Assange Implies Murdered DNC Staffer Was WikiLeaks' Source (washingtonpost.com) 706
Okian Warrior quotes a report from Fox News: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange implied in an interview that a murdered Democratic National Committee staffer was the source of a trove of damaging emails the rogue website posted just days before the party's convention. Speaking to Dutch television program Nieuswsuur Tuesday after earlier announcing a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Seth Rich's killer, Assange said the July 10 murder of Rich in Northwest Washington was an example of the risk leakers undertake. The Washington Post provides some details of the murder in its report: "Rich was shot twice in the back as he walked to his townhouse about 4:20 a.m. Nothing was taken, but police have said attempted robbery is their leading theory for a motive, noting a spike in robberies in the neighborhood in the preceding weeks. WikiLeaks released the trove of emails later that month, on July 22. Rich, 27, had worked for the DNC for two years and helped develop a computer program to make it easier for people to find polling places on Election Day. After his death, the DNC's then-chairwoman, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), attended a vigil for Rich in front of his home, and Hillary Clinton, before she was nominated in her run for president, evoked his name during a speech in which she advocated for limiting the availability of guns."
Does anybody really doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anybody really doubt that this man was assassinated by the DNC/Clintons/etc.? Days after a huge scandal? Double tapped in the back and nothing taken? Does that sound like robbery to you?
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Yes. Snopes does.
http://www.snopes.com/seth-con... [snopes.com]
Re:Does anybody really doubt it (Score:4, Insightful)
Nice, thank you. Except that the next move will be to discredit Snopes in some way, citing how their neighbor's boyfriend's uncle knows a guy that works for Snopes and says they take hush-money from the DNC all the time.
Not really necessary. Snopes has discredited themselves so many times now that they can't be taken seriously.
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When I've looked things up on Snopes I haven't been very convinced by their analysis. I didn't check this one, since I don't know enough to decide whether their evaluation is flawed, biased, accurate, or what. The times that I did check, though, have made me reluctant to trust them as more than twice as accurate as "some random guy posting on the web", and considerably less accurate than WikiPedia...which I hardly trust at all on anything controversial.
Re:Does anybody really doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
OK. Now I've read the Snopes claim. They basically say that "conspiracy nuts" believe that the DNC is involved and the Police believe robbery. That's probably true, at least if you modify it to "the Police claim to believe it was robbery". It's not anything to base an opinion on. It certainly doesn't show that it wasn't a political murder...a quite difficult thing to prove, unless you do it by proving that it was something else.
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Yes. Anyone not wearing tinfoil over their entire body does not believe this.
Re:Does anybody really doubt it (Score:5, Funny)
Stannic Tinfinger? Sounds like a 007 villain.
Re:Does anybody really doubt it (Score:4, Insightful)
Days after a huge scandal? Was July 10th days after July 22nd in your universe? Because it wasn't in mine.
Even if you were somehow referring to the June 12th interview, it would take an unheard of efficiency for the DNC/Clintons/etc. to track this man down simply on the basis of an interview where Assange claimed to have "emails related to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication."
Anyone who could pull that off would deserve the Presidency. I'd look forward to years and years of the U.S.'s external security problems being eliminated weeks before they could actually materialize, rather than morphing into post hoc debacles run by the Keystone cops.
Re:Does anybody really doubt it (Score:4, Interesting)
It does sound like something Putin's men would do. Putin is clearly running the old KGB playbooks and interfering in US elections they way they used to interfere in Europe, but in the modern way.
Pressure Rich for dirt, and then ice him when he starts getting nervous and talks to FBI.
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It sounds exactly like something the Clintons would do.
"It does sound like something Putin's men would do."
Oh, I get it, you think there is a substantial difference. We do have better propoganda and spin on our side, I'll give you that.
Russian involvement in getting the message is neither here nor there. The "evidence" for it amounts to no more than I could accomplish with $5 hopping on a vpn service with an exit point in Russia. Actually Russian I
Re:Does anybody really doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
Taken [Re:Does anybody really doubt it] (Score:4, Insightful)
How can anyone verify "nothing was taken"? The guy whose stuff it was is dead.
Suppose hypothetically Mr. Rich owned a hula-dancer lamp that was his favorite, and the robber took it?
Mr. Rich is no longer around to say, "Hey, where's my favorite hula dancer lamp?" [hulalamps.com]
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It would also be an incredibly incompetent assassin to get in a fight with their victim before killing them when all they had to do was walk up behind them and fire one shot.
Re:Does anybody really doubt it (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Does anybody really doubt it (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Does anybody really doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
The Clintons are "associated with" *thousands* of people. Bill was the f'ing president and Governor of Arkansas. Hillary has been politically active for decades. This is a 6 degrees problem and the evidence doesn't suggest that there's anything more than that.
Re:Does anybody really doubt it (Score:5, Funny)
Ergo: Kevin Bacon did it. In Arkansas. With guns.
Lots of guns.
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Re:Does anybody really doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
But strangers are murdered, without robbery, infrequently. Strangers, not in criminal street or drug gangs and not being arrested by police, are murdered much less
frequently than that. No witnesses, no leads, no explanations? A pro?
How Clintonian of you to say the C word. (Score:3)
How about not using the tired 20+ year old excuse that has been used by the media to smear people on all matters Clinton?
Besides, there's plenty of motive for the Clintons to signal their usual suspects to take the guy (never mind the rest) out.
Re:Does anybody really doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, leakers who embarrass uber-powerful political figures get gunned down all the time in affluent neighborhoods by robbers who don't take their cellphones or wallets. I see it every day on the local news.
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Re:Does anybody really doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
A bungled robbery NEVER results in a double tap to the back.
In a bungled robbery, the gun goes off while the victim and perp face each other most often, and there is not a second shot to confirm death. That's the whole point, the perp panics and forgets to take the stuff - he doesn't calmly put another round through the heart.
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Chicago isn't even close to D.C. Chicago doesn't make the top 100 list [neighborhoodscout.com] of most violent cities. D.C. is number 35.
Media accounts of violence in Chicago are reported with a kind of frenzy that is out of phase with the reality. I don't know if it is because the mayor is so despised [crabbygolightly.com], or because Barak Obama might be embarrassed [nydailynews.com] by it. Not really sure why Chicago gets so much hate in the national media over violence, murder and shootings when the truth is there are many more violent cities across the US.
Re: Does anybody really doubt it (Score:3, Funny)
They probably found electrical burns on his nuts and that his fingernails were pulled out and assumed this was simply how he liked to party.
Re: Does anybody really doubt it (Score:3)
Hillary! and guns? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hillary Clinton, before she was nominated in her run for president, evoked his name during a speech in which she advocated for limiting the availability of guns
When guns are outlawed, only Clinton "persuaders" will have guns. So you better vote correctly or else...
Re:Hillary! and guns? (Score:5, Interesting)
"“I know we are a smart enough nation to figure out how you protect responsible gun owners' rights and get guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them,” Mrs. Clinton replied."
Except that if that were true, then Clinton and the left wouldn't be constantly trying to ban a class of scary-looking rifles that are used in less murders than knives or even fists. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-t... [fbi.gov]
Compare 'rifles' to knives, blunt objects, or fists.
Re:Hillary! and guns? (Score:4, Informative)
Um (Score:2)
No way! (Score:2, Interesting)
It's just another totally random coincidence that everybody who knows anything about the Clintons ends up dead!
TOTAL. COINCIDENCE.
Besides, the police have already declared that it was a robbery even though the man's keys and wallet weren't taken. Case closed!
Clinton_body_count++ (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Clinton_body_count++ (Score:5, Insightful)
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What secret? Scroll up. Several lists have been posted. How is it a secret if it gets posted over and over? How is it a secret when millions of people will say "yeah, they totally murdered those people"?
Is Juanita Broddrick's story [wikipedia.org] of Bill Clinton raping her a secret?
Personally, I'd say the Clintons are totally innocent of more than half of the crimes people have accused them of.
It will be interesting to hear the next 4.5 years of denials and excuses for incident after incident as this stuff (and worse)
Re:Clinton_body_count++ (Score:5, Insightful)
Monica's bj would be a "secret" too, except she kept her stained dress and DNA tests exist. Otherwise she would be just another person on one of the various lists.
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There were suicides during Dubya and Obama years by government workers, party staffers, what not. Thousands and thousands of people end up being indirectly attached to any presidency. With roughly 25 suicides per 100,000 people, of course there will be a lot of them that could be tied to Dubya or Obama. You could make a similar list, there will easily have been enough suicides of the relevant type of person. Except that this is the Clinton's schtick with the conspiracy theorists, so they go with differe
People who were associated with... (Score:2)
I wonder if you take some random individual (especially someone whose profession is to interact with people and groups of people) and map all the people they were ever associated with and find a.... gasp!.... number of individuals who met with an untimely demise.
Re:People who were associated with... (Score:5, Funny)
Must we allow Kevin Bacon to murder again?
We know one of two things is true (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Julian Assange will out a source if it will get him press attention, or
2. The dead guy was not the actual source and the DNC would have no motive to take retribution, so Julian Assange will lie about a source if it will get him press attention.
Third option (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Julian Assange will out a source if it will get him press attention, or
2. The dead guy was not the actual source and the DNC would have no motive to take retribution, so Julian Assange will lie about a source if it will get him press attention.
3. If you murder a Wikileaks source, Julian Assange will go after you with everything he's got, releasing the information at the worst possible moment, in the most damaging possible way, and offer rewards for the capture of the murderer.
In other words, it's a message to those who would murder wikileaks informants.
And in other news, Assange has stated that there are more Hillary Clinton revelations [foxnews.com] to come. The biggest stash yet, he says.
He has stated that he has proof that Clinton had a hand in arming ISIS [heatst.com].
I'm running out of popcorn - need to go out and buy some more!
Re:Third option (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck me, that's a nothingburger. Name me one administration that hasn't sold weapons all over the middle east. This isn't a Hillary or Democrat problem, it's an American problem.
Anyone know what Assange's game is? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anyone know what Assange's game is? (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't whistle blowing anymore. For one thing a whistle blower _never_ reveals a source.
Julian didn't reveal the source either, and he stated as much in the interview.
You're listening to what the *press* said Julian said. That's a completely different thing.
(viz: what the press reports that Donald Trump says, versus what he *actually* said.)
I did check the qoute (Score:5, Insightful)
"Whistle-blowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often very significant risks," Assange said. "As a 27-year-old, works for the DNC, was shot in the back, murdered just a few weeks ago for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington."
He's strongly implying that the deceased man gave him information and that he was killed in retaliation. It's impossible for any reasonable person to conclude anything else when the quote is taken in context. Saying anything else is just being dishonest.
The same is true for Donald's comment about Second Amendment Solutions. He was suggesting (in jest?) someone should assassinate Hilary if she wins. If you're not American and lack the proper context then you might have missed that. But there isn't a man or woman alive in the United States who didn't get his message loud and clear.
The press is reporting exactly what both Assange and Donald said and meant. I'm sorry if that makes you uncomfortable but it doesn't change facts. Hell, it makes me _very_ uncomfortable. There is no way in hell either man should be saying things like this for a variety of reasons. Donald's just a blow hard and an a-hole. I still don't what Assange is up to. Maybe he's given up on making the world a better place and wants it to burn...
Fits with past comments (Score:3)
Why would such a method be caught now with a such weak tool set when every other part of the data extraction was undiscoverable?
The early hint to that was it was not another nation:
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07... [cnn.com]
""Perhaps one day the source or sources will step forward and that might be an interesting moment some people may have egg on their faces."
This seems more like a classic Watergate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] insider walk out than any nation with amazing skills to get into a network that then lacked any ability cover its way out of a US network.
Nsa Whistleblower: Agency Has All Of Clinton’s Deleted Emails (31 Jul 2016)
http://www.breitbart.com/jerus... [breitbart.com]
".... surmised that the hack of the DNC could have been coordinated by someone inside the U.S. intelligence community angry over
"
Assange Implies It's A Slow News Day (Score:3, Insightful)
I see several comments where people ask something like "What's Assange's game plan?" His game plan should be obvious to anyone. His plan is to say anything it takes to get his name in the news so he can somehow dream that he is still relevant and play the martyr.
That's what you call a Two-Fer! (Score:5, Funny)
Hillary Clinton, before she was nominated in her run for president, evoked his name during a speech in which she advocated for limiting the availability of guns.
Wow, not only was she able to kill the source of the leak to set an example of what happens when you cross the Clintons, she was ALSO able to use it to promote stronger gun-control! That's really getting two for the price of one.
What? No "it's a trap" theories? (Score:4, Insightful)
Assange IS this story, and his name comes up here surprisingly seldom. Here's a game plan for you: Trump is an extreme case of conspiracy theorist; it wasn't just birtherism, he believes in a lot of them. A Clinton-murder conspiracy has got to be catnip to him right now, desperate as he is. So Assange is floating one: and if Trump bits, Assange plays him a bit, leads him on, his statements get more extreme...and Assange pulls out the rug.
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That makes sense, except for the fact that Assange hates Hillary and will do anything to screw her campaign.
Re:Clintons have killed tons of people (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Clintons have killed tons of people (Score:5, Funny)
It's possible that dealing with the Clintons might just drive some people to suicide.
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Here's the list: (scroll down to "THE CLINTON BODY-COUNT")
http://www.whatreallyhappened.... [whatreallyhappened.com]
Going to testify against the mob is probably a safer bet.
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I'd prefer the format to be a "binders full of victims". Thanks.
Russians really hate Hillary (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow, so many Russian troll farm posters around these parts with silly conspiracy theories. Putin must really really hate Hillary Clinton.
Re:Russians really hate Hillary (Score:5, Insightful)
Everything's a crazy conspiracy theory until it comes out decades later in declassified documents that it was true. I remember back in the 80's when charges that the CIA was helping South American drug lords import shit-tons of cocaine into the U.S. was just a crazy conspiracy theory too.
I'm far from a tinfoil hat wearing kook. But the fact that this guy was murdered in a decent neighborhood just weeks after he leaked a bunch of sensitive documents about major political figures, by a "robber" who didn't even bother to take his cellphone or wallet, seems more than a little suspicious to me. It strains belief that it was all just a coincidence.
Make no mistake, Edward Snowden would have met the same fate if he hadn't been smart enough to get the fuck out of the country.
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I agree with you that it's suspicious but I think the problem here is the suggestion that it must be because Hillary has some kind of kill squad and gave the order or some such. It's that that seems to be straying into the realm of nonsense for no other reason that to play partisan politics over the issue.
It's more likely in my mind that someone working alongside this guy was a zealot for the cause and took the issue into their own hands, entirely without any kind of knowledge or support of Hillary. We've s
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Everything's a crazy conspiracy theory until it comes out decades later in declassified documents that it was true. I remember back in the 80's when charges that the CIA was helping South American drug lords import shit-tons of cocaine into the U.S. was just a crazy conspiracy theory too.
I'm far from a tinfoil hat wearing kook. But the fact that this guy was murdered in a decent neighborhood just weeks after he leaked a bunch of sensitive documents about major political figures, by a "robber" who didn't even bother to take his cellphone or wallet, seems more than a little suspicious to me. It strains belief that it was all just a coincidence.
Make no mistake, Edward Snowden would have met the same fate if he hadn't been smart enough to get the fuck out of the country.
Has the bar for crazy really dropped so low? So let me get this straight. Someone gets murdered in DC, and it's suddenly Clinton's fault?
Let me clue you in. You clearly don't live in this area. There are no "nice" areas that will prevent you from getting shot. Last week we had a case where four people jumped an old lady, shot her in the arm, then stole her shoes. Not her purse. Not her money. Just her shoes.
But clearly it was Trump trying to send a message, right? I mean, she was a black lady and had a pro
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Clinton is part of a bi-partisan movement to squeeze Putin hard. I personally think adding the Baltics to Nato and trying to flip Ukraine is going too far, but Clinton is probably gung ho about all of that. Putin would love to see her go down.
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Now for a slice of reality, the Russian government does not care which one is elected, Trump or Clinton, as they are empty figure heads and the power is with those that control major US multinational corporations, political plants in the CIA/NSA/DOD as well as other government agencies. You really think the Russian intelligence services are as stupid as the typical American voter and believes the elections in America have any real input into the purposeful mismanagement of the country (seriously they are p
Re:Russians really hate Hillary (Score:5, Informative)
Now for a slice of reality, the Russian government does not care which one is elected, Trump or Clinton, as they are empty figure heads
I don't think you realize how serious this election is. Putin regards the breakup of the Soviet Union as a great tragedy. Only one of those candidates is implying that Russia can invade former USSR states like Estonia unless they cough up money they don't have.
So they purged the democrat rolls of Bernie Sanders supporters
I had no problem when I went to vote for Sanders. Nobody I knew who voted for Sanders (lots of people) was "purged" from the "democrat rolls". And when I eagerly rifled through that DNC dump looking for dirt on Hillary, I came up empty.
One truly laughable complaint by Clinton against Trump, critiquing Trump for inciting violence, seriously WTF?
Yeah, WTF is right... Trump wasn't calling for assassination, just "armed revolt"! [opposingviews.com]
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You really think the Russian intelligence services are as stupid as the typical American voter and believes the elections in America have any real input into the purposeful mismanagement of the country
Its not about being stupid. Even Obama seems to have gone into office genuinely believing he could "make a difference". 7 years later, GTMO is still going and Obama is presumably wiser.
Re:Clintons have killed tons of people (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a list, it's over 50 people.
Being a Conservative Republican myself since Regan.. This list is hog wash born in the darkest corner of Arkansas. The Clinton's are many nasty things, but they are NOT stupid enough to be out ordering hits on their detractors. I don't put it past some of their supporters, but Bill and Hill wouldn't do something as stupid as you suggest.
So can we PLEASE STOP with this tripe? Dredging up Vince Foster and Fort Marcy Park is pointless and detracts from *real* issues, like Hillary's role in the "bimbo eruption" team and what she allowed to be said about the long parade of women claiming Bill sexually abused them, then turning around claiming to be the "champion of women's issues" because she happens to have that kind of plumbing, not because she's done anything.
Re: Clintons have killed tons of people (Score:4, Insightful)
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The fact that the Clintons have abused their political office to enrich themselves massively is self-evident from their net worth and their control of the Clinton foundation. The fact that two smart lawyers controlling billions of dollars, w
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The fact that the Clintons have abused their political office to enrich themselves massively is self-evident from their net worth and their control of the Clinton foundation.
Essentially every member of congress makes an absolute shit ton of money during their first term [ballotpedia.org]. Speaking fees, legal stock market trading on confidential information, there's all kinds of things congress has decided to allow themselves because they "don't amount to corruption," in a quid-pro-quo sense. Not saying it's good; just saying it's normal.
But such claims of graft or unethical behavior are usually brought up by one party because they think their candidate is less tainted. In this case, the Clin
Re:Clintons have killed tons of people (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, it is nutty tinfoil hat stuff.
However, it is interesting that they came up with someone who committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest. Twice. With two separate guns.
That's nutty enough to inspire a boatload of conspiracy theories all by itself - forget any connection to political powers.
And there was a guy who committed suicide by cutting his arms 11 times, his neck twice and shooting himself in the head in such a way that no gun was found.
Or the suicide by gunshot to the back of the head.
Or the chick who packed her luggage and arranged it in the living room before committing suicide by gunshot.
Another guy who committed suicide with two guns? Wait... What?
Somebody spent a lot of time trolling the papers for weird suicide stories. How the heck do you even find a single "suicide by two guns" story? That can't be true... can it? Not the Clinton part.... just the "suicide by two guns" part. Most of these stories have to be covered in goofy sauce that doesn't hold up to scrutiny, right?
So a quick trip to Wikipedia.... and multiple gunshot suicide is actually a thing. And not just "guy rigged up two guns", but actual "dude took 3 shots in the chest to kill himself" multiple gunshot suicide. from the wiki:
Now that's determination.
Re:Clintons have killed tons of people (Score:5, Funny)
There's a list
Please add me to the list!
Me too!
Tons of people? I guess I must have missed that "Soylent Clintons" sales day in my supermarket.
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Re:Clintons have killed tons of people (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing "decent" about that list. Vince Foster suicide was investigated to death by Republican prosecutor Kenneth Starr. Starr's report stated that he found no reason to believe the death was other than suicide.
A list that contains such a person after being cleared by such an impeccable source with ample investigative resources is now proven to be impervious to facts.
Heck for all I know Clinton killed every one of the other names listed, but this is the equivalent of the list opening with "the earth is flat and the moon landing was faked". No one in their sane mind would give any value to such a list.
Re:Clintons have killed tons of people (Score:5, Funny)
And that's why Ken Starr is alive today.
Re: Clintons have killed tons of people (Score:3)
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Here is a nice fact for you:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
"Responding to homicide allegations, an official of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology acknowledged that doctors initially were puzzled by a circular wound on the top of Brown's head when his remains were recovered at the crash scene. The forensic pathologist then consulted with others and took extensive X-rays. As a result of these consultations and full-body X-rays, we absolutely ruled out anything beyond a blunt-force injury to the head."
Not sure what you are saying here. Wouldn't you expect the cause of death for people who crashed a plane into a mountain to be blunt force trauma?
Re:Clintons have killed tons of people (Score:4, Interesting)
You mean the Kenneth Starr that recently had to resign from Baylor due to a sex assault scandal? You mean the guy whose chief prosecutor in the case, Miquel Rodriguez, quit the Starr investigation, claiming that Starr’s staff was engaging in a cover-up of Foster’s death? That Kenneth Starr?
Re:Clintons have killed tons of people (Score:4, Insightful)
So now we have a conspiracy to kill Vince Foster that not only includes Bill and Hillary, but also a Republican prosecutor. This is just like the moon landing, where for it to be true requires our sworn enemies at the time (i.e. the Russians) to go along with it. I mean it anything is possible, but you just lowered the probabilities of either of these events being true by orders of magnitude.
A conspiracy of confederates I can see, a conspiracy that includes your enemies is out there in la-la land.
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What makes you think that establishment Republicans and establishment Democrats are "enemies"?
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His chief prosecutor in the case, Miquel Rodriguez, quit the Starr investigation, claiming that Starr’s staff was engaging in a cover-up of Foster’s death
Re:Clintons have killed tons of people (Score:5, Insightful)
Hint, hint, kind of stupid to professional suicide someone if you don't get away with. Sure plenty of amateurs get caught and most certainly the Clinton Clowns would have got caught if they attempted to do is personally, hence insider professionals were likely involved and using the government trained skills, quite simply got away with it as you would expect professionals to do (the reason why it was investigated 'to death' is it made no sense, except as the individual being suicided). Now a crushed throat training accident and two bullets in the back suicide 'er' robbery, in short order, added to the rest of the list, real organised crime stuff.
Re: Clintons have killed tons of people (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.whatreallyhappened.... [whatreallyhappened.com]
Scroll down to "body count"
Perhaps some of this is circumstantial, perhaps some is accidental. Perhaps. But perhaps some percentage of this really is what it seems (to me) to add up to.
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Two directories and a file name in all caps.
Domain name already borderline conspiracy theory invoking.
I'm ... going to need a slightly more reputable source to believe it.
The MSM doesn't count. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm ... going to need a slightly more reputable source to believe it.
Then believe whatever lies that the conventional media feed you on the Clinton matter.
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Re: Clintons have killed tons of people (Score:5, Insightful)
Not a moron for linking to the website and mentioning it, but for pointing to that website as evidence.
Re: Clintons have killed tons of people (Score:4, Informative)
Snopes has declared all of this False. http://www.snopes.com/politics... [snopes.com]
"Clinton was acquainted with some people who died — that's about all one can make of this list."
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Snopes is as trustworthy as Politico after their chief investigative reporter sends their clinton articles to the DNC for revision. [businessinsider.com] They can't even get basic things correct, [ethicsalarms.com] and when it's something to the contrary to their viewpoint they still label it as fake. Even when their own links prove otherwise. [reddit.com]
Re: Clintons have killed tons of people (Score:5, Informative)
Oh please. Snopes does this all the time to mislead people. They create a strawman of the actual story so they can label it "mostly false" and then in the print acknowledge the actual argument so they can pretend to be credible. Case in point, the Philando Castile shooting. [snopes.com]
Castile was shot by a police officer in July. His girlfriend then made a video of the aftermath and put it up on facebook in which she claims they were stopped for a busted taillight and the officer flipped out and shot Castile for no reason other than the racist cop was scared of black people. The media ran with the girlfriend's story without question. This drew national attention and was one of the incidents cited by the man who shot and killed 5 Dallas police officers later in the week as one of the motivations for his actions.
Her story sounded fishy, and conservative media, which doesn't believe that racist cops are gunning people down for no reason investigated and found that, in fact, Castile was pulled over because he matched the description of an armed robber [kare11.com] from a convenience store heist a few days before. And this is the claim made in the article snopes declared false:
Castile and Ms. Diamond Reynolds (Facebook video uploader) were pulled over by police because Castile matched a BOLO Alert for an armed robbery suspect from four days prior.
What does snopes pick as the claim?
Claim: Philando Castile was wanted for armed robbery when he was killed by police officers.
Which they then labeled "MOSTLY FALSE."
No. No one ever said the cops were out looking specifically for Castile. Just that he was pulled over because he matched the description (and he did). So, reality is the cop did not freak out and murder a random black man. He had a reasonable suspicion he was dealing with an armed robber. It would have been great if the situation had ended a different way, but if the officer was wary of the man and shot it was "because possible armed robber" and not "because black." To this day we do not know if Castile was the robber or not. I looked and couldn't find any new information about that aspect of the investigation.
Why didn't snopes choose this as the claim:
Claim: Philando Castile was stopped on suspicion of armed robbery when he was killed by police officers.
That's the actual claim from conservative media, and could have been labeled "TRUE."
But, snopes has their bias to push, so of course they can't do that. Would have been nice, though. Maybe if the media had run with "Man pulled over on suspicion of armed robbery shot" instead of "Racist cop murders black man for no reason" the Dallas shooter might not have been so mad, and not murdered all those cops?
Re: (Score:3)
They said it was mostly false, and then (2nd and 3rd paragraphs) explained why:
WHAT'S TRUE: Police who pulled over and killed Philando Castile reported they thought he might have resembled a suspect in an armed robbery case.
WHAT'S FALSE: Philando Castile was not "wanted" on an armed robbery charge or a "suspect" in such a case at the time he was killed.
It's right at the top, in bold, extremely prominent, in green and red text. The claim they are debunking is from Conservative Treehouse [theconserv...ehouse.com], and is headlined: "Confirmed â" Philando Castile Was an Armed Robbery Suspect â" False Media Narrative Now Driving Cop Killingsâ¦"
Their claim is correct, he was not a suspect, he resembled a description given of a suspect. However, this headline seems to have little to do wit
Re: Clintons have killed tons of people (Score:4, Funny)
Re: Clintons have killed tons of people (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
But 20,000 suicides a year is only 7 per 100,000 people. So if the Clintons are closely tied to, say, 10,000 people, then over 30 years one would expect 21 of those to commit suicide assuming their "close ties" represent a random sample of the US population and not, say, a circle of successful, well positioned political players. It appears that being a successful, well positioned political player associated with the Clinton's skews the distribution somewhat in favor of offing oneself. Can't say I blame them
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Debunked ??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't it funny that Snopes managed to debunk this particular murder before a police report was available? In other words, Snopes says in effect that the allegations can't be true even though the facts haven't been established. Isn't that the opposite of proving something?
Re:Debunked ??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Police reported that Rich was conscious and breathing at the time of the shooting.
Well duh, I imagine most shooting victims are alive and breathing when they are shot!
In all seriousness though, he was shot in the back. He likely didn't know anything about the person who shot him, no matter what their motive was, if they didn't approach him after the shooting to rob him.
It hasn't even been truly investigated yet... (Score:3)
The Snopes story confirms that he was shot for essentially no reason. We might know more if we had info from his girlfriend or the ambulance team, but nobody has made any public statements. I understand that it's way too early to go around pinning it on somebody, but it's hard to say it's "debunked" when basically no investigation has actually been done yet.
Re: (Score:3)
True, but you can debunk the allegations that he was on his way to meet with the FBI over testimony against Clinton.
That's how conspiracy theories work. You take a tiny bit of fact, like a news story. Then you tie it to something else with little to no solid links, implying that the two events are related. Because the tiny bit of fact was the origin this causes conspiracy theorists to latch onto it. If the new story has a mysterious part to it, such as "why was this guy killed?" then it's easy to just m
Re:It hasn't even been truly investigated yet... (Score:4, Insightful)
True, but you can debunk the allegations that he was on his way to meet with the FBI over testimony against Clinton.
The problem is Snopes did not debunk that. How did Snopes prove he didn't get a fake contact from someone claiming to be the FBI and wanting to talk about what he leaked? According to a third-hand report (his dad said that his girlfriend said that Seth said) that Snopes quotes, he said "he was just about home". He could have just said that meaning he would be home soon. That didn't literally mean he was on his way home. And what was he on the way home from? Maybe meeting with a phantom FBI agent who didn't show, and he was followed and killed when he was at a nice secluded location in a known high-crime area? Snopes hasn't debunked a thing.
Obviously the police know *where* he was. The shots were heard and he was found there. Was that indeed "almost home" relative to where he lived? Was it directly between wherever he left from (did he leave his girlfriend's or do they live together?) and his home? Or was he just out somewhere random? The police know all these things, and have not released that information, and his father didn't provide it either.
Re:Debunked (Score:5, Insightful)
Snopes would have "debunked" all the stories about the NSA spying on us a few years ago.
Re:Debunked? (Score:5, Insightful)
Until now, I have always found Snopes a reliable source of information. After having read what they had to say about Seth Rich, I do not understand how they can patently claim a "FALSE" status to this rumor. They offer no evidence at all to the contrary. Their claim that just because he was young, was part of the DNC since just 2014, and "only" developed a system to help voters find voting locations, means that he could not have been the source of the leak or killed to cover it up. If he had access to their systems to some degree, and was a developer capable of implementing a site of this scale for national consumption, then he most certainly could have obtained the emails if that particular server was interconnected in some way to the systems he had access to. That part actually fits to me, because that is where most leaks come from - not from a head honcho (as if the only person capable in Snope's eyes of causing such a leak was the main guy over the DNC email servers themselves). Usually it is someone ancillary on the fringes that has just enough access (or the ability to get the more privileged access relatively easily due to security vulnerabilities) that is responsible for these kinds of leaks. Look at Snowden.
Their arguments are really illogical. For example:
According to Joel Rich, Seth was on the phone with his girlfriend when the shooting started, and Rich indicated to his girlfriend that he was nearly home and not headed out for an FBI meeting implausibly scheduled in the middle of the night on a Saturday:
Rich said Seth was talking to his girlfriend on the phone outside when the incident happened.
“Asked him if he was home yet and he said just about, and then she heard some noise, he said he had to call her back — I don't know when that conversation ended but at 4:18 two shots were fired,” said Rich.
What about that proves he wasn't set up with a fake FBI meeting? Maybe he went to the meeting location, no one was there, and he was going home and was ambushed? And this... "Asked him if he was home yet and he said just about" that doesn't mean he was headed home. He could have simply been reassuring her that he would be home soon, and didn't literally mean he was going home that instant and was just about there.
And then there's the bit where the debunker said "an FBI meeting implausibly scheduled in the middle of the night on a Saturday". What?? If it wasn't a *real* FBI meeting, as the conspiracy theory states, then why not in the middle of the night? Maybe the FBI doesn't really do business in the middle of the night on the weekend (although they probably do), but most people would certainly think cloak and dagger affairs like that do happen at those times. So if he was tricked into meeting, what does that have to do with the plausibility of whether or not the FBI really does meet people at 4 AM on a Saturday? The goal would have been to get him alone so he could be killed without witnesses.
I don't believe this theory is true, and I don't believe it was disproved. However to see Snopes claiming in black and white that it was debunked, with no actual evidence to back it up, has really knocked my respect for them down several notches.
If there's something I missed that they presented as actual evidence that the theory is false, then please tell, because I didn't see it.