Fire's annual Winter Break, we thought we'd share a credible conspiracy theory for your consideration. So please, feel free to share this post and podcast with your friends and associates. That said, anyone who'd take the time to review what happened to America during the 2016 elections, could conclude without a shadow of a doubt, some really weird sh*t went down. But since who did what to whom and why remains a mystery, until proven otherwise, we're of the opinion that much of what America reads, watches and listens to could be fake news accounts of what's really going on. And if you've got a minute, we'll explain why.

Now that a cloud of suspicion seems to be gathering over the next occupant of the Oval Office due to accusations of foreign meddling in America's political process, nearly every major news outlet, including the NY Times and the Washington Post, are reporting stories driven by anonymous sources. Apparently, the CIA is saying with "high confidence" covert Russian forces interfered in the 2016 presidential election, with the ultimate aim of seeing Donald Trump in the White House. And according to the Post, intelligence experts have actually "identified individuals with connections to the Russian government" who reportedly provided WikiLeaks with nearly 20,000 emails from the DNC and tens of thousands from the personal inbox of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta. Now, if any of the above can be trusted, we should be getting some place. We should have those names.

Call the cops. Grab the cuffs. Can anybody say extradition? Let's do a perp walk, God damn it! But not so fast. Unfortunately, we have the following from an "unnamed" FBI source responding to the so-called "intelligence experts". "The FBI does not dispute that the CIA's assessment could be accurate". "The difference lies in the institutional standards the agencies require in reaching such conclusions. While the CIA develops assessments based on a broad interpretation of available data, the FBI, as a law enforcement agency, requires a standard of proof that could sustain a possible criminal prosecution." Okay, so what does this mean? Well we think it means, if you got no proof, you got no case and if you got no case, you shouldn't make statements until you do. So who are we to believe, the CIA, the FBI or perhaps President-elect Donald Trump?

President-elect Trump says don't believe none of this crap. The Russians didn't do anything. The process was on the up and up. The election is over. "I won a landslide victory." Case closed. Let's move on and make America great again. But not so fast again. Being the one man on the planet with the most to lose if it's ever determined that external entities impacted, influenced or undermined the faith in free and fair U.S. elections, it's the scam man himself, Donald Trump. President-elect Trump wants this all to just go away and the sooner the better. No investigations, no Congressional hearings and above all, no more intelligence agency reviews or assessments. And this from the same individual who insisted that America's political system was totally rigged. Isn't it amazing how winning changes everything. 

But why stop there? Why not go to the source? What's Wikileaks' Julian Assange saying about tracking the hacking? After all, he's the guy at the center of this row. Well, it just so happens Craig Murray, a former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan and reported close confidant of Wikileaks' founder, gave an interview on just that topic to The Guardian. And he says the CIA's assertion is "a blatant lie" with little evidence to support it. He says the story that state actors in Russia handed over thousands of stolen emails from the DNC is "utter bulls**t." Mr. Craig even went so far as to say he knows who leaked the hacked data and it wasn't the Russians. Still, while we're most appreciative of what's been revealed by Assange and his crew, like the CIA, Mr. Murray failed to provide any solid evidence of his claims beyond his word. And considering Julian Assange has been trapped in Ecuador's London embassy for the last 4 plus years and currently praying for a Trump pardon, since Wikileaks may have played an indirect role in the President-elect's unlikely win, we cannot ignore Assange's clear motives to blur some of the details.

Bottom line: If the best reporting Americans can get on an issue as serious as a foreign government attempting to manipulate a U.S. Presidential election is unsubstantiated accusations from anonymous sources or those with motives to modify the truth, one would be within reason to surmise most news to be faked and or tainted in one way or another. And if you can buy our way of thinking, then you have to give credence to the theory that America may have had a fake election and just elected a fake president. Hey, it's just a theory. Podcast below.