Donald Trump Vs. CIA: Wow!
Published on Dec 12, 2016
It's now Donald Trump vs. Obama shills at the CIA. We know who wins this one (hint: Donald Trump does).
[video=youtube_share;UxezHfOkv5k]http://youtu.be/UxezHfOkv5k[/video]
Historical & Structural Reasons for Skepticism of CIA Claims: Remaining Agnostic on Claims of Russian Hackers
by DAVID PRICE
DECEMBER 12, 2016
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/12/h...n-hackers/
Quote:Just in time for the American weekend news cycle, last Friday evening we learned from the Washington Post that Central Intelligence Agency issued a secret report concluding that Russian hackers were responsible for hacking Democratic computers and leaking stolen documents as an effort to determine the outcome of the American presidential election. We learn that a preliminary CIA report before the election indicated concerns of Russian involvement in the hacking of DNC email accounts, a hack which produced emails embarrassing candidate Hillary Clinton and members of her staff.
The Washington Post reported that the CIA "concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system." Soon after the Post story was published, the New York Times produced its own unnamed CIA source claiming that Russian hackers had also hacked the Trump campaign's email servers, but that the Russians chose to not leak these files because Russians backed Trump in the election.
The resulting flurry of reactions by talking heads on weekend news shows has led many Clinton supporters on social media to suggest that this anonymous CIA leak could form the basis of undermining the legitimacy of Trump's presidency. There has been an eruption of hopes that the CIA had found the desired talisman to wake us all from the nightmare of the coming Trump years. Suddenly, many on the American left now embrace notions of a CIA led coup against a rouge President-elect; with little discussion of the CIA's long history of interfering in elections, covertly undermining candidates not of their liking. Now we have US liberals cheering for a possible CIA coup here at home.
Truth is, we know nothing about the veracity of this leaked information from the CIA. As to the truth of these reports, I remain agnostic in these matters and highly recommend others do too. While we know nothing about the truth of these reports, we know a lot coldwarantabout the messenger delivering this news, and what we know should give us pause before accepting news of a Russian electoral coup here at home.
As a scholar with two decades of academic research studying the CIA, I think many on the American left are letting their dire fear of the damage Trump will surely bring to not fully consider how the CIA is playing these events. Many on the American left misunderstand what the CIA is and isn't. It isn't some sort of right wing agency, it is an agency filled with bright people with beliefs across the mainstream political spectrummany of the CIA's anti-democratic coups have occurred under Democratic presidents, carried out by liberal CIA operatives; but most significantly the CIA is part of the deep state.
The CIA backs American hegemonyit is what former CIA agent Philip Agee described as "the secret police of American capitalism"; it doesn't like instability and craze on the homefront, and as an Intelligence agency many of its employees naturally are worried about a coming president who relishes being seen as ignoring intelligence briefings and behaving erratically. While Trump has certainly shown disturbing signs of being unstable, some of the CIA's specific worries are no doubt misplaced; I think we can assume that once installed as president, Mr. Trump will ask the CIA to produce the sort of intelligence findings he seeks, and if the history of the Agency is any guide, it will produce such reports to suit their new master. Or who knows, the tilts of President Trump's announced cabinet may well favor a decline of the power of the Central Intelligence Agency, with a rise in the Executive's reliance on the Defense Intelligence Agency, whose rapid rise in covert activities raises this possibility.
To understand the CIA's anonymous "leak" claiming proof that the hacking of Clinton's email was a Russian job, one must first come to grips with the fact that the CIA is a tool of the executive branch. This finding was the punchline of the Pike Commission's report (the Senate's Church Committee, mistakenly concluding the agency was a rogue elephant) back in 1976, and has remained true from Sept. 18, 1947 until today. If you are new to the idea of fake news (because you somehow missed Judith Miller's years of war mongering at the New York Times), then you probably need to get up to speed on the long history of the CIA's role in cooking intelligence reports to align with presidential policy.
The CIA is no doubt as displeased with the outcome of the election as their current President is, as I am, as most of the rest of the world is. But cherry picking anonymous leaks about a rumored CIA report supposedly claiming to have proof of a Russian hack to call for Trump's electoral votes to not be counted is a dangerous stance. It betrays a fundamental distrust of democracy, and places a dangerous amount of faith in letting the CIA determine electoral outcomes. If history teaches us anything about the CIA, it is that its analysis cannot be trusted when they are the sole possessors of intelligence, especially when this analysis aligns with the desires of the President it serves.
Again, I have no idea whether or not Russia was behind the hack of Clinton's email. What I do know is that accepting the CIA's word on this is dangerous foolishness. I've read Thomas Rid's excellent Esquire piece, laying out arguments for the Russian hack, much of what he writes makes a good case for the Russian job; but as one who has worked on untangling some historical mysteries of the CIA, untangling the partial threads of clues remaining from the hack raises inevitable questions about which of these are accidentally left behind and which are planted; questions which rapidly lead to a familiar wilderness of mirrors which collapses into more questions than certainties.
Reports of Mitch McConnell and others in the senate's pre-election silence after learning of the CIA's claim that it was a Russian hack are disturbing; McConnell's silence is disturbing as he and his family appear as recipients of an apparent political favor. But what of the silence of the White House and the Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee? Why did they also remain silent? A question with increased significance after the FBI director tried to take down Clinton. We don't know why President Obama remained silent on this, but we can speculate that the CIA report he saw at the time presented all possibilities, including the possibility that the hack was carried out by a small cell of independent hackers, or other non-Russian actors. After the fact, it becomes convenient to blame Putin for Clinton's many shortcomings as a candidate. Maybe Russia leaked the documents, maybe they didn't, but we know who would have done this in a Russian electionbecause they've helped try and throw plenty of foreign elections to elect right wing goons: the Central Intelligence Agency.
We do know that Obama has to be thinking about what remains of a crushed Democratic Party, and this may have influenced the timing of Friday's CIA leak; or maybe there really is good CIA evidence of Russian involvement; we just don't know. What we do know is that the CIA has a sordid history of being an unreliable source in these politically seeped issues. There obviously are some clues relating to the hack, and I would assume that the NSA is the source of the best clues, but given the large questions surrounding a CIA investigation, we'd be much better off having staff researchers at Government Accounting Office sifting through the evidence and extant reports; letting the CIA go further with any of this creates real problems of trust.
We need to see the CIA's report. But we also need to see the CIA's Red Team report that uses the same data as the main report, but argues against Russians as the hackers destined to undermine the Clinton campaign; but I doubt this minority report will see the light of day under Obama, but it may well be leaked under Trump. That's how the intelligence game is played.
It strains credulity for the CIA to complain about a foreign intelligence operation undermining fair democratic elections; this has been their business around the world, from its early days helping throw elections in post-war Europe to Cold War campaigns in Central and South America. The CIA's own history of electoral shenanigans makes them an untrustworthy character in this drama.
Maybe our overbearing security state has left us with a few limited choices: one where we let the FBI use discretionary investigative innuendo to undermine the election of Clinton, or one where we let the CIA, ex-post-facto, undermine the legitimacy of a Trump Presidency. Though if the key hacking evidence is held by the NSA, they will be the intelligence agency holding all the Trump cards.
David Price a professor of anthropology at Saint Martin's University in Lacey, Washington. He is the author of Weaponizing Anthropology: Social Science in Service of the Militarized State published by CounterPunch Books.
"It's now Donald Trump vs. Obama shills at the CIA." Seriously? I'd be willing to bet that most of the people at CIA have been there a lot longer than Obama has been president.
Look, I could see this with my own two eyes many months ago. It was as obvious as anything that Russia was influencing this election on Trump's behalf. The fact that the CIA eventually came out and said the same thing just shows that even the Agency can get something right once in a while.
Tracy Riddle Wrote:"It's now Donald Trump vs. Obama shills at the CIA." Seriously? I'd be willing to bet that most of the people at CIA have been there a lot longer than Obama has been president.
Look, I could see this with my own two eyes many months ago. It was as obvious as anything that Russia was influencing this election on Trump's behalf. The fact that the CIA eventually came out and said the same thing just shows that even the Agency can get something right once in a while.
Hiroyuki Hamada
https://www.facebook.com/hiroyuki.hamada...3252659454
Facebook posting:
Quote:I just had some rather depressing exchange with dedicated Democratic Party members. I think the problem comes down to the fact that they can't communicate with reason and facts. There is no use talking to them about history of CIA, NATO war agenda, imperial policies embraced by both corporate parties, inherent problem of capitalism, corporate duopoly scheme and so on and on. And the ones who are smart and knowledgeable among them would not engage with you. They know that what they are doing or saying is not right. It reminded me of a local activist complaining about the Democratic Party attacking FBI regarding the emails saying that the party shouldn't have even responded. She worried that it would only bring out the series of criminal acts noted in the emails. So they know. lol. It's all about strategies and winning. They are like feudal war lords serving the master. Or cult members. I think the Democratic Party is a denomination of a religion called the United States of America. Anyway, I'm reposting this from yesterday.
"Thanks to the people who always remind us of importance of incremental progress under the two corporate party scheme, "news" straight out of the CIA can pass as "credible" now. Those people are not even bothering to examine the integrity and credibility of the matter in relation to the contexts and facts of the "news" gushing out of the six corporate networks, which cover all of what they call "reliable news". They go straight to the CIA, swallow it and lick the plate piled with the war propaganda agenda of colonizing nuclear armed Russia. And the biggest evidence confirming the systematic crime of their collusion is that what all the mainstream media outlets instantly embrace as a fact has no evidence at all. The US government is incriminating Russia without any evidence while they have come up with a legislation called Russian Democracy Act which, believe or not, make it a law to mess with Russian politics. All that is done while the NATO surrounds Russia with hundreds of military bases firmly aiming Russian cities with nukes with 13 times more military budget. American exceptionalism much? And lastly, we have Trump telling people not to believe people who lied about WMD in Iraq. What a perfect World Wide Pro-wrestling circus is that? The official narrative here is that people should go back to the Democratic Party and the Republican Party and re-embrace the good cop/bad cop duopoly scheme of being divided and governed. But, you know what? I have a feeling that the empire is falling faster than it can pick up the pieces. But then again, there are very sick people who thrive in chaos as well."
I guess Tea Party congressman and Trump supporter Joe Walsh must be part of the conspiracy too.
Donald Trump and Fascism in America
Published on Dec 12, 2016
On this episode of The Geopolitical Report, we look at Donald Trump and the alt-right movement and the attempt by the establishment to portray them as dangerous fascists. Behind the sensationalistic and misleading headlines designed to frighten the American people and widen the political divide, there is another story: how the United States has consistently supported, enabled, and coddled real fascists in Europe under Operation Gladio and backing fascist dictators in Latin America. We also examine the fascist and authoritarian character of the corporate oligarchy.
[video=youtube_share;z9dyoRudbX8]http://youtu.be/z9dyoRudbX8[/video]
[video=youtube_share;8a3mk9sp0oE]http://youtu.be/8a3mk9sp0oE[/video]
Tom Scully Wrote:David Guyatt Wrote:Tom, the argument here which you touched on but only very briefly in passing, is whether Wikileaks and Julian Assange are Russian fronts and knowingly laundered Russian hacked emails from the DNC to influence the election.
Would, you, therefore, please be kind enough to provide solid evidence that this charge has any merit whatsoever?
Thank you.
David, it seems to me that Assange is more defensive than he was 4-1/2 months ago. This is understandable if
he is being falsely accused by the most formidable intelligence and military force on the planet and more so if he
believed the U.S. democrat associated details he disclosed were a product of Russian government sponsored hacks.
Without a transparent investigation I do not know whether Assange was a witting tool of the Russian government. I want to think he was taken advantage of as he was simply doing what he always has; sharing
secrets of the powerful.
In my last post I did not intend to accuse Assange of supporting Russian interests as a primary or an intended
consequence of his disclosures. I think it likely he was indifferent about his disclosure having the effect of
helping the Trump campaign.
I already stated my misgivings about Trump's resistance to even the questions being asked.
Quote:http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1607/29/acd.02.html
ANDERSON COOPER 360 DEGREES
Sources: FBI Investigating Hack of Clinton Campaign Data; Trump Campaigns In Denver; Trump: Now The Gloves Come Off; How Trump Voters Viewed Democratic Convention; Julian Assange On DNC Hack; Trump Ties Putin; Arrest Made In San Diego Police Shooting; Remembering Fallen Sheriff's Deputy. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired July 29, 2016 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
.....COOPER: There is word today of a new FBI investigation into an alleged cyberhack of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee server which is said to be similar to the hack of the DNC committee or Democratic National Committee. Do you have any knowledge of this latest hack or if you do, any intention to publish any information obtained from it?
ASSANGE: I can't comment on anything that might reflect on sourcing or even to rule things in or rule things out. But I will just say and this is public information. It's not coming from me privately that there has been multiple hacks of the DNC over the last two years.
The DNC and the RNC have been Swiss cheese in terms of their security. And the DNC had been notified quite some time ago that that is the case and it has legal responsibilities that must carry out to notify its donors to be aware that their confidentiality has been breached by a hack.
Now, the e-mails that we published are a separate question to the various hacks that they could in community and state. We have not connected those e-mails to a hack of the DNC and no one else has connected them. There are other documents that are published by the few smoking gun and gawker that have been connected to the hack.
COOPER: I'm not even going to go bother to ask you about your sources because obviously you're not going to reveal your sources. You don't do that. But U.S. officials have said that they have, I'm quoting a little doubt was the term that Russian hackers were behind this. They haven't said it definitively.
Do you know -- I mean, again, I'm not asking you who did it, but do you know who did the hacking of the DNC server that got you the information? Do you know who provided you with these e-mails?
ASSANGE: We just -- as a matter of policy we don't go anywhere near commenting on sources, ruling things in ruling things out because it provides extra information that might be used to track down sources. But I can say that yesterday, James Clapper, the head of the DNI, the Director of National Intelligence oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, stated that there was a lot of media hyper ventilation and "They didn't know enough about to ascribe motivation regardless of who it might have been." So, I mean, those kinds of statements are coming out of the man responsible for overseeing all U.S. intelligence agencies.
COOPER: There is a question whether you have a personal animus toward Hillary Clinton. You criticized her on a number of national security front policy issues.
[21:30:00] Obviously, she is obviously made statements against WikiLeaks. You gave an interview to the British network ITV back in June. You're suggesting that you're more concerned about Clinton at least in terms of press freedom than Donald Trump. Do you stand by that? Is this based on a personal animus?
ASSANGE: It is false reporting. You can go back and look at ITV interview. I never said that I wanted to do harm to Hillary Clinton, anything like that. It was the presenter that used that word. And in New York Tmes, it's, you know, that this candidate in this race now. So it -- there's lots of facts. No one was trying to get us in and then out.
COOPER: You see the question of anger that you're interfering in the U.S. election, you say this is what you're -- that your readers are American and therefore it's OK?
ASSANGE: Well, it's what our readers demand. It is also our based on principles that the publication of the true information and thus an important qualifier. True information about modern human institutions allows us to understand what they're doing and therefore to reform them. If we don't understand what our institution is doing we have no hope to reform them whatsoever.
COOPER: Julian Assange, I appreciate your time. Thank you.
ASSANGE: Thank you, Anderson.
Thanks Tom. I think I can help you out here. There never will be a real or proper investigation. Not ever. Because the charges were all smoke and mirrors to begin with and everyone who was anyone knows it.
As you stated above, Assange and Wikileaks have, for the entire 10 years they've been in business, maintained a policy of never naming sources who release material to them. This is a thoroughly credible and hitherto standard policy of all reliable news outlets. Likewise (for Tracy), Murray would strictly adhere to the same policy. He is a whistleblower himself and understands how vital it is to protect sources from a malfunctioning and vindictive state apparatus.
Moving on to the kernel of the problem and its clear resolution: evidence.
When the original story broke claiming that Russia was responsible for the DNC email hack, the story was based on zero evidence. Zero. James Clapper's remarks at the time was, very clearly, an unsupported opinion (he quoted words to the effect that his opinion "was consistent with the scope and methodology of Russia" (I will find the exact form of words and a link if required - but I have posted that here before?).
Months later, Clapper said that after the US had accused Russia, that the latter had "curtailed it's election related cyberactivity" (HERE). He went on to define what he meant by "cyberactivity" -- that he was specifically repeat specifically referring to "cyber reconnaissance". In other words Russian cyber activity had been wholly passive not active. This is a cleverly cloaked admission that Russia had not been responsible for the hack.
Far more significantly, however, he went on to admit (HERE) during the same resignation presentation (after the election result was in) that "intelligence agencies don't have good insight on when or how Wikileaks obtained the hacked emails".
What could be clearer?
Other than arguing about his use of the word "hacked" instead of the probably more definitive and probably more accurate word "leaked" this is a clear statement that Clapper - and the entire US intelligence community - has no evidence... none whatsoever, about who was responsible for providing the material to Wikileaks, nor how nor when that occurred.
From the foregoing we can confidently conclude that Russia was conveniently and cynically chosen as the bogey-man to this episode of political chicanery because that obviously works with the US voter and is also in line with the existing Neocon foreign policy objective of initiating a major war against Russia. Besides that it was very good for Hilary's team because it deflected attention away from the content of the leaked material.
When we take together these foregoing facts and add them to the prior listed statements by various whistleblowers like Craig Murray and William Binney - plus statements repeatedly made by former CIA intelligence officer and whistleblower, Ray McGovern, about the burden of proof - it seems pretty clear that the material was leaked to Wikileaks by a disgruntled US intelligence source. Russia had nothing to do with it at all.
I have go into detail here because I feel it is necessary to put this story to bed once and for all.
Bullhorns: Coup Attempt? (CrossTalk)
Published on Dec 12, 2016
It is hard to believe, but the American election isn't over yet and it's apparently Russia's fault. Also, is the new meme "Assad will stay?" And, Trump's world view.
CrossTalking with Mark Sleboda, Alex Christoforou, and Martin Jay.
[video=youtube_share;7N2umk7k_2Y]http://youtu.be/7N2umk7k_2Y[/video]
The Fake News Issue And PropOrNot Have CIA Fingerprints All Over Them
Those busy beavers at the CIA have got all kinds of shenanigans going this holiday season. Claiming that Russia hacked the elections is must one of them.
Kurt Nimmo
DECEMBER 9, 2016
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/pr...on/ri18120
Originally appeared at Newsbud
Quote:On November 24, The Washington Post published a story citing the anonymous group PropOrNot. The story accused the Russians of building a large propaganda operation that worked to defeat Hillary Clinton and elect "insurgent candidate" Donald Trump. It claimed a large number of alternative news websites are acting as Russian agents, dupes, and useful idiots.
Prior to this, in March 2015, the Voice of America insisted Russia has organized "a round-the-clock operation in which an army of trolls disseminated pro-Kremlin and anti-Western talking points on blogs and in the comments sections of news websites in Russia and abroad."
Voice of America is a propaganda service created by the CIA during the Cold War.
In January, the Institute of Modern Russia and its Interpreter Mag teamed up with the CIA through Voice of America to combat "Kremlin disinformation and propaganda." The Institute of Modern Russia maintains close relationships with many Russian opposition leaders.
Critics took The Washington Post to task for using PropOrNot as a source. The website and PropOrNot's Facebook and Twitter accounts give no indication who is behind the effort. Despite this, the Post cited the site to make the argument many alternative websites are "fake news" sites working in tandem with the Russians.
PropOrNot has all the hallmarks of an intelligence operation run by the CIA, FBI, or one of a number of other intelligence agencies.
Following the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the official narrative pushed by the government and echoed dutifully by the establishment media claimed Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda masterminded the attack from a cave in Afghanistan. This and other elements of the official narrative were criticized, primarily by the alternative media. The government and its propaganda media dismissed the criticism of the official narrative and began characterizing critics as conspiracy theorists.
In early 2008, Cass Sunstein, a Harvard scholar and later the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration, wrote a paper with colleague Adrian Vermeule titled simply "Conspiracy Theories." Sunstein and Vermeule argue the existence of conspiracy theories "may create serious risks, including risks of violence, and the existence of such theories raises significant challenges for policy and law."
In addition to proposing outright censorship of information the government considers"extremist theories," Sunstein and his co-author suggest using "cognitive infiltration" of groups and networks.
Instead of a covert operation resembling the FBI's Operation COINTELPRO using physical infiltration to disrupt and discredit political groups, Sunstein proposed attacking targeted groups in cyberspace.
Sunstein and Vermeule write that "whatever the tactical details, there would seem to be ample reason for government efforts to introduce some cognitive diversity into the groups that generate conspiracy theories."
In 2011, The Guardian reported the US military was developing software that would allow it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.
General and later CIA director David Petraeus suggested using online psychological operations aimed at "countering extremist ideology and propaganda." The objective of the Pentagon effort was "to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives," according to the report.
The effort to counter alternative websites is not limited to the United States. In September 2014, writes noted researcher and author Thierry Meyssan, the British government created the 77th Brigade, a unit established to counter foreign propaganda.
"The brigade will be made up of warriors who don't just carry weapons, but who are also skilled in using social media such as Twitter and Facebook, and the dark arts of psyops'psychological operations," the BBC reported last January.
The unit works with British intelligence through MI6 and collaborates with the 361st Civil Affairs Brigade of the US Army. "These military units were used to disrupt Western websites trying to establish the truth… on September 11 [and] the war against Syria," writes Meyssan.
MI6 is also involved in a European effort to undermine Russian and alternative media. In March 2015, the European Council asked High Representative Federica Mogherini to prepare a plan of "strategic communication" to denounce the disinformation campaigns of Russia about Ukraine.
The following month, Mogherini created within the European External Action Service a strategic information unit headed by Giles Portman, a British MI6 agent. It provides anti-Russian propaganda to European news services.
Others have called for an outright ban on what European governments consider "fake news" dispensed by Russia and its supposed operatives and dupes. In February 2015, the think tank of the French Socialist Party called for censorship and the French minister of education organized workshops to warn students about supposed conspiracy theories.
The Center for European Policy Analysis, a Washington think tank dedicated to the study of Central and Eastern Europe, also set-up an information warfare unit directed against the Russian Federation.
Its advisory council includes Zbigniew Brzezinski (former national security advisor and virulent Russophobe), Eliot Cohen (Bush era neocon and former adviser to secretary of state Condoleezza Rice), and Madeleine Albright (Clinton administration secretary of state who said killing 500,000 Iraqi children was "worth it").
Although PropOrNot strives to remain anonymous, it does reveal connections to Modern Russia and its Interpreter Mag and thus, through Voice of America, its association with the CIA. Interpreter Mag is listed under "Related Projects" on its website.
PropOrNot also collaborates with Polygraph Fact-Check, a purported fact-checking website produced by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America, in other words the CIA.
Another so-called fact-checking operation is listed, Politifact. It is a project of the Tampa Bay Times and the Poynter Institute and shares a donor with the Clinton Foundation, the Omidyar Network, created by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. He is a major donor of Kiev-based Hromadske TV, "the symbol of the info wars between Moscow and the Western world," according to Forbes. The effort is also supported by the US State Department, a number of European governments, and NGOs involved in Ukraine prior to and after the US-sponsored coup.
PropOrNot's connections indicate the website and its effort to take down alternative media is a project initiated by the establishment and likely a psychological operation directed by the CIA either directly or through its circle of private contractors.
The defeat of Hillary Clinton has nothing to do with the effectiveness of Russian propaganda. More accurately, Clinton's election loss is a direct result of her corruption and deep insider status. The alternative media played an instrumental role in exposing Clinton's criminality and her penchant for war and mass murder, primarily in Libya and Syria.
The alternative media has done an effective job of exposing the crimes of the elite and its political class and this news coverage did in fact have an impact on the election. Alternative media is a serious threat to the ruling elite. It no longer controls the flow of information and its propaganda is now directly challenged on a daily basis.
The Washington Post and the establishment media have latched on to the ludicrous PropOrNot campaign to denounce alternative media as some sort of nefarious Russian plot to undermine the political system in the United States. Despite this, millions of Americans continue to read alternative news and make their own informed decisions, a trend that has set off alarm bells in the deepest recesses of the establishment.