US Accuses Financial Website of Spreading Russian Propaganda (apnews.com) 154
U.S. intelligence officials on Tuesday accused a conservative financial news website with a significant American readership of amplifying Kremlin propaganda and alleged five media outlets targeting Ukrainians have taken direction from Russian spies. From a report: The officials said Zero Hedge, which has 1.2 million Twitter followers, published articles created by Moscow-controlled media that were then shared by outlets and people unaware of their nexus to Russian intelligence. The officials did not say whether they thought Zero Hedge knew of any links to spy agencies and did not allege direct links between the website and Russia. Zero Hedge denied the claims and said it tries to "publish a wide spectrum of views that cover both sides of a given story." In a response posted online Tuesday morning, the website said it has "has never worked, collaborated or cooperated with Russia, nor are there any links to spy agencies."
welp, ZH popularity is about to skyrocket (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:welp, ZH popularity is about to skyrocket (Score:5, Interesting)
I liked it before they required javascript to see content. I'm assuming it's still a repository of "why the market will crash" news.
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As a "financial news" web site, ZeroHedge has a track record of being pretty wrong for a long time. They've been predicting the market will crash for decades. More often than not, the Fed just prints more money and the crash never really materializes.
Of course, it's always possible the "big one" could be just around the corner and prove ZH right (for once)...
Re:welp, ZH popularity is about to skyrocket (Score:5, Interesting)
You're right, doom and gloom are their schtick (that and crapping on Tesla/Musk at every opportunity). I read their articles with their bias for failure in mind, and I enjoy reading them.
As to it being propaganda, my response is... "And?". The idea of journalists out as the 4th and unofficial branch of government holding the others accountable is romantic and all, but it's obviously bullshit. ZH has some of that. It's why e.g. they got banned from Twitter for connecting the dots and saying Covid-19 could have come from a lab in Wuhan. They talked about the Hunter Biden laptop too, and they are the only news site I've seen with any coverage of the alleged naughty business with Trump's DNS servers.
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You're right, doom and gloom are their schtick (that and crapping on Tesla/Musk at every opportunity).
Totally agree with that. ZH has been dead wrong about Tesla for a long time (and still are). Thank God I never took their "financial news" advice on shorting Tesla.
they are the only news site I've seen with any coverage of the alleged naughty business with Trump's DNS servers.
Oh, there are plenty of other news sites with coverage of that story -- maybe you should branch out some more. I won't name names, as I fear polluting my favorite sites with communist trolls like Slashdot has, but if you look around, I'm sure you can find some for yourself. And I would encourage it, because as good as ZH may be, they are under th
Dunham report is recycled road apples (Score:3, Insightful)
Every conservative news site and tweet is plugging the idiotic Dunham report . We knew about the dns traffic analysis back in 2016. Snore. The trump servers were using a legitimate dns server that kept their logs available . No big deal . But it revealed what the trump tower server was connecting to and that was kinda worrisome . Now sudddenly it's back in the news? Rubbish news . It's no surprise the major media are not covering it. But it's not hidden. See oan, newsmax and fox
Re:Dunham report is recycled road apples (Score:4, Funny)
but... but... but... Hillary!
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> Every conservative news site and tweet is plugging the idiotic Dunham report
That I haven't seen them should tell you something about my news preferences. :)
Re:welp, ZH popularity is about to skyrocket (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe not decades almost exactly 10 years ago to the day I was poking fun of them for that very reason [flickr.com] and captioned it thusly:
Zero Hedge is a financial web site. When you first start reading, it looks worthwhile but eventually you come to the conclusion that it's really just telling us that every day is the day before Lehman, or flash crash, or Nixon shock. Every. Day. It gets old after a while and you stop reading it seriously. It's the finance site that cries "wolf" with every post . It's a broken clock stuck on two minutes to midnight, licking its chops over the unborn in the womb. Somebody had to poke fun of it.
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When I was pretty young, a friend invited my to a carnival at their church
There was 20 minutes looking at somebody riding a sweaty horse, and then straight into the church to be forced to read from some end of times bible, and then raise our hands if we needed saved
When I got home I was quietly amused and told my mom what had happened. She told me a similar story, and how her mom (born in the late 1800's) told her they have been saying that since she was a kid
Basically, people make horrible decisions when t
Re:welp, ZH popularity is about to skyrocket (Score:5, Interesting)
They know this crap never works. They mention a website/blog/podcast that's talking about conspiracies and suddenly it amplifies whatever it is.
That's fine, read zerohedge, the problem isn't with them. Zerohedge shouldn't be posting articles from a Russian intelligence service casually mixed in with western financial news, and they're getting called out for it.
This isn't casual propaganda like take a vacation in Russia, Russia ain't as bad as we imagine, or the classic "both sides do it" crap, this stuff is strategic.
While Russia wants the narrative to be about Ukrainian NATO membership to us, they're spinning tales that Kiev is close to steamrolling eastern Ukraine, mass graves in eastern Ukraine, and the Donetsk region leaders may have to "ask Russia for assistance".
It's not just "NATO expansionism", it's, NATO, Kiev is eating Russian speaking babies, bodies, Donetsk needs help, etc. That's just the surface.
That's some red flags, numbskulls. It's like when someone is being investigated for a crime and five different unrelated stories come out, "the prosecutor is a X, my business rivals r attacking me, and I didn't do it, you did it, and even if I did it's not that bad, and I didn't do it the way they're saying, the judge is a Y"
Go read tass.com if you want to see the shit the Russian government is spinning.
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Yeah, suddenly I like ZH a lot more
So... you like reading Government propaganda?
Re:I love ZeroHedge! (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC... whatever... it doesn't really matter if conservative or liberal. Most "mainstream" news outlets in the US stopped being about objective journalism a long time ago, and are now little more than partisan propaganda and almost tabloid-level "entertainment".
But if as a result of the above failure we start giving more credibility to guys like RussiaToday or the clinically insane dude from InfoWars, and the like, we are truly fucked. Look for better alternatives.
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The BBC has unfortunately been hijacked by the authoritarian Boris Johnson government. You will almost never see it criticise Brexit, for example, in spite of it being the biggest British policy failure in hundreds of years.
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Yeah, suddenly I like ZH a lot more
"BaaaAaAaAhh"
Awe, the sheep thinks he's people.
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ZeroHedge shills for China and Israel? That's news to me.
Obviously you haven't been reading ZeroHedge very much, because most of the commenters I've seen over there have very pessimistic opinions of China (and maybe a slightly lesser extent against Israel).
Crypto is kind of split. Some are crazy about it, some not so much. But they are all pretty anti-fiat and anti-money printing.
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No. You are plain wrong. Ignoring the users, ZeroHedge itself is not pro-CCP, not in the slightest. If you think that, you haven't been reading their articles very carefully.
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sure Ivan
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This is a good distinction. My experience leads me to believe the comments section is populated largely by people from /b who can't get to their regular haunt because of work firewalls. :)
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This was the favorite news source of a fascist acquaintance of mine, he and his buddies were into it way before it was cool.
Hipster Facists are a thing now? Talk about full-circle.
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To be clear, are we talking about the same ZH that got kicked off Twitter for spreading the (now mainstream approved) idea that Covid-19 might have come from a lab in China?
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lol since when was that widely debunked lie "mainstream approved"
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Proponents of the "COVID lab leak" theory that COVID-19 originated as a result of work performed at the Wuhan Institute of Virology keep repeating the same misinformation. [snopes.com]
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lost your 4-digit uid, then got a 7 digit one 20 years later.... offs
1.2 million Twitter followers (Score:1, Funny)
Zero Hedge, which has 1.2 million Twitter followers,
...Three quarters of which are Russian bots.
A dangerous attack on press freedoms! (Score:3, Insightful)
When Trump so much as criticized certain journalists on his private Tweeter account, the criticism was denounced by Progressive Humanity [theguardian.com] — including right here [slashdot.org].
To have such an accusation — of working for a hostile foreign power — come from ominously unnamed "intelligence officials" ought to be scarier.
Is it? Why not?
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The "unnamed intelligence official" didn't even claim ZeroHedge was working FOR a hostile foreign power. From the article "The officials did not say whether they thought Zero Hedge knew of any links to spy agencies and did not allege direct links between the website and Russia." The claim is only that Russian propaganda is being spread through the site. This is clearly just another hit piece on a site that allows articles that go against the official narrative (which is really just a nice way of saying US p
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You're splitting hairs pointing at a distinction without difference.
Whether the accusation involves knowingly working for the enemy, or just being a hapless tool in the hostile hands, it is still a severe accusation.
For example, had anyone pointed out, during Vietnam War, that the glorious Peace Movement was bought by the USSR ( which it was [medium.com]), the accusation would've been denounced as "attack on the 1st Amendment". By "militarist war mongers"
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Sure I can point out that when the US goes into McCarthy mode that every critic will turn out to be a shill for the enemy , which has to be fought with every nasty trick available, as COINTELPRO has shown.
I can also tell you that NK defector Yeonmi Park teaches us that NK only has one train driving once a month and people have to push it. Or Sayragul Sautbay who gradually went from an instructor to a prisoner in the Uyghur concentraction camps, where prisoners went from meatless to forced to eat pork, where
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Well, my understanding is that only members of the Democratic party in the US are sophisticated intellectuals, but what do I know? It's worth pointing out that every person who is a reporter is being paid to say something and it's understood that if they say something wrong they may have to find someone else to pay them to talk. That's true of any investigative piece, or even historical documentary. Every professional gets paid to do something.
And yes, we should look at a person's words, while also attempti
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Our fascists waged war and genocide against African nations, and incarcerated some few dozens of thousands of "divergents", indefinitely, without trial, Guantanamo-style. We had an aggressive censorship committee and compulsory youth fascist groups, not unlike a certain Reich. And yes, we also had the typical strong-hand dictator who fortunately did not leave a solid legacy when his humanity struck. We just had a much more sensible populace by the time it was made clear to all, without really much, if any,
Right wing (Score:5, Insightful)
Right wing media spreading Russian propaganda, how shocking. In other news water is wet.
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Breath of fresh air (Score:1, Troll)
Everything I read about Russia in the past weeks were alleged, baseless, proofless accusations, almost provocations to war, only by US news sites. Strange how no one else reports on this.
Re:Breath of fresh air (Score:4, Insightful)
So the 130,000 Russian troops along the border of Ukraine is false? They aren't there?
Oh, they are? So they must be expecting an imminent Ukrainian invasion of Russian territory, right? Otherwise Russia wouldn't need that buildup and wouldn't be threatening war.
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So they must be expecting an imminent Ukrainian invasion of Russian territory, right?
Illegal immigration.
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The alarming news of russian buildup near Ukraine reappears every year. This can mean many things while you can only think of one. We almost had a nuclear exchange in 1983 when there was a major military NATO exercise near Russia and the Russians thought it was being used as a cover for a first strike attack. The US wasn't even aware of that.
The reality is Russia can easily overrun the Ukrainian army if they choose to do so. NATO arms manufacturers may poor more weapons into the region but that will not cha
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How's the weather in St. Petersburg, Mr. Troll?
"Along the border of Ukraine" is a short way of saying "not on the border with China", "not on the border with Mongolia", "not on the border with Kazakhstan", "not on the border with Finland", "not on the border with Belarus".
I don't need my gas lit, thx.
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Re:Breath of fresh air (Score:4, Informative)
WTF does this have to do with us?
We signed a treaty expressly saying it's (partly) our problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
What else is there to discuss?
Whether agreements signed by the US are worth anything. They agreed to give up their nukes if we (and others) agreed to protect them.
Are you willing to go to war with Russia over Ukraine?
Nope. But you can't stuff your head up your ass and pretend there are no consequences for us if Russia decides to invade.
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Perhaps letting a criminal get away with a crime in front of our faces isn't the message we want to send to the rest of the world.
Perhaps there is an effort to maintain the idea that conquering foreign lands is no longer tolerable, especially in Europe and with a country that is highly developed.
Who are you arguing with? Most of the US and the political establishment don't want to send troops to Ukraine, either. You're arguing what is known as a "straw-man".
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Are you willing to go to war with Russia over Ukraine?
Yes.
Ukraine should invite a handful of troops each from as many countries as possible, to camp along the border. If Putin breaks any of their toes then the answer to your question is yes. Putin should be well informed that every country will consider that an act of war, and that they will all immediately mobilize all forces necessary. Don't waste anyone's time explaining consequences to me, I'm not stupid. Putin is an uncivilized psychopath, but he is no
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No it's a more accurate way of saying it. If these troops were all at their respective bases we wouldn't be worried. Russia has shipped troops in from throughout their country massing them not only in their own country right along the Ukrainian boarder but also along the Ukrainian boarder in Russian allied countries Belarus and Moldova.
The Russian military has all of a sudden surrounded Ukraine on three sides with what is now enough troops to take the country. But sure, nothing to worry about here!
"financial news website" - is that a joke? (Score:3, Interesting)
ZH has been a major alt-right platform for years now.
It may have started out as a site focused on financial markets, but nowadays those kind of articles are few and far between.
When the Stormfront neo-Nazi site was shut down, its readers all moved to ZH.
The site's comment threads are a fever swamp of Antisemitism and racism.
The ZH editors are obviously in the Kremlin's pocket. Putin is always portrayed in the most favorably light. I've been monitoring ZH for years now to understand what the alt-right is up to. Given the obvious bias, there is no doubt in my mind, that the site's owners are financially beholden to Russia.
"U.S. intelligence officials" (Score:1)
Given their track record, why should I believe a single thing they claim?
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100% you should not trust anonymous US intelligence officials. Sometimes what they say matches the truth, but it's always entirely coincidental.
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What does the opinion of an aging Russian politician matter at all?
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Now I have one for you: how fucking stupid do you have to be to ask that dumb-ass question?
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Good thing he loves what I say, then. Maybe you should shape up.
Deny deny deny (Score:2)
Meanwhile ... (Score:2)
Slashdot won't let a posting about this come to the front-page, but, today, Tulsi Gabbard (former Democrat Congresswoman) has the guts to say it: "The Durham investigation makes clear that Hillary Clinton and the power elite spied on the Trump campaign and White House, undermining our democracy, launching us into a new Cold War, endangering America and the world. Clinton and her warmongers must be held accountable."
I now want to hear more from Emmanuel Goldstein (Score:2)
I thought I heard him say "Big Brother isn't real".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Now do Fox News (Score:2)
the UK dealt with this already
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FFS, Biden is doing his best to gin up war fever with Russia. He's hoping it'll distract from his failures at home.
What happened? Did a tentacle monster hatch in your brain? Normally you conservatives never meet a war you don't instantly fall in love with.
Re:War Fever (Score:4, Insightful)
There was a time when "conservatives" would have jumped at the chance to kill as many Russians as possible.
Now it appears they're on the verge of embracing communist policies (keeping people poor, using tax dollars to enrich oligarchs, attacking and/or imprisoning those who dissent or reveal corruption, etc). Even Cucker Carlson is against democracy by rooting for Russia over Ukraine.
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Hmm... Can't decide if that deserves the Insightful, though it provoked me into seeing the AC context, which was a pretty weak joke.
With my fixation on solutions, my current solution approach is that Biden should promise not to touch Putin's money. He should promise to remove the money from all of Putin's most important supporters. Then we'll get to see how professional courtesy works among kleptocrats.
Background of that anti-joke is that the kleptocrats bought out the Communist going-out-of-business fire s
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The liberals are all like the hardcases from the 60s : "Do what the government tells you"; follow the rules'; ban things we don't like."
It's an interesting time.
Re:War Fever (Score:4, Informative)
Try stepping out of orthodoxy, and you'll find that the the conservatives are very much in the "do as we tell you" camp.
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Couldn't upvote anymore so just wanted to reply and say this^ is spot on.
I remember my friends and I talking about this a few years back like "man it's weird how it feels as though just living a normal life... holding down a job, getting out of debt, making something of yourself and hey maybe even starting a family... now seems like the counter-culture"
It is weird. We are actively encouraged to do the opposite of nearly all of that.
Re:War Fever (Score:5, Insightful)
The conservatives are now like hippies from the 60s "We're all cool, man'; freedom of speech, Live and let live.
Here are the conservative actions I remember:
Sure seems like conservatives haven't changed because you guys still seem like racists, just unaware of it.
The liberals are all like the hardcases from the 60s : "Do what the government tells you"; follow the rules'; ban things we don't like."
Seems like Olympic grade distortions.
Desiring a less corrupt governments and having a better understanding of the world seems inline with liberals.
The only thing that has changed is how you view the world.
OP is Gish Galloping (Score:2)
There's an internet law about the ratio of bullshit to work needed to refute bullshit called "Brandolini's Law" that explains why Gish Gallops are such effective debate tactics. I first came across Gish Gallops and Brandolini's Law from the YouTubers Aronra and Rebecca Watson. Both are good channel
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The first link confirms it's not being taught in K-12.
The second link claims a bunch of random crap is CRT but it's not.
I guess you are another person that doesn't understand what CRT actually is.
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See the sibling comment to your comment. Yes, CRT is being taught there. It's even being taught *here* in Williamson County. We had a Thai lady who's kid is half white complain to the school board because her 9 year old son had been taught that he was half "oppressor". Yes, this is the bullshit being taught to kids.
But, you knew that, didn't you?
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so glad to hear she is rebelling against your nonsense
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Normally you conservatives never meet a war you don't instantly fall in love with.
They all opposed the war started by Clinton.
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What are you smokin? Biden waived sanctions [reuters.com] on the company behind Nord Stream 2 by in May.
How would the US provide Germany with gas? We don't even have enough gas for ourselves thanks to Biden canceling Keystone XL.
What would we do? Invade Canada and lay a pipeline across the ocean from there to Europe? Sounds about as dumb as defunding the police.
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Relying on Russia for natural gas is convenient but hardly "energy independence". Look at the problems it is causing in acquiescence to the dictatorship now. That is the exact opposite of independence.
From a strategy viewpoint, using up someone else's resources is keen. But then you must knucke under to their extravegences of dictatorshio due to inertia of re-severing yourself from them.
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So, since, at least, 1941, eh?
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How's the weather in St. Petersburg?
They're definitely Russian (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, I can believe that they're telling Russia's side of the story. Thing is, I literally don't care. I care if someone can point out factual errors in their reporting, but the fact that it's Russian is obvious and already taken into account.
So when they say something xenophobic like "you can't listen to them because they're Russians" without actually pointing at any sort of factual errors... then I get more suspicious instead of the ones who want me to discount them without even listening.
Truth if the fir
Re:They're definitely Russian (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, I can believe that they're telling Russia's side of the story.
Except that's not what they are doing. I'm in favor of journalists going to foreign nations and interviewing people and leaders then reporting on it. However, I am against publishing literal propaganda pieces from a source known to be propagandists.
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> I'm in favor of journalists going to foreign nations and interviewing people and leaders then reporting on it. However, I am against publishing literal propaganda pieces from a source known to be propagandists.
And yet... you haven't bothered to explain any difference and the item I would point to as the main difference between the two (lying or omitting important factual information) is what I complained that this report did NOT give any mention of.
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And yet... you haven't bothered to explain any difference
Going out and investigating a story is called journalism. Printing what someone claims is the truth and not taking any action to verify it is called propagandizing.
If you still don't know the difference then you need to turn off the TV, smartphone, and your computer before selling them and going off to live in the woods because you are not equipped to navigate the modern world.
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Imagine the meme guy going YES to this. (Score:2)
> So, you hate CNN, WaPo, NYT then?
Yes
I have absolutely nothing but utter contempt for CNN in particular. They've lost 90% of their viewership, their legal analyst masturbated on work Zoom calls, several have been credibly accused of other sexual misconduct, they had a convicted pedophile on staff and kept him well past it was clear he was an actual pedo, etc. And that's before we even get to how bad their coverage is.
And now they're hiring Fox New rejects since no one else wants to touch them with a 1
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Who gives a shit if something is propaganda. Very few reporters are unbiased.
There isn't a more critical time to figure out the difference between bias and state propaganda than the brink of war.
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I literally don't care. I care if someone can point out factual errors in their reporting, but the fact that it's Russian is obvious and already taken into account.
Very good point.
So when they say something xenophobic like
Ok, but what if they say something Xenographic?
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> Ok, but what if they say something Xenographic?
Xeno graphic means 'alien writing' if you're using only the greek roots, which is a reference to cryptography. I doubt we'll see much encrypted news.
There are doctors who use it as a word in its own right related to transplants, but I don't think you can describe words as being transplanted in quite the same way. Though maybe Finnegan's Wake counts as that due to being impenetrable due to using words from I forgot how many languages in a way designed to
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Two paragraphs and yet you still didn't answer the question.
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Kinda hard to answer a question that has no meaning.
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Maybe your comment style can give it a new meaning: evasive.
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That's a very phantomfive comment if I've ever seen one.
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Oh no! What is a phantomfive comment?
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Also, https://www.xeno.graphics/ [www.xeno.graphics]
Re:I'm Not Buying It (Score:5, Informative)
"Russian propaganda" has not just been a "go-to smear", it has been well and extensively documented that Russia uses a huge number of fake accounts on social media, and a lot of people have been eating that propaganda up.
Also the links between Trump and Russia are extensive. They have purchased a lot of his properties and funneled a lot of money to him.
The fact that you are trying whitewash these facts tells me that your account may also be a Russian one.
Re: I'm Not Buying It (Score:2)
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"Russian Propaganda" and "Russian Influence" have been the go-to smears from the left for many years now. Anything they don't like is linked to Russia in some way. They're so desperate to make the connection that Hillary's campaign hired people [foxnews.com] to make a link between Trump and Russia. Maybe it has something to do with Biden and Burisma [businessinsider.com].
Or maybe they just want war, because war is a great distraction from failed domestic policy.
Who knows?
Quoting Tropic Thunder, "never go full-retard"
Dude bro, if you're unsure of Russian involvement in Ukraine, log off and eat a taco, you're dumb as fuck.
The Political Establishment Elites and their cronies in the media have completely destroyed any trust I might have had in them. As far as I'm concerned, if I take whatever they claim, and then believe the opposite, I'm more likely to be on the correct side of things.
How do you know there even is a conflict in Ukraine? You mentioned war, what war, why, there is no conflict, remember? Why do you believe the lies? Have you ever BEEN to Russia? Russia is a tale MSM tells you to maintain their control. What's really happening is dinosaurs have invaded Poland, and everything else is a distraction. Have you ever seen a l
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