Monday, October 02, 2023

Penrith Narative: How Kremlin narratives about Ukraine spread (or don’t) on US political podcasts.

What a great escape from to snatch a third Grand Final victory on the bounce!! What a champion side - what an incredible Grand Final!!! Commiserations to - but an incredible finish.


Penrith try!

You could sense this coming. Cleary has woken up in this past 20 minutes. He ices the cake with this try. On the third tackle, very close to Brisbane’s line but with no gaps and nothing happening, he makes something happen. He evades Reynolds, then tricks Walters, and races past Walsh and under the posts to level the score at 24-24. You can’t make this up. This is not a drill. Cleary converts and puts his side ahead 26-24 with two minutes remaining!

THE PENRITH PANTHERS ARE THREE-TIME NRL PREMIERS!!!



Replying to

The link to the NRL grand final is that the ATO cites Australian Consolidated Press Ltd v Ettingshausen (ie the NRL hall of fame player for Cronulla) in support of that view.


A Murder, a Diplomatic Dust-Up and the Risk of Impunity New York Times


Intelligence input on Sikh leader’s murder came from Canada’s Five Eyes ally, report says Independent


Echoes across the airwaves Brookings Institution. The deck: “How Kremlin narratives about Ukraine spread (or don’t) on US political podcasts.” A sample:

In moments of genuine uncertainty, pundits speculate. That creates an opening for the Kremlin to seed its preferred version of events. Importantly, Moscow doesn’t have to convince anyone of its view, but simply clear a much lower bar: that pundits air Moscow’s narrative as a possibility worth considering. This was the case around the Nord Stream 2 pipeline explosion, where many took a “question more” approach. In doing so, they frequently aired the “CIA did it” theory as a legitimate possibility. Podcast hosts and guests often leaned on a Substack post written by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, as well as Biden’s threat to “bring an end to” the pipeline should Russia invade Ukraine, as evidence.30 Hersh, unsurprisingly, was also a fixture in Russian state media coverage of the bombing, including appearances by Hersh on RT31 and Sputnik radio32 broadcasts. Hersh’s claims were met with pushback from some quarters. ‘I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that we did it,’ said a guest on the Glenn Beck Show, which refuted Hersh’s theory in three separate episodes.33

First, thanks for the heads-up, guys. Second, thank heavens for the podcasting tagline, “wherever you get your podcasts.” 

There is no podcasting “platform” for the Censorship Industrial Complex to infest and suppress (thanks to podcasts being distributed via RSS). Third, watching Brookings — in full public view, mind you! — citing (footnote 33) an unnamed guest on the Glenn Beck show (!!) to refute Hersh… Well, it’s almost too rich, is all l can say (and does make me speculate that we’re looking at elite post-Covid brain damage and loss of executive function).