Tag: conspiracy theories

DARK WEB VOTER DATABASE REPORT CASTS NEW DOUBTS ON RUSSIAN ELECTION HACK NARRATIVE

A new report showing that US state-level voter databases were publicly available calls into question the narrative that Russian intelligence “targeted” US state election-related websites in 2016.

A September 1 report in the Moscow daily Kommersant on a “dark web” site offering a database of personal information on millions of registered American voters undermines one of the central themes of the Russia hysteria pervading US politics.

Democratic politicians and corporate media pundits have long accepted it as fact that Russian intelligence “targeted” US state election-related websites in 2016. But the Kommersant report shows that those state registered voter databases were already available to anyone in the public domain, eliminating any official Russian motive for hacking state websites.

Kommersant reported that a user on a dark web Forum known as Gorka9 offered free access to databases containing the information of 7.6 million Michigan voters, along with the state voter databases of Connecticut, Arkansas, Florida and North Carolina.

There are differences between the Michigan database described by Gorka9 and the one that the State of Michigan releases to the public upon request. Tracy Wimmer, the spokesperson for the Michigan Secretary of State, said in an e-mail to Grayzone that when the Michigan voter registration database is released to the public upon request, the state withholds “date of birth (year of birth is included), driver’s license number, the last four digitals of someone’s social security number, email address and phone number….”  However, Gorka9’s description of the Michigan data includes driver’s license numbers, full dates of birth, social security numbers and emails.

In fact both un-redacted and redacted state voter files are obviously widely available on the dark web as well as elsewhere on the internet. Meduza, a Russian-language news site based in Riga, Latvia, published the Kommersant story along with an “anonFiles” download portal for access to the Michigan voter database and a page from it showing that it is the officially redacted version. The DHS and the FBI both acknowledged in response to the Kommersant story that “a lot of voter registration data is publicly available or easily purchased.” 

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NAVALNY WAS NOT POISONED

The story that Russian dissident Alexey Navalny was poisoned by President Putin did not make much sense to me. The source was a statement from his spokesperson. Of course, the western media and anti-Putin politicians immediately accepted it as true. No evidence of poison was ever described, and the story below reports no poison was found in his medical examination. There was just a report he had drunk some tea and became ill.

Poisoning made no sense to me because it would surely had been discovered if he became ill or died and the negative publicity about a dissident being poisoned would do more damage to Putin than Navalny was capable of.

Moon of Alabama reports below that Navalny was a diabetic and was suffering from hypoglycemia, or diabetic shock, while flying on a plane. There have also been reports that Russia initially refused to allow him to be moved to Germany for treatment but that may have been a medical decision due to his conditon.

We wait for more information about this situation. German doctors are saying he was poisoned but have not identified a poison.

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Even NPR Admits That In-Person Voting Isn’t As Risky As Alarmists Claim

The Democratic National Convention heavily promoted the conspiracy theory that President Trump is dismantling or undermining the postal service in an attempt to suppress the vote or undermine the presidential election in November. Democrats clearly don’t want in-person voting in November, despite the high risk of fraud with mail-in voting.

While Democrats are trying to make people afraid to vote in person, the experts are saying it can be done safely. 

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