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Cake day: October 29th, 2023

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  • NYT always does a decent job at writing articles 6 years after they are done spreading the propaganda.

    Why the Discredited Dossier Does Not Undercut the Russia Investigation

    It was a series of memos about purported Trump-Russia links written by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent, during the 2016 campaign.

    It cited unnamed sources who claimed there was a “well-developed conspiracy of coordination” between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and that Russia had a blackmail tape of Mr. Trump with prostitutes. In addition to giving his memos to his client, Mr. Steele gave some to the F.B.I. and reporters. Buzzfeed published 35 pages in January 2017.

    Many things that were not immediately apparent about the dossier have since become clearer. It grew out of a political opposition research effort to dig up information about Mr. Trump funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic Party. Their law firm, Perkins Coie, contracted with a research firm called Fusion GPS, which subcontracted research about Trump business dealings in Russia to Mr. Steele. Mr. Steele in turn hired Igor Danchenko, the recently indicted researcher, to canvass for information from people he knew, including in Europe and Russia.

    Was the dossier a reliable source of information?

    No. It has become clear over time that its sourcing was thin and sketchy.

    No corroborating evidence has emerged in intervening years to support many of the specific claims in the dossier, and government investigators determined that one key allegation — that Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, had met with Russian officials in Prague during the campaign — was false

    When the F.B.I. interviewed Mr. Danchenko in 2017, he told the bureau that he thought the tenor of the dossier was more conclusive than was justified; for example, Mr. Danchenko portrayed the blackmail tape story as rumors and speculation that he was not able to confirm. He also said a key source had called him without identifying himself, and that he had guessed at the source’s identity. The indictment accuses Mr. Danchenko of lying about that call and of concealing that a Democratic Party-linked public relations executive was his source for a claim about Trump campaign office politics.









  • Pretty long article another interesting part:

    DSN: You mentioned that the number of martyrs has reached 41,266. What do you estimate the actual number to be, considering the individuals who have not been accounted for?

    Dr. Zaher al-Wahaidi: The estimates from the Government Media Office indicate that the number of martyrs is 50,000, as at least 10,000 are still under the rubble. This is the declared number, and there are unreported figures as well. There are combat areas like Rafah with dozens or hundreds of bodies that we know nothing about. The estimates from the Civil Defense indicate that there are 50 or more residents in buildings from which no one has been recovered from under the rubble. In the areas of “contact,” like the Netzarim and Philadelphi corridors, there are dozens of bodies that have not been recovered, and we know nothing about them, and perhaps they have not even been reported.

    DSN: Besides the number of martyrs, do you also document deaths caused by starvation and diseases?

    Dr. Zaher al-Wahaidi: We do keep track of these cases, but the Ministry of Health has a policy of recording only direct casualties of war, such as those caused by missile strikes or war-related injuries. There are other deaths indirectly caused by the war, but we do not add them to the list of martyrs. For example, children who die due to malnutrition, lack of care, or because their mothers gave birth under difficult conditions and carried them in poor health, resulting in the birth of an underdeveloped infant who dies after a few days or lacked proper feeding, these cases are documented but not recorded as martyrs.