Trump, Assange, Bannon, Farage...bound together in an unholy alliance

[Jacque67 7,328]

This is a power network that involves Wikileaks and Farage, and Cambridge Analytica and Farage, and Robert Mercer and Farage. Steve Bannon, former vice president of Cambridge Analytica, and Farage. It’s Nigel Farage and Brexit and Trump and Cambridge Analytica and Wikileaks… and, if the Senate intelligence committee and the House intelligence committee and the FBI are on to anything at all, somewhere in the middle of all that, Russia.

Try to follow this on a daily basis and it’s one long headspin: a spider’s web of relationships and networks of power and patronage and alliances that spans the Atlantic and embraces data firms, thinktanks and media outlets. It is about complicated corporate structures in obscure jurisdictions, involving offshore funds funnelled through the black-box algorithms of the platform tech monopolists. That it’s eye-wateringly complicated and geographically diffuse is not a coincidence. Confusion is the charlatan’s friend, noise its accessory. The babble on Twitter is a convenient cloak of darkness.

Yet it’s also quite simple. In a well-functioning democracy, a well-functioning press and a well-functioning parliament would help a well-functioning judiciary do its job. Britain is not that country. There is a vacuum where questions should be, the committees, the inquiries, the headlines on the TV bulletins. What was Nigel Farage doing in the Ecuadorian embassy? More to the point: why has no public official asked him? Why is he giving speeches – for money – in the US? Who’s paying him? I know this because my weirdest new hobby of 2017 is to harry Arron Banks, the Bristol businessman who was Ukip and Leave.EU’s main funder, and Andy Wigmore, Leave.EU’s comms man and Belize’s trade attache to the US, across the internet late at night. Wigmore told me about this new US venture – an offshore-based political consultancy working on Steve Bannon-related projects – in a series of tweets. Is it true? Who knows? Leave.EU has learned from its Trumpian friends that black is white and white is black and these half-facts are a convenient way of diffusing scandal and obscuring truth.

What on earth was Farage doing advancing Calexit – Californian Brexit? And why did I find a photo of him hanging out with Dana Rohrabacher, the Californian known in the US press as “Putin’s favourite congressman”? The same Dana Rohrabacher who’s met with Don Trump Jr’s Russian lawyer and – wait for it – also visited Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy. And who is now interceding on his behalf to obtain a pardon from Don Trump Junior’s dad.

(You got this? Farage visited Trump, then Assange, then Rohrabacher. Rohrabacher met Don Trump’s Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya. Then Assange. And is now trying to close the circle with Trump.)

Edited October 29, 2017 by Jacque67

[Jacque67 7,328]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/28/trump-assange-bannon-farage-bound-together-in-unholy-alliance

 

indeed.

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

8 minutes ago, Jacque67 said:

This is a power network that involves Wikileaks and Farage, and Cambridge Analytica and Farage, and Robert Mercer and Farage. Steve Bannon, former vice president of Cambridge Analytica, and Farage. It’s Nigel Farage and Brexit and Trump and Cambridge Analytica and Wikileaks… and, if the Senate intelligence committee and the House intelligence committee and the FBI are on to anything at all, somewhere in the middle of all that, Russia.

Try to follow this on a daily basis and it’s one long headspin: a spider’s web of relationships and networks of power and patronage and alliances that spans the Atlantic and embraces data firms, thinktanks and media outlets. It is about complicated corporate structures in obscure jurisdictions, involving offshore funds funnelled through the black-box algorithms of the platform tech monopolists. That it’s eye-wateringly complicated and geographically diffuse is not a coincidence. Confusion is the charlatan’s friend, noise its accessory. The babble on Twitter is a convenient cloak of darkness.

Yet it’s also quite simple. In a well-functioning democracy, a well-functioning press and a well-functioning parliament would help a well-functioning judiciary do its job. Britain is not that country. There is a vacuum where questions should be, the committees, the inquiries, the headlines on the TV bulletins. What was Nigel Farage doing in the Ecuadorian embassy? More to the point: why has no public official asked him? Why is he giving speeches – for money – in the US? Who’s paying him? I know this because my weirdest new hobby of 2017 is to harry Arron Banks, the Bristol businessman who was Ukip and Leave.EU’s main funder, and Andy Wigmore, Leave.EU’s comms man and Belize’s trade attache to the US, across the internet late at night. Wigmore told me about this new US venture – an offshore-based political consultancy working on Steve Bannon-related projects – in a series of tweets. Is it true? Who knows? Leave.EU has learned from its Trumpian friends that black is white and white is black and these half-facts are a convenient way of diffusing scandal and obscuring truth.

What on earth was Farage doing advancing Calexit – Californian Brexit? And why did I find a photo of him hanging out with Dana Rohrabacher, the Californian known in the US press as “Putin’s favourite congressman”? The same Dana Rohrabacher who’s met with Don Trump Jr’s Russian lawyer and – wait for it – also visited Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy. And who is now interceding on his behalf to obtain a pardon from Don Trump Junior’s dad.

(You got this? Farage visited Trump, then Assange, then Rohrabacher. Rohrabacher met Don Trump’s Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya. Then Assange. And is now trying to close the circle with Trump.)

 

Interesting Analysis on Putin in this article

https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/understanding-and-deterring-russia-u-s-policies-and-strategies/

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

Coming back to Brexit, if the UK recognizes they have been manipulated by outside money on the referendum, can the government move to redo or vacate the vote?

 

A Labour MP has said there are “real questions” about how much Arron Banks – the entrepreneur who bankrolled Brexit – is worth as he called on the government to investigate the possible role played by “dark money” in the EU referendum.

Speaking in parliament, Ben Bradshaw said there was “widespread concern over foreign and particularly Russian interference in western democracies”. He described as “very worrying” a series of investigative reports published this week by the Open Democracy website into the funding of the Leave campaign.

 

 

[Jacque67 7,328]

49 minutes ago, Il Mango Dulce said:

 

Interesting Analysis on Putin in this article

https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/understanding-and-deterring-russia-u-s-policies-and-strategies/

The Mercer Putin alignment needs investigating.

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

5 hours ago, Jacque67 said:

The Mercer Putin alignment needs investigating.

Check out the Boston Globe story.  Expanding the purple state attack

 

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/10/28/the-mercers-bring-their-politics-massachusetts/KrLD9nRDZsFxRTeuyjiokO/story.html

[Jacque67 7,328]

Two internal Ukip whistleblowers filed complaints to the UK’s Electoral Commission over fears the party was making “unusual arrangements” with a pro-Trump website in the months before the 2016 EU referendum, the Guardian has learned.

The concerns included allegations that individuals who were being paid by Breitbart, a rightwing American news organisation, were working as senior unpaid Ukip volunteers, raising questions in their minds about whether their work could be construed as an indirect political donation by a foreign donor, according to sources who spoke to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity.

One whistleblower told the Guardian that concerns that the party was turning to “off-balance-sheet financing”, possibly in violation of UK rules, prompted the decision to turn to the electoral commission.

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The complaints were brought to the attention of the Metropolitan police by the Electoral Commission, but the police decided to take no further action.

Separately, a Labour MP, Ben Bradshaw, called this month on the government to investigate the possible role “dark money” played in the EU referendum, including concerns of foreign interference in the 23 June vote. 

Steve Bannon, who has a close relationship with the former Ukip leader Nigel Farage, served as executive chair of Breitbart at the time. Bannon later became Donald Trump’s campaign adviser and served as White House strategist until August, when he left the White House and returned to Breitbart.

The news website is a platform that is popular among the “alt-right” in the US, an increasingly vocal movement of extreme rightwing white nationalists.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/oct/30/revealed-ukip-whistleblowers-raised-fears-about-breitbart-influence-on-brexit

[Jacque67 7,328]

Could be a nothing burger but moving van spotted by contact outside Ecuadorean embassy 5 mins ago!

[Ban Hammer 13,550]

5 minutes ago, Jacque67 said:

Could be a nothing burger but moving van spotted by contact outside Ecuadorean embassy 5 mins ago!

is it a home depot truck?

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

9 minutes ago, Jacque67 said:

Could be a nothing burger but moving van spotted by contact outside Ecuadorean embassy 5 mins ago!

Was Farage one of the movers?

[Jacque67 7,328]

23 minutes ago, Ban Hammer said:

is it a home depot truck?

 

It's a 黒猫van. Kuro nekko van. Probably moving some brooms out of Assange's cupboard under the stairs. My contact has given up. Interns these days! Useless!

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

1 hour ago, Jacque67 said:

 

It's a 黒猫van. Kuro nekko van. Probably moving some brooms out of Assange's cupboard under the stairs. My contact has given up. Interns these days! Useless!

that reminds me Jacques, I want one

 

[Jacque67 7,328]

22 minutes ago, Il Mango Dulce said:

that reminds me Jacques, I want one

 

In light of the Mercer story ...firing intern and ordering a case of these. Sake and Muelker Time!