Jill Stein is on MSNBC lying through her teeth about Russia.

[Igel]

25. She's arguing in gaps.

RT is, at times, no different from the BBC. If there's no government edit on how to cover hardwood usage by China in Indonesia, it's just another government-supported media source. The problem with government-run media isn't that everything they say is controlled, but that some is and you can't tell the difference.

That's a really hard point for some people to get. In disinformation, not everything presented is false. So something can be planted and be 95% true. "Confidence building" is another way of saying "promoting self-deception".


Now, I've seen the photo being talked about, but I didn't notice the details necessary to support or disconfirm what she's said. I've been to invited dinners that were catered by some other group. Receptions of various kinds, meetings for administrators or when UC regents were in town. UCLA Alumni events. I've sat down at nice tables all arranged, with place settings for 4 or 6 or 8. Sometimes the table was full. Sometimes, there were empty place settings because not everybody showed up. And not everybody shows up on time or there isn't staff to clear the tables of unused place settings. Moreover, nobody's tied to a seat, so people did get up and move around. Spend the main course with one table, shift elsewhere for dessert (because few people will be showing up that late).

So if you look at the table--it's hard to see much of anything concerning some plates--you notice the following. (?1479834100)

Putin's plate is clean, as far as I can see. Food's been served. There might be a water glass in front of him. Or not--hard to make out perspective. It might have been there, waiting; he might have asked for it; he might have brought it. Behind him at a nearby table there are empty chairs in front of place settings containing food that's been served. Stein's eaten at least part of her food, so while it's possible that we're just seeing the part of Putin's plate that he didn't put food on, it's also possible that Putin either moved seats or declined that course, with no way of being sure which of the three options he did just based on that still photo.

Again, though, this is all less "Putin interfered" and more "this is why we didn't win" talk.

As for why he was at that table, maybe he just wanted to have a picture of him taken with Stein to provoke this kind of theory. Or perhaps she was irrelevant.