Omidyar vs Duterte (and Trump)

One of the big stories here in the Philippines is that the head of Rappler, Ms Ressa, was arrested on arrival at the Manila airport.

She and her cyber news site is quite good, but they are actively trying to get rid of Duterte, and of course, this arrest will make the heads of all the SJW mob explode.

I'd feel sorry for her, since her site does excellent reporting, except for one little problem: Rappler is partly funded by an American millionaire, Pierre Omidyar, and that is forbidden by local law. (foreigners can't own any businesses)...

 but what is worse is their shenanigans trying to hide this: they transferred the investment funding to local managers to get around the law... but they forgot they would have to pay income tax on that gift).

But the foreign money given to Rappler doesn't stop there: according to the Manila Times, Omidyar is even paying Ressa's bail.

Duterte is not pretending he is sorry about finding she broke the law: He has openly stated that Rappler is a CIA front  trying to remove him from office, which of course the Rappler "fact checkers" call a lie.

(Rappler is big in catching his "inaccurate statements": Yet many of these lies are hyperbole/irony of typical Filipino humor and often taken out of context. Most locals recognize this as humor, but hey, if you take them at face value, they are "lies", and if this sounds familiar, it is because a similar tactic is used against Trumpieboy's humorous "tweets").

So is there a CIA connection? The late and greatly beloved Mariam Santiago said about the last presidential election that it was between the CIA candidate and the communist one. Duterte has connections with the NPA, (and the MILF for that matter),  and hates the CIA for personal reason, but it was an open secret that the "American girl" was not only the illegitimate daughter of a famous family here, but probably had CIA ties. LINK2

so the CIA is unhappy with Duterte in charge of the Philippines?. ..So would they actually undermine his presidency? Of course not.

But it's not like CIA fronts have never done this before, even in the recent past.

that "LINK2" I posted above is open source investigations that noted how the CIA manipulated other elections in foreign countries, including how the CIA manipulated the Ukrainian elections in 2004:

In the 2004 presidential election in Ukraine, CIA supported the pro-US candidate Viktor Yushchenko. Born Catherine Claire Chumachenko, Viktor Yushchenko’s wife was a US citizen who had worked at the White House during the Reagan administration. Several US governmental agencies and private organizations contributed millions of dollars to Yushchenko’s campaign.

hmm... "private organizations"? 

the uberleft wing site counterpunch names names:

The Western intervention in Ukraine has now led the region to the brink of war. Political opposition to government of President Viktor Yanukovych — a corrupt and thuggish regime, but as with so many corrupt and thuggish regimes one sees these days, a democratically elected one — was funded in substantial part by organizations of or affiliated with the U.S. government, such as the National Endowment for Democracy (a longtime vehicle for Washington-friendly coups), and USAID. It also received substantial financial backing from Western oligarchs, such as billionaire Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay and sole bankroller of the new venue for “adversarial” journalism, First Look, as Pandodaily reports.

Italics mine.

the more mainstream USAToday article discusses Omidyar and his media group influence, insisting that having a millionaire fund opposition news papers doesn't matter, because after all, they don't interfere with the reporters and they do good reporting.

except, of course, when they hire reporters with a known agenda. Facts are facts, but how you report them and what you chose to report and what you choose to leave out of the story does matter (this is called "spin")

Here we get into conspiracy theories: is his money manipulating governments a CIA plot, or is he just a good guy trying to fund other good guys in the white hats? (yes I'm being sarcastic).

CovertGeoPolitics site article discusses:

Pierre Omidyar’s Funding of Pro-Regime-Change Networks with CIA Cutouts Rappler, etc.

To Omidyar it’s … about … integrating things together to give technocrats, business executives and government officials a God’s-eye view of the world — to manage and control society more efficiently.” — Yasha Levine, author of “Surveillance Valley: The Military History of the Internet”

 and deep inside the article they discuss Rappler and Ressa:

In the Philippines, Rappler has dedicated itself to ousting President Rodrigo Duterte, a demagogic politician whose inflammatory rhetoric and occasional entreaties to Russia and China have spawned anxiety in Washington.

Duterte’s allies have struck back at the outlet, accusing it in court of violating the Philippine constitution with its foreign support. ....... Educated at Princeton, Ressa maintains powerful American allies. Just hours after her arrest and release, the Omidyar Network and the Omidyar-funded CPJ rustled up a $500,000 legal defense fund for Ressa. Last October, Ressa appeared at the NATO-backed Atlantic Council’s Stratcom conference in Washington to detail what she described as a concerted campaign of legal intimidation and online trolling by supporters of Duterte.... 

oh no! not the Trolls! (/s)

Before the think-tank audience, Ressa demanded that social media platforms like Facebook impose new algorithms that prioritize what she calls “traditional media” — referring presumably to outlets like her own.

yes. Because she is for freedom of the press, except when the stories don't agree with the agenda.

as for Omidyar, the discussion includes his organizational links with a lot of other groups (yes, the usual suspects are there: Soros' Open Society, the Clinton foundation, and NBM are mentioned... NBM has also funded Rappler).

And it notes these groups are quietly working for regime change elsewhere, such as in Syria and Zimbabwe (heh. I support this, but hey, what gives you the right to do this?)

the dirty little secret is not that there seems to be links between the US Deep state and tech millionaires manipulating politics in other countries by influencing reporting, but that the MSM is not reporting it.

And of course, the other dirty little secret is that a lot of other folks including Russia and China do it too... even Jack Ma is doing the same thing with his money...

and one note of caution: this type of media manipulation is not limited to a third world country like the Philippines.

American Greatness headline:

No Collusion: Omidyar-Backed NeverTrumpers Hardest Hit

read the whole thing.