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Comment by jsf666 | Hacker News Reader

Buzzfeed? Like seriously? Next should be CNN with their 'technical problems'. Does someone there really think this kind of propaganda piece will make anything in the Podesta e-mails less real? Can you get anymore obvious? This is some Soviet-level shit

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FWIW, the author wrote critically of Assange and Israel Shami in 2011 [0], so it's not as if he's changing his mind in order to support the Clinton regime.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/no...

Hey, good catch, thanks for sharing. In my view that increases the credibility of the Buzzfeed article.

That said, nothing wrong with pointing out that it's an unfair attack now as it may have been in 2011. (I didn't know Ball has written about Assange extensively until googling it after reading the BuzzFeed piece).

Since it's a piece by someone who has a personal dispute with Assange, it has to be taken with a grain of salt. I think its most interesting contribution at this time is its argument that Assange, for better or worse, hasn't changed, it's the world.

Every single person who works with Assange ends up having a personal dispute with him. The old saying is still true - "if you think everyone's an asshole, chances are it's just you".

Wikileaks collaborators and repeatedly walked away on bad terms. At this point I'd be curious to know if there's anyone who actually gets along with him.

I can't wrap my mind around why people are so concerned about whether he's an easy guy to get along with or not. If you don't have to work him personally, why do you care? Surely you can hear his message and separate that from his personal character?

It goes far beyond just being easy to get along with. He actually seemed pretty nice when I met him in 2005. But this is about demanding blind disobedience, accepting his authority, not tolerating any criticism (or advice), and apparently even using psychological pressure to force people to sign an NDA.

I suspect that the people who left Wikileaks did and still do agree with the original cause, but not with the cult of personality that Assange seems to have created around it.

Ok, that is good criticism but all that says is that his methods are probably not as effective for obtaining his goals as they could be. Doesn't detract from A) the goals that he's aiming for and B) the goals that he's already achieved.

The goals he's currently aiming for seem different from the ones he used to have. I support their original goals, and they've done some good stuff, but these days Wikileaks seems to be entirely about Assange, his cult of personality, and his vendetta with everybody he imagines is after him.

The stuffed giraffe, I presume.

> nothing wrong with pointing out that it's an unfair attack now as it may have been in 2011

True.

> Podesta e-mails less real

As we can see from the polls, if there was something damaging here people don't really care.

> The polls The new emails show they're rigged

Besides could You show me any major news outlet that covered them really throughly (considering how damaging they are)?

People were distracted by the pussy thing - which was not coincidentally released on the same day.

Most people have no idea what was even in those emails and most of the media I read made a point to say that there was nothing damaging in there (cherry picking the most mundane things they could).

There wasn't anything too surprising to people who hate Hillary Clinton (yes, she's in the pocket of wall street) and supporters and most of the mainstream media (MSNBC, CNN, NYTimes, etc.) didn't pay any attention.

I read a bunch of the emails and there wasn't anything significant in there unless you count cherry-picking quotes and willful misunderstanding. At best there are some ambiguous things that could be interpreted certain ways.

tl;dr: There is no smoking gun. People say things in private emails they wouldn't discuss in public, NEWS AT 11!!!!!

P.S. It wasn't "that pussy thing". It was Trump bragging that he pushes women into sexual encounters he knows they don't want and gets away with it because he's famous and rich. I like how the right pretended everyone was upset about some foul language though or that it was just "locker room" talk. If Trump had said "oh she's so hot, I'd love to fuck her" no one would have cared because that is locker room talk. What Trump said was in a different league.

Smoking guns:

* She admitted to having a "private" (real) policy position and a "public" one (lies).

* Bits of her speeches to Goldman came out and she basically said "we were way too hard on you guys" and "we need to listen more to you guys to help prevent another crisis".

* She mentioned that she basically wanted a hemispheric free trade & freedom of movement zone.

Of course, apparently it's not the done thing these days to talk about policy scandals that actually affect us during a Presidential election.

* She mentioned that she basically wanted a hemispheric free trade & freedom of movement zone.

...That sounds wonderful, if a bit too good to be true. Is it supposed to be bad?

That depends. Are you a fan of NAFTA, CAFTA, the TPP and TTIP?

I think she's more alluding to something like the EU common market. NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP and TTIP don't do anything about freedom of movement, and do a lot about a ton of other things that have nothing to do with that.

How is the first one a smoking gun? She was quoting someone else. Lincoln, I think.

Her ties to Wallstreet are hardly a surprise. It sucks, but we already knew that she's probably not going to do what needs to be done to Wallstreet. But there's no reason to believe that Trump is going to do any better, and on almost everything else, Clinton is still a lot better, or at worst less bad.

You don't think that cheating in the debate by providing one candidate with questions in advance is significant?

Considering it was a pretty basic question that every Democratic primary candidate is asked about, not really.

It's like asking a Republican in a primary debate if they want to control guns.

If it was so basic, why did the head of the party email the campaign the exact question? She must have thought it was important, otherwise why put your career on the line

The pussygate tape came out before the Wikileak emails [1] which argues, if you're rational, that the timing was co-incidental or, if you're conspiratorial, that the Clinton campaign had a mole inside of Wikileaks who had just enough access to make them aware of the leak but not enough to stop it.

[1] https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/784484823717011456 & https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/784491543868665856

> people don't really care

Exactly, and that's worrying.

The head of the DNC (and Hillary's former campaign manager) giving debate questions to the Clinton campaign is truly outrageous, and it is only the media's extreme hate for Trump that is keeping this from getting more attention. But I agree with your point that it is not damaging her.

The media's extreme hate for Trump? They used to love him. He was, and still is, great for ratings. And his free media attention is a big part of why he won the primaries. But he keeps saying increasingly shocking, vile and dangerous things, and it's the people working for the media, as well as everybody else (even people from his own party) who are getting extremely disgusted with him.

Don't paint this as if it's just the media. It's Trump.

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